Why has TIS been successful for more than 35 years

HE CAME FROM THE STARTUP SCENE AND NOW LEADS SOME OF OUR MOST IMPORTANT PROJECTS: MENTORSHIP IS TIS’S GREATEST COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

It’s been a while since my colleague Mikulić asked me to write a blog post on the topic: “Why is working at TIS great?” I accepted the challenge without much hesitation. Why wouldn’t I? After all, I do genuinely enjoy working at TIS. But then came the time to put my thoughts into words.

I tried to find a solution by talking to colleagues, and we kept coming to the same conclusion: there’s this intangible something that’s hard to describe unless you’ve experienced it yourself after joining TIS. So, what seemed like a straightforward task turned into an obligation I skillfully avoided, dodging my colleague and his gentle email reminders. You know, the worst kind of emails that haunt you with guilt for days.

Of course, I was also looking for ways to get out of the task entirely, to admit defeat and surrender. BUT everything changed the other day when I attended the finals of the TVZ MC2 student startup competition.

 

A Moment of Clarity

A brief digression about TVZ MC2.

TVZ MC2 is a project-based/startup competition for TVZ students, where participants develop conceptual solutions to a given topic. They must produce a business plan, a prototype, and then push their idea close to production. The competition consists of several phases and levels of evaluation, making it neither easy nor certain to reach the finals.

My role as one of TIS’s mentors was to use my knowledge and experience to help our chosen one-man band (shoutout to Dominik Cvetan) shape his idea in line with the competition’s guidelines. I played the “devil’s advocate,” questioning Dominik’s directions, decisions, concepts, and business models he wanted to incorporate into his solution.

Spoiler alert: Dominik won, and I left the competition with an unexpected realization about why working at TIS is great.

Mentorship.

What I Do at TIS

Primarily, I work as a project manager, but I’ve also had the honor of taking on the role of a mentor to a young team that has since grown into a serious development powerhouse.

When in a mentoring role, my job is to help my developer colleague translate project architecture into a concrete plan and confidently take over all the reins of managing that project. For instance, when someone starts a new project, they also take on the role of technical project lead. From me, they learn why regular technical meetings are important, what criteria to follow when assigning tasks to team members, and how to empower junior colleagues, teaching them to communicate effectively, ask timely questions, understand business processes, and recognize their role in the project as a whole. It’s also crucial for new leads to immediately grasp the importance of using appropriate tools to track project progress.

At the same time, the mentoring process wasn’t one-sided. While they were learning the art of project management from me, I was learning the secrets of Java development from them. A practical and highly successful symbiosis of mutual mentorship.

The Company’s Greatest Competitive Value

Although it may sound like a cliché, this concept is truly lived out here, supported, and embedded in all employees and collaborators. The collaboration I witnessed over the past few months as a mentor only reaffirmed how people, when enthusiastic, creative, and open-minded, can progress together into realms and directions they wouldn’t reach alone. It’s this transformation, unfolding before my very eyes, that led me to conclude that mentorship is the key to satisfaction at TIS.

When I joined TIS, I made a fundamental shift in the technologies I worked with. I transitioned from the .NET and Microsoft world to the previously unfamiliar realm of Java development, OpenShift, and Sterling. The nature of the clients I work with also changed. Moving from a small team of about ten people to an organization ten times that size required some adaptation to navigate the organization itself.

While I previously worked almost as a one-man band, at TIS I encountered a sprawling infrastructure with highly specialized departments. It’s wonderful, no doubt, but it still demands a certain level of adjustment and a different way of communicating. While specialization simplifies some things, we all know that as the number of stakeholders increases, things can get more complicated—broken telephone, noise in communication channels. That’s why learning to communicate effectively as quickly as possible is crucial.

 

 

And Yet

The speed at which I adapted to the new environment and became a useful member of the organization was undoubtedly helped by the energy and approach of everyone in the company, from junior developers to department heads to board members. Everyone had the time and willingness to listen, discuss, and, ultimately, educate me—whether during a coffee break or a meeting. They answered countless “what” and “why” questions without ever saying something like, “Just Google it, it’s not hard…”

It’s precisely this readiness, but also the ability of TIS members to mentor and be mentored, that makes working at TIS a truly great experience.