What did you do before you joined IXTENT?

Before IXTENT, I lived an academic life at university. I was working on a PhD in mathematical analysis – studying, doing research, writing scientific papers and teaching mathematics to students. IXTENT was my first real job. I didn’t expect to stay so long, but I was lucky to land in a great company that gave me everything I needed and there was no point to leave.

What was your career path to IXTENT?

I originally studied mathematics. I’ve always been good at it, and I’ve maintained a relationship with the Charles University since the grammar school. Going to Prague after the school leaving exam was basically the matter of course. I liked math and was successful in it, but programming was my real passion. Unfortunately (or maybe thank God), we couldn’t afford much at that time and my technical equipment was always about 15-20 years behind the current standard. That’s why one of the main reasons I went into mathematics and not programming was that I didn’t have a proper computer. I made it to Ph.D. in mathematics, but after 9 years at the university I needed a change. And so I thought I would combine business with pleasure and try to capitalize on my programming passion in the IT world. IXTENT was the first company to hire me, and the rest is history.

How has your position at IXTENT changed since your first day?

For the first 8 years at IXTENT, I worked as a .NET Developer and SharePoint consultant. The key change came in 2019, when our department head moved to Brno and, before he left, he proposed to IXTENT an optimal scenario for further continuity – at that time already too big development department was split into two and I took over the leadership of the new department focused on Microsoft technologies.

What do you like about IXTENT? Where do you see its greatest benefits and where do you see your own mission?

IXTENT is clearly about people. We have a great team here and a bunch of excellent people who are great to work with. The company culture is second to none and we are constantly striving to improve it. All of this then translates into the relationship with our customers, who are not just numbers to us, but we really care about them and do our best to satisfy them.

As the department head, I now see my main mission in maintaining and possibly even further improving this standard and passing it on to other great people who will join us in the future.

You are the head of the MS Development team, what do you do here? What do you enjoy most about your current position?

Our team handles virtually everything related to development of solutions based on Microsoft technologies. More specifically, our work is mainly about .NET development and implementation of solutions for SharePoint and Microsoft 365. The team’s agenda also includes other non-development activities such as SharePoint consulting or maintenance of the partnership with Microsoft.

I guess the best thing about my position is that I never get bored. My work includes virtually every possible activity from programming and product development, over consulting, training, presentations, up to team management and the promotion of our technologies.

If you had to pick 1 or 2 projects that you are really proud of, which would they be and why?

First, I would like to mention the project of DMS implementation on SharePoint for IMMOTEL, now Q property. It was my first self-directed project from start to finish – from business analysis over implementation all the way to deployment and support. The customer had no DMS before. This solution has been in operation for 8 years and the customer is extremely satisfied with it. Probably because of this solution, the customer has expanded significantly, deployed it to about a dozen of other companies, and we’ve handled about 35 extensions and change requests in total during the 8 years.

Another matter of the heart is a customer in Slovakia – Západoslovenská energetika, where I implemented a knowledge base on SharePoint. This is a very progressive customer who always wants to have the state-of-the-art solutions, so our solution has seen two further re-implementations, each time on a newer architecture and version of the SharePoint platform. The original project was important to us mainly because it opened the door to ZSE, where we have built a great relationship together. Since then, we have implemented several other SharePoint solutions and partially taken over SharePoint support.

What is your biggest achievement in IXTENT?

I’ve worked on maybe 50 projects in those 10 years, it probably wouldn’t make sense to pick just one, I mentioned two in my previous answer. I also consider the internal promotion of Microsoft technologies a success. I have managed to push the transition of our intranet and knowledge base to cloud-based SharePoint. But generally speaking, I would definitely say my biggest achievement is how much I have moved as a person in those 10 years, whether in terms of communication, cooperation, knowledge, experience or just generally looking at the world. And I owe this mainly to IXTENT and all my colleagues and customers who helped me in this.

If you were to recruit a newcomer to your team, how would you introduce the team and IXTENT as whole?

I do this practically every week now. IXTENT is a leading supplier of ECM solutions and our team specifically specializes in Microsoft technologies. But I always try to highlight our company culture, that we’re one big family, on first-name terms, but at the same time we are experts in our field and there is a lot to learn from. Of course, I will back this up with actual data such as technology, customers, projects, teams, benefits, company processes, everyone responds to something slightly different.

From the IT perspective, where do you see the future?

As the head of the Microsoft department, I have to say that in the cloud, of course. Nowadays, with the shortage of developers, so-called “citizen development” and low-code platforms are extremely on the rise. But that’s perhaps the most interesting thing about IT – that it moves forward so incredibly fast that we can never actually say for sure what will be the driving force 5 years from now.

What makes you happy in life?

First and foremost, of course, my family and being with the loved ones. Besides that, I like to travel and explore the world around me. I like hiking and staying in nature. Programming is also still my hobby, although nowadays I try to pursue other hobbies. I enjoy when I create something that lasts, when I learn something new, when I understand something I didn’t fully understand before, when I organize my thoughts in peace, or when I spend time with the people I love.

How do you relax?

Mostly in active way, I can’t stand doing nothing. I like to go on holiday somewhere in the world, to explore new places and cultures. I like to hike in the mountains, so if I can, all-day hiking. I like to watch a good (or at least interesting) movie or series and play a game from time to time. I do genealogy and a bit of photography recreationally.

What is your life motto?

I wouldn’t say I have a life motto, but I definitely follow some principles, like “Do not treat others in ways that you would not like to be treated”.