Kariera Plus IT

In  career guidebook „Kariera Plus IT” you can read about working in Technology and career opportunities  within this field. We recommend reading interview with Michał Kaliszewski, IT Manager for Citi Service Center Poland, about his career path within Citi.

 IT & Management in CSC Poland.

Michał Kaliszewski: “Citi is constantly developing, therefore it offers an interesting working environment. In the area of technological services, Citi has been strongly focused on  Warsaw – it currently employs more than 600 IT specialists.”

 Why did you choose Citi?

I graduated from the Warsaw School of Economics, where I studied an area covering some aspects of IT, and I was also interested in management. I was wondering how I could combine these two elements and I found a very interesting offer – a development programme in the area of technology at Citi. The programme lasted two years and comprised several transfers to another position – each with different challenges and covering different fields. As a result, I could get to know the organisation and the employees of different departments and discover what I would like to specialize in. I was assigned varied tasks – from very technical ones, through the coordination of tasks and project management, to analytical activities – that involved collecting information and combining facts from different areas that resulted in recommendation of tasks.

Can you give an example of the most interesting task that you performed as part of the program?

The greatest challenge that I had to face was the management of a project of auto dialer system implementation. The system is connected to a switchboard that automatically calls the loaded customers’ numbers and transfers a call to a call centre agent only if someone has picked up the phone. This allows for a considerable time saving. The project was carried out at the request of the Telesales and Debt Recovery, which put out varied challenges to us. Together with the project team for which I was responsible, we had to work out solutions that would make the application meet the requirements of both orderers.

Where did you gain your knowledge?

The program started from a two-week training in London. Together with our peers from other countries, we learned interesting facts concerning the company and project management. We also discussed technological processes carried out in Citi. Then, the training sessions were held twice a year and they covered an in-depth knowledge on project management and soft competencies, such as presentation skills, negotiation or solving conflicts. However, the most important was the support of our superiors. I was supervised by two experienced managers. They taught me, among other things, how to establish relations and acquire necessary information in order to perform the assigned tasks effectively.

Can you describe your career path after the program?

When I was finishing the development programme, a regional user support centre was being opened in Warsaw. I became one of its team managers. I was facing a great challenge of combining temperaments of persons of different nationalities, but we also greatly enjoyed this diversity. Later, our achievements on the regional level were considered so valuable that it was decided to apply a similar model globally. After three years, I started to coordinate the work of several teams. Citi is constantly developing, therefore it offers an interesting working environment. Currently, I manage a team that is responsible for supporting non- production environments for regional applications. Earlier, I spent several years working in the area of infrastructure, such as servers as well as network and telecommunication infrastructure. Now, I have moved to the world of applications. Recently, as a result of centralization, Warsaw has become a key location on the Citi’s map in the area of technological services. Currently, Citi employs more than 600 IT specialists in Warsaw and the plans for the current year include further recruitment.