We asked 6 devs about working at Droids On Roids. Here’s what they said

The latest and coolest tech. Outstanding people. Epic adventures – that’s how Droids On Roids’ devs describe working in our company. Discover their stories and take a look inside the team!

⚡How did your adventure with Droids On Roids begin?

There are no limits when it comes to a career path with our company. Paulina, Michał and Kinga share stories from their first days in the company, right through to today.

“I came here as a total newbie”

Paulina Szklarska, Android Developer: My journey with Droids On Roids started over 3 years ago. I came here as a total newbie, without any knowledge or experience working with big projects. I was a little bit afraid. There are not many girls in IT and there must be some reason – that’s what I thought back then. My first months started with an internship. I was reading the documentation and making some small applications. I started feeling confident – finally, I found my place on Earth! And then, after the internship, came my first project.

It was time for my final exam – how will I manage to work on my first commercial project, with clients, meetings and all the responsibility? It was a hard time for me, as I had to learn all the aspects regarding the business side of working with the client. Yet it was also very satisfying – finally, I had a chance to confront my expectations about a developer’s life with reality.

“I had the opportunity to make changes on the organizational level”

Michał Lankof, Android Developer: I started working at Droids On Roids in January 2014 as an Android intern. I made a sample application with some different APIs. Quickly after that, I was thrown into a commercial project about managing mobile data on a phone, which was rather tough. Nonetheless, I have been gaining development experience at a dynamic pace.

With time passing by, I had the opportunity to make some changes on the organizational level, helping to establish SCRUM, tests, Continuous Integration, Android Bootcamps, Android Meetups and even improving project kickoffs in the process. So, I went from learning how to implement the most basic things to working on keeping and maintaining the high-quality across the whole development process, not only via code.

“Woohoo! I got to attend my dream iOS Bootcamp”

Kinga Wilczek, iOS Developer: Around 2015, Droids On Roids organized their first iOS Bootcamp. About the same time, I began to be interested in mobile platforms. It was obvious for me that taking part in an event like the Bootcamp is a really big opportunity. Of course, I sent my application, and … nothing … unfortunately, I was not one of the lucky ones. Then, I heard from other people that I should start anywhere and do anything because the first job is never a dream job. NEVER. I decided to do everything to become one of the best iOS developers.

A little over a year later, there was, again, a chance to meet Droids On Roids. This time, with a little more experience and a completely different mentality, I got to my dream iOS Bootcamp. Woohoo! Furthermore, I was invited for a paid internship that resulted in gaining a junior position after half a year.

⚡What do you like the most about your work?

It’s impossible to get bored at Droids On Roids. We take up challenging projects and are up to date with releases. What our devs think about that and what do they appreciate the most?

“We use the latest and coolest tech”

Andrzej Filipowicz, iOS Developer: Working at Droids On Roids was my first real job experience and I don’t think it could have been any better. While many of my friends were stuck in big corporations working with old technologies, I have been exposed to the unprecedented possibilities of development using the latest and coolest tech. No project I’ve worked on was the same and each enabled me to learn new things, such as image and video manipulation, fancy animations or advanced concurrency.

We always try to be up to date with the latest OS releases and we work with clients who accept and encourage that. It is cool to be able to adopt into our apps all of the stuff we see during WWDC or Google I/O – it keeps us on our toes and allows us to learn constantly. Developers have a lot of freedom. Little is ever imposed on us, as we can decide which processes or tools to use for ourselves.

“I have been working on different kinds of projects”

Michał Lankof, Android Developer: I have been working on different kinds of projects at Droids On Roids. For instance, I developed the app which allows users to scan shooting targets and automatically count scored points using some image processing algorithms.

Creating a face tracking feature was another challenge connected to that topic and it is especially rewarding because the finished effect is visible for non-programmers.

The last challenge I want to mention is parsing the natural language and making real life changes based on that. When you write something like “turn on the lights and set their color to red at 7:00 PM” and it is happening without your further interactions, it can really blow one’s mind.

“It’s impossible to get bored!”

Michał Pyrka, iOS Developer: One day, we encountered a problem – we needed to provide the best experience possible with an app that is communicating with the client’s hardware. After a few days of brainstorming with my team, the client and the hardware provider, our client said: “do your best, we believe you’ll come up with some good idea, just tell us what you need”. So we requested multiple devices and the client delivered them. We could make the required tests to be 100% sure that our solution works flawlessly.

There are more projects like this, where you need to be smart and come up with some extraordinary ideas to solve the problem. It’s impossible to get bored!

