Anton Zaleski, Director of ByeleX Eastern Europe
Career & Background
My parents were software developers, and one of the first students of the Faculty of Applied Mathematics. During my schoolyears my interest in programming grew and I also decided to study Applied Mathematics. My speciality was financial mathematics in which we study actuarial mathematics and models of financial markets. This has helped me a lot in understanding the customer needs during our projects.
In 1997, when I was a 3rd course student, my programming teacher proposed me a job with ByeleX, a small software company. I was happy to start as a Lotus Notes developer and became a member of the EQS team, one the greatest products in ByeleX early years.
From Developer to Director of Byelex Eastern Europe
Company leadership was never my goal but step by step I got more involved in different ByeleX projects and administration tasks. I had also built a good relationship will the colleagues of ByeleX. So, when I got the proposal to become a director, it seemed the natural thing to do. I accepted the challenge.
Team Experience
Nowadays I work with most of my Dutch colleagues for a very long time. From the very start I realised that we have a lot of things in common. I especially like the way in which they find the balance between work and private live. Our families are very important, but when needed everyone is 24/7 available.
When I started at ByeleX we had a small team without strict hierarchy but based on mutual respect and responsibility. I liked this atmosphere a lot and am doing my best to maintain this.
Visiting the Netherlands
In restaurants and shops I experienced the friendly communication between visitors and staff etc. and gradually became acquainted with the Dutch people.
Several times my Dutch colleagues invited me at their homes for dinner. It was memorable: the hospitality, the traditions, and home food of course. It surprised me that the traditional Dutch kitchen has almost the same ingredients as ours (meat, potato, certain vegetables), but the flavours are different.
Projects & Work
There is not a special project that stood out for me, I am proud of all projects we did in ByeleX. Every project is teamwork.
I especially like it when we can try new tools or technologies in a project. Fortunately, in software development that happens quite often. Sometimes that can be a new framework or just a new version of the library.
Another point which gives me extra energy is the experience that our software is really helping customers to perform better.
Liqwith Plaza Project
We are now working on the Liqwith Plaza project. It is based on several years of experiments and two previous production-tested versions of the product. It has quite a complex structure, so there is a lot of development work involved. On the other hand we face the challenge to keep it user-friendly for the customers. I really believe that this product has a lot of potential.
Personal Life
I have a wife and two sons of 20 and 13 years old. My eldest son is musician, playing the contrabass. And my youngest is actively finding his way in this world. I am happy to support him in this and learn different things from guitar playing to crypto-currency trading together.
I can’t say that I have a specific hobby; maybe my profession gives me enough interest and fulfilment. I do like swimming. Several years ago, I obtained a diving license and now on vacations I am always looking for a possibility to dive.
There is a phrase “A man must plant a tree, build a house, and raise a son”. Fortunately, I already did all of it. Now I do the work I like as good as I can.
What do you think you would be doing if you weren’t working in IT?
I hardly imagine myself without IT. I like to watch how big construction machines work. Maybe I would become an operator of such a machine.
