A trip around the world, extreme mountaineering, an adrenaline rush on the racetrack with your employer’s money? Impossible? And yet! A Polish IT company will allocate PLN 300,000 to develop the passions of its employees.

Sii, a resident of Olivia Business Centre, one of the largest IT and engineering companies in Poland, will allocate as much as PLN 300,000 per year to sponsor the passion of its engineers. Tech enthusiasts, sports enthusiasts, but also more artistic talents present in the team can count on financial support. The employer appreciates employees for their expertise, commitment, and extraordinary personalities. Anyone who is passionate, persistent in pursuing their interests, and the ability to inspire others can become a sponsor.

Sports cards and medical care are definitely not enough – discover a new dimension of benefits for programmers

Sii was already known as a company that “goes ahead of the line” when it comes to the offered working conditions in IT compared to the competition. The Best Place to Work in IT according to Computerworld, or Great Place to Work – prestigious awards for top employers, which have been awarded to Sii many times, seem to confirm this. So what is the recipe for the company’s success? In addition to stable working conditions and a wide range of technological projects that are implemented all over the world, Sii focuses on unique benefits. The company has long invested in advanced training programs for engineers, provides industry-specific certifications, and had an extensive cafeteria system. The plans for Sii’s new office, which will include a slide, a climbing wall and many unusual attractions that Google itself would not be ashamed of, have been widely echoed. However, this is only the beginning of the company’s plans.

PLN 300,000 goes to employees to sponsor passions

By the decision of President Gregoire Nitot, in the coming year employees will receive as much as PLN 300,000 to develop their hobbies and interests. – Passion for Technology – Sii’s motto emphasizes our key value, which is passion – primarily for IT, but not only. It is also our daily approach at work, which has accompanied us since the beginning of Sii’s existence and is inscribed in our DNA. Technology is the foundation of Sii’s business – it is our great passion, but together with it, the focus is on the employee and their needs. Our mission is Power People – we care about the satisfaction of people employed at Sii. The passion sponsorship program simply combines what is most important to us. Therefore, I am giving Power People this money with a view to enabling them to realize themselves, make their dreams come true and develop.

Conquering peaks – even the highest ones – suddenly becomes possible

The diversity of beneficiaries of the program is evidenced by the examples of people who have already benefited from the project – the first PLN 50,000 went to the sponsors. They have one thing in common – they live with passion and develop professionally at Sii. The fact that perseverance allows you to “aim high” was personally experienced by Michał, Engineering for Rural Development. Tests and Analyses at Sii Gdansk. “I’ve been planning this trip for a long time. It was thanks to the company’s support that I was able to reach the top of my dreams,” says Michał. In 2017, thanks to sponsorship, he managed to go to Denali – the highest peak in North America. As he says himself, climbing is for him a fight with his own weaknesses, because he had… fear of heights. On a daily basis, he deals with software tests, which he writes and analyzes, using tools such as m.in. Repo Tool or the Google Test framework.

Passion Drives Power People – this slogan has many faces

There is no shortage of athletes among Sii’s experts. Artur, marathon runner and Olympian, and on a daily basis a Marine Engineer. Software. After hours, he infects his colleagues with his passion by conducting running trainings for employees and anyone who is interested. Kamil from Katowice is a cycling enthusiast and a Team Leader at the same time. Michał from Cracow is a freediver. There are also music enthusiasts in the company – Grzesiek, DJ, creator and organizer of the Bassriver festival, is a Release Manager at Sii. There is also no shortage of adrenaline and thrill enthusiasts – Łukasz, the Junior System Administrator, takes part in car races, and his namesake, the Assistant Engineer. He has travelled around South America on a motorcycle – today he is planning another trip.

Football, basketball, mountaineering or maybe salsa as part of an interest group? We say yes!

Sii experts also join internal interest groups, which are also financed by the employer. There are currently 47 interest groups across the company. Among them were m.in. volleyball teams, basketball, board games, soccer, salsa, movie club and many more. All of them, along with the stories of the beneficiaries of the passion sponsorship program, create an image of Sii as a diverse IT environment full of interesting people. Each subsequent edition of this project surprises – allowing Sii employees to get to know each other even better from a new side. This is just the beginning of the list of enthusiasts, as the company is just announcing a new recruitment for the passion support program. Soon, more employees will be selected to join the group of sponsors.

So what kind of company is Sii?

Sii employs 3000 IT experts who work in 8 branches of the company in: Warsaw, Krakow, Poznań, Gdańsk, Wrocław, Lublin, Łódź, Katowice and carry out projects for over 200 clients, companies from the banking and finance, insurance, telecommunications, Hi-Tech, energy and industry sectors from all over the world. Sii supports clients in the field of consulting, analysis and testing, software development, infrastructure management, system integration and maintenance, and industrial engineering. In addition, it is the fastest growing IT company in Poland, which is confirmed by record financial results. The company has been awarded many times in prestigious plebiscites for the best employers. It is the Best Place to Work in Poland according to the Computerworld ranking and a three-time winner of the international Great Place to Work ranking. Find out more about working at Sii and the passion sponsorship program at www.kariera.sii.pl.

Sii has been developing its business in Gdańsk for 10 years. Currently, the Tri-City branch employs almost 800 people and there is no shortage of passionate people. In the Gdańsk office of the leader of the technology industry, there are several interest groups, including football, basketball, squash, Cuban salsa, building a racing simulator and board games. The company also supports other initiatives related to active leisure – employees can represent their employer in runs and races.