Day in the Life
Michal
Software Program Manager
"My colleagues across the ocean were great. We finished the project in just 6 weeks, 8 times faster than originally anticipated."
What does Michal have to say about working at FEI?
You don’t necessarily have to move half way around the globe to build a career at FEI, but the opportunities are there. I moved to The Netherlands for a few months when I first joined and then back to Brno. Later I spent a couple of years in the United States. Being away from so many of my friends was tough, but my family went with me and I’m really glad we made the move. I built a team of engineers and succeeded in getting a shared, multisite working model up and running across 3 development sites. Now we can share source files for all our projects on a daily basis. I enjoyed the assignment a lot, made some new friends, and gained insights into how people work and think, not only in another part of the company, but in another part of the world.
There are always challenges to working in a global development environment – language differences, cultural differences, time differences. But we work those things out. The people here are experienced and very professional. They’re also informal and a lot of fun to work with. I’ve been impressed with how open everyone is about sharing their ideas and opinions. That openness goes all the way up to top-level managers and the CEO. Everyone’s focused on results and there’s not a lot of worry about office politics. From what my friends at other companies tell me, a lot of other organizations don’t work that way. I’m really glad to be working in a place where my input matters.