All great stories have ups and downs and bumpy roads to success. This one is different. It is a story that unfolds gradually over the course of 8 years. SoftServe in Bulgaria was launched in 2014 with only one person aboard – our country manager, Andon Simeonov. Fast forward to 2023 and now we have over 500 associates from all over the country, three offices in two major cities, plenty of IT jobs in Bulgaria and recognition.

It's a great moment to stop for a minute and look back, isn’t it? Having a lot in mind for 2023, we decided to take a moment and talk about some important things that helped our teams to move forward. None of our success would be possible without our talented people who are so passionate about technology and innovation. Our mission as a company is quite simple: to enable them to change the world. Together, we seek to extend boundaries, connect people, businesses and ideas, and bring value to the communities. Let us share what we do to encourage our associates and embrace their passions, help them stay motivated and inspired. Who knows, maybe you’re the next one to join SoftServe Bulgaria?

LEARN YOUR WAY IN ONE OF THE TOP IT COMPANIES IN BULGARIA

Providing learning opportunities and helping our associates excel in areas of their interest as professionals and individuals is very important for us as a progressive IT company. This is why there is SoftServe University, which fosters and expands the talents of our people in various ways. There are the Talent Acceleration Center, Tech School, Business School, Language School, Cross-cultural communication center, Certification Center, and a Center of Learning Excellence. SoftServe University was established in 2006 and it has been part of our culture for more than 15 years and continues to grow.

We strive to maintain an eco-system where our leaders feel confident and have an opportunity to grow their professional skills and careers through our Leadership development programs. The leadership programs are designed and developed by SoftServe University.

The University also offers associates Language school (8 600 students in 2021), Certification Center (1000+ certifications for 2021), and E-learning Education (1900+ associates took exams/courses online in 2021).  

Through our extended partnership network, we drive the external certification of our people and help them navigate through different opportunities and have new valuable experience. Based on these efforts we have more than 300 Google cloud certified and 200 Azure and AWS professionals working with innovative and exciting projects.

Udemy Business 

In 2021 SoftServe invested in incorporating Udemy Business as a part of the benefits package. Every associate has free access to 10 000+ top-ranked learning solutions to help them deepen their expertise, build extra skills and grow their talents.  

The platform itself adds up to the flexibility of the learning journey: a user can learn a technology completely from scratch or, tune in to master a very specific skill. Having Udemy onboard has rapidly extended, scaled, and accelerated access to learning. More than that: it cemented the habit of lifelong learning and a self-driven search for new knowledge. As a result, e-learning content consumption increased by over 60% in 2021. Part of the Udemy solutions has also been integrated into the courses and internships by SoftServe IT Academy.

PEOPLE EXCELLENCE. MORE THAN JUST WORDS

To say that our main focus is to help our associates develop their careers is putting it mildly. On a global scale in 2021 more than 2950 associates were promoted. Last year in Bulgaria we had more than 80 promotions in total, 61 out of which to A-PRO positions, and 13 associates were promoted twice. 

We regularly conduct one-on-one sessions with our associates, probation period reviews, and annual appraisal meetings. But this is not enough, we recognize, and value our people's individual contribution and we crafted a career progression framework called PeEX (People Excellence) in which every single person has a clear career path based on constructive feedback.  

People Excellence is an important component of the Delivery Excellence to assure success on the level of Project, Service, Solution, and Customer Experience. Thus, People Excellence ecosystem is designed to reveal talent potential, promote associate experience, boost professional development, and assure recognition of SoftServe’s top talents.  The program provides an additional data point for our leaders to build effective teams and adjust cooperation and rate models with our clients—considering job value, job levels, and experience of associates which will be tracked and stored.   

TAKING CARE OF WORK-LIFE BALANCE

To ensure the work-life balance we have extended the Mental Well-being Program in our locations throughout 2022. The program is designed to help associates maintain emotional health and focuses on timely stress relief, healthy work-life balance, and education on the importance of emotional, mental, and behavioral health. Over 200 associates joined various sessions on subjects such as the relationship between movement and mental well-being, how to build sound and compassionate relationships in life and work, what are the early signs of burn-out and how to take steps to prevent it in a gentle and timely manner.

WorkX 

During the last two years, we have opened new office locations in Bulgaria, Poland, and Dubai, and launched business in Romania, Mexico, Colombia and Chile. To harmonize the growth and changes we applied WorkX (Flexible Desks). This transforms our way of work, the workplace experience and creates new levels of engagement and team collaboration. It also allows our associates to be more flexible and keep their work-life balance. With the functionality of Flexible Desks, everybody has the chance to travel the world and work from different SoftServe locations by simply booking a desk in a special app.

GIVING BACK TO THE SOCIETY

We also understand that giving to our communities fosters a spirit of gratitude and generosity which far exceeds office life and is translated into our personal lives, enriching it in ways that help us all feel more fulfilled as individuals.

Open Eyes Fund

As part of our commitment to ensure a sustainable future for the communities we live and work in, SoftServe founded the Open Eyes Charity fund to raise funds for local hospitals, orphanages, and rehabilitation centers. The fund has been actively helping Ukraine and its people. It has launched wide network of volunteers and hubs in different countries, including Bulgaria. As of August 2022, it gathered and delivered 327 tones of humanitarian aid.

Corporate volunteering

Each year SoftServians donate our time and effort to help communities in need through volunteering and donations of supplies. As a part of our crowdsourcing platform Open Tech our associates can apply their knowledge to develop pro bono tech solutions for socially meaningful initiatives. As active members of our communities, many of our employees donate their time, knowledge, experience, and money to support a variety of local charities. This includes support for orphanages, presentations on IT topics for students, and charity fundraising. We have monthly activities such as Movie night and Charity Breakfast funds raised from them are collected and donated to a cause of their choosing.

Environmental initiatives

SoftServe also cares about reducing our environmental footprint, making our ‘Go Green’ initiative a top priority. We participated in #Trashtag Challenge, joining forces and cleaning the environment around our office area.

In 2022 we planted our own SoftServe forest in the high regions of Vitosha Mountain, part of Vitosha National Parks. We have committed to taking care of our forest for the next 5 years until the trees are well established and ready to thrive in the many years to come. From then on, we will continue to expand our forest in a larger area.

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The year 2022 is closing in and we look back humbly and grateful to have had another year to learn, to grow, to build new relations in our company and with our clients. The year SoftServe Bulgaria reached 500 employees is a year full of ups and downs and is the year we all embraced the generous SoftServe spirit. We look forward to the challenges ahead to be the TOP IT company in Bulgaria, together united more than ever for a better future for our communities.