“We use multiple techniques including Continuous Integration, Code Review and Pair Programming”

Michał Lankof, Android Developer: We use multiple techniques in our company, including Continuous Integration, Code Review and Pair Programming, which is definitely my favorite one. Long Pair Programming sessions are quite exhausting, so we remember about the breaks – I mostly use the Pomodoro technique for maintaining the time during those sessions.

We work in Scrum, so we are able to organize our work well and maintain the ability to respond quickly to changes in project requirements.

⚡What self-development possibilities do you have?

Droids On Roids gives us incredible development opportunities. We can improve ourselves, not only by working on challenging projects, but also thanks to Research & Development, a conference budget, our library full of books & magazines and much more!

“Jake Wharton shared my article about jspoon library”

Bruno Wieczorek, Android Developer: During my first year journey with Droids On Roids, I could develop myself by starting my own initiatives. My favorite one was jspoon, the library which helps with parsing HTML content into POJO. I spent two weeks working on it during my Research & Development, (which everyone has after finishing a project). I’ve published jspoon on GitHub as open source and I wrote an article about it on the Droids On Roids blog. Thanks to Jake Wharton (who shared one of them), I’ve reached thousands of people.

“I did a ton of research”

Andrzej Filipowicz, iOS Developer: The greatest initiative inside Droids On Roids are the so called Internal Projects. They allow us to spend a portion of our paid time on things we find interesting, like researching new technologies or creating open source libraries.

I was really interested, for example, in the topic of Code Review, as it’s usually present in every software house but rarely thought through. I was able to gather like-minded people and do a ton of research. This resulted in a few blog posts but, more importantly, in the implementation of a polished and well-understood process which really suits our company and is still used now. This was created organically by developers and not imposed by managers.

“I could try myself out as a speaker”

Paulina Szklarska, Android Developer: One of the best opportunities Droids On Roids gives me is the possibility to take part in many additional activities, such as our Toast Meetups, where we have short lectures about Android with people from all over Poland and even from abroad.

This is a great chance to meet new people who share your interests or to try yourself out as a speaker (and who knows, maybe after this experience your next lecture will be at a big international conference?).

“We can improve our skills by attending conferences”

Michał Lankof, Android Developer: We can improve our skills by attending conferences and workshops, which we have covered. We also have multiple books and Kindles that we are free to borrow. When it comes to other benefits, we’re provided with private healthcare and Multisport cards.

⚡What do you think about the atmosphere & team?

We’re a team and we operate like one – we listen, trust and help each other. But we also love to spend our free time together, whether it’s attending charity events, playing football, going for team retreats or… spending one month in Bali!

“Really outstanding and positive people”

Kinga Wilczek, iOS Developer: Now I am a junior iOS developer and I have the opportunity to work with really outstanding and positive people. For me, working with the right people is the most important thing. They are the ones who inspire, support and create the company spirit. The most wonderful thing here is that you feel you’re an important part of the community. Here, every project ending, every birthday and every occasion is celebrated. If I were to describe the company in one word, I would say openness.

“FIFA tournaments or board games nights really bring us together”

Andrzej Filipowicz, iOS Developer: Another amazing aspect of working at Droids On Roids is the friendly atmosphere. The people are great, our new office has everything one would need to relax and have a good time and our perks go even beyond that. Having a lot of events like FIFA tournaments or board games nights really brings the team together.

“We love to play team games”

Michał Pyrka, iOS Developer: A healthy mind in a healthy body – you can hear that often, especially when you’re doing inactive, sedentary work. That’s why we love to grab a few people right from the office and play some team games. Basketball or football – we’re not as good as in FIFA17, even though we have a great time chasing a real ball around the field.

Likewise, if you want to move a little bit and do something for the greater cause, we love to attend charity runs. Motivating each other to train whilst doing something good works flawlessly! And if you don’t see any activity that matches your criteria – just ask for it and you’ll certainly find someone eager to spend time together.

“Bali workcation – it was the best time of my life!”

Paulina Szklarska, Android Developer: When talking about extra benefits it’s hard not to mention our Bali workcation. I guess we are the only company in Poland which spends one month working remotely from Bali, over 11,000 km from our office. It was the best time of my life, full of epic adventures – riding scooters, sunbathing on the beaches, drinking coconut water, surfing and, of course, working 🙂

Wrap up

We hope you enjoyed the stories of our developers and that they’ve helped you get a feel of our team spirit. If you would like to meet us personally, you are welcome to take part in our events like Let Swift, Toast or Dribbble, or follow our Instastories.

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