TechLead-Story: Stefan Unterthiner, CTO at in-manas

TechLeadStory

Stefan Unterthiner

Team

Size and Roles: The development team is divided into an internal team in Innsbruck with three core developers and an external team in Gran Canaria with five specialists in UX/UI, DevOps, Frontend, and Backend.

Organizational Structure: The team utilizes a Scrum derivative with Kanban boards, conducting monthly sprints. The approach allows long-term planning and short-term adaptation to new requirements. User stories are transparently collected in various boards, and features and bugs are addressed within sprint lines.

Distinctive Aspects - Multinational Collaboration: The team's uniqueness lies in its division across two nations, fostering diverse perspectives. Internal communication occurs in the respective national languages, while joint meetings are conducted in English. Collaboration tools like Microsoft Teams and GitLab facilitate cooperation, emphasizing outcome over when and where work is done. The team values home office and flexible working hours.

Recruiting

Integration in Recruiting Process: Given the manageable team size, current employees actively participate in the recruitment process. Harmonious collaboration is prioritized, and there are two rounds of interviews: one for general fit and another for technical aspects.

Onboarding Procedure: Despite the small team size, the onboarding process is professional, featuring a welcome package, a personal team contact, learning materials, online training, and comprehensive documentation in the team's wiki. New employees have everything ready on the first day, including installed tools, access, and codes.

Qualities Beyond Technical Skills: Apart from technical skills, the team seeks individuals who fit well into the team's collaborative and creative culture, encouraging open-mindedness and constructive contributions.

Technologies

Technical Challenges: The software focuses on digitizing processes for business consultants, dealing with numerous and often non-standardized processes. The challenge is met through a highly adaptable architecture using JSON files to describe and render processes flexibly.

Current Technologies: The team works with PHP, Laravel, JavaScript, Vue.js, Docker, and MySQL.

Evolution of Technology Since Inception: The technology has undergone radical changes since the company's inception, evolving from a static product concept to a configurable template engine, Docker, and a single-page application (SPA). The current technological setup is considered well-prepared for future developments.