Work at Xillio| Sky is the limit! My growth path thus far at Xillio

Introduction

Hi there! Here I am, my name is Kamil, and I started my journey at Xillio as a Quality Assurance & Support in January. In this blog, I will share with you my experiences at Xillio thus far. I am 33 years old; I live in Amsterdam. Among others, I am interested in science, sports, games, programming, travel, health, and psychology. Interesting facts: I moved 20+ in my life, I have climbed the active volcano Acatenengo, Guatemala, and I have dived on 3 different continents. The most beautiful creature I have ever seen was Manta Ray in Egypt (8m long, 6m wide).

Background

I am Dutch, born in Lublin, Poland. At an age of 16, I moved to the Netherlands after my mother had found a job here. I quickly learned Dutch and adapted to the environment. As a family in Poland, we have already moved a lot, and even though this time was a new country, it was not that big of a deal. I have two siblings: 2 years younger sister, and 4 years older brother. In Poland, I was attending a music school where I played violin and piano for 9 and 4 years, respectively.

Why Xillio?

A few months before joining Xillio, as a ‘developer in making’ at Codaisseur, I was asked to choose my top 5 companies that I would like to work for after graduation. Xillio was my number one pick! And they were the first company that invited me for an interview before I even finished my course. I choose Xillio because they are one of the fastest-growing IT companies in the Netherlands (top 100), they have years of experience in the field, and they are the best at what they are doing in the field. I like to surround myself with smart people, that will challenge me and motivate me in my work.

Working at Xillio

Even though it is an hourly one-way trip from home to the office, I am behind my desk every day in a company where most of the employees work remotely from home. It is the combination of factors that keeps me going. Xillio is a collective of remarkably interesting, bright, and hard-working people. Whenever necessary everyone is willing to help another out in any way possible. The office is in the middle of a park, which makes it perfect for after-lunch walks.

Xillio is a company that is growing rapidly and there are a lot of opportunities for everyone to grow and learn every day. Talking from my perspective I started as a Quality Assurance & Support, and now (after 5 months) I am working as a Data Migration Engineer & Front-end Developer as well. I like new challenges, solving problems, learning, and working with people – all of these fill my engine with fuel and keep me going and motivated.

I can always count on constructive feedback from my colleagues. During the migration projects I would often get tips and examples on how to write my scripts better (Remco, Evan and more…), when working on a UI of a webpage I would get an explanation of how certain functions work (Jorn), and whenever I need to debug my code or explanation on how to use any tool, I know I can always count on Honza and Pavel.

What have I learned so far?

Since I started at Xillio I have learned a lot, it seems like a never-ending pool of information and knowledge from which whenever necessary I fish out things that I need at the time. I have a lot of support to learn anything that I want and that would be valuable at the same time for me in my work. I have already started/completed a couple of courses for example regarding Docker, Java, NodeJS, Time Management, and Azure. All of them are paid for by the company.

As important or even more is learning from other colleagues, their way of approaching problems / looking for solutions can be valuable as they have a lot of experience. Often learning by example is more valuable than learning by yourself, and I feel that at Xillio there are many notable examples to follow.

What do I like about Xillio?

One of the things that I like the most about the company is that it feels like a family, where everyone is welcome, valued & respected. Everyone is very easily approachable, it feels like we are all and the same level, including our CEO and CFO. Any questions are very welcome, and everyone is open to suggestions/feedback.

The second thing I like is the atmosphere in the office, I like to be surrounded by people who are motivated to do their job well, I can sense that energy and it drives me forward. At the same time, it is quite a stress-free environment, even though there are a lot of things to do, and everyone is busy, rarely ever that is expressed in being stressed. Every problem has a solution and there are plenty of people around to help one another out.

It is always nice to have lunch with everybody and see how they are doing and to go for walks afterward. I also enjoy playing table tennis, which we have at the office and every day I can squeeze 15min games in between with another colleague. (Ali… :P)

Looking forward

I am happy to continue my journey with Xillio, as I feel like I can contribute a lot to the company’s growth as well as develop my own skills and see a lot of potential in my personal development. Not to mention that we have a talented group of people that I would like to continue working with.