Our company contributes to efforts aimed at keeping young people in their own country, while at the same time giving them an opportunity to develop and work with colleagues from around the world
Engineering Group is among the world’s leaders in digital transformation processes. However, when we posed this question to its director, Paolo Di Bella, he responded in a modest way, explaining that his company is “a global player in the digital transformation sector’.
Engineering Group (EG) was established by parent company Engineering Ingegneria Informatica S.p.A, which was itself founded in the Italian city of Padua in 1980. According to Director Di Bella, “Today, after almost 40 years of IT evolution, the Group is present
in 50 cities and eight world countries, while around 10,500 software engineers work every day on the design, development and implementation of software systems for the needs of our clients.”
“Engineering Software Lab d.o.o. (Ltd.), one of the EG companies, currently employs 200 software engineers in Serbia. Since its establishment in 2012, this company has maintained a planned growth trend that is actively continuing today. The launch of our operations on the Serbian market was driven by the idea of establishing close cooperation with universities in the country, due to an awareness that there was then a lack of IT developers in specific technologies on the labour market. This shortage was a result of the absence of large companies on the domestic market prior to 2012.”
What is your company’s employment policy and how do young Serbian people keep pace with modern trends in the IT industry globally?
In accordance with Engineering Group’s business values, and the planned objective of establishing a development centre on the territory of Serbia, Engineering Software Lab d.o.o. Has worked systematically to identify talented youngsters and support their continuous professional development (both in the country and abroad).
After more than six years of operations, we have retained the same employment policies, with all of our new employees undergoing two months of training with external professors from Belgrade universities, after which they continue to grow professionally with help of a bespoke mentoring programme.
We are in the phase of strengthening our Development Centre, and our aim is to increase the number of our employees over the next two years from the current 200 to 500, through both traditional methods and acquisitions
During this six-year period, we’ve had an opportunity to see the enthusiasm of young Serbian people and their great desire to keep pace with world trends. They are extremely energetic and creative, eager for knowledge and have great ambitions for professional growth. Of course, good knowledge of foreign languages represents a great advantage for them on the global market.
What are your company’s specific plans for the Serbian market, which is relatively small compared to the Italian market or some other European market?
Our main markets are Italy, the rest of Europe and other continents, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t pay much attention to the Serbian market. Serbia is interesting given the Serbian Government’s policy in the digitisation process and modernisation in the sectors of administration, industry, public enterprises etc.
In the end, I would like to express my great satisfaction for the fact that our company contributes – albeit to a small extent – to efforts aimed at keeping young people in their own country, while at the same time giving them an opportunity to develop and work with colleagues from around the world. This reality and such working conditions serve to change their attitude towards their country and local environment, as well as improving the possibilities for them to create a family and increase their future living standards. At our company, they can gain solid foundations for the future of their professional careers.
I have to add that I came to Belgrade for the first time a year and a half ago and have since fallen in love with this city and the people who live here, but that’s another story.