Awards and recognition
In my three years at Sopro, my career has really taken off. I've gone from an intermediate developer, to a senior, to a team lead.
“I love using all my skills, and the balance of logic and creativity to achieve the best results.”
Aleksandar Arsovski
Dev Team Lead
Meet the people behind the tech
Great tech is created by great people. At Sopro we are dedicated to building and developing a team of enthusiasts, who love what they do.
Filip Trkaleski
Intermediate .Net developerI work in the Dev team as a full stack developer. I love working with the newest and best technologies.
“Sopro doesn't feel like working. It's an environment where I learn, improve, and have fun.”
Marija Lazareska
Dev Team LeadSopro is all about being passionate and having an opportunity to grow. The people, the progression, and the company culture are amazing.
“I work with people that push me to take on new and challenging opportunities. It's the perfect place to grow and meet like-minded people.”
Our people. Our greatest asset.
Our engineering principles
Embrace the MVP
The quicker we ship a Minimum Viable Product, the quicker we can get feedback from real users, on the issues and features they really care about
Build a legacy
We all love to try and reduce code into as few lines as possible, however, clear and readable code wins every time. If you can’t look back at a function or code snippet in a month's time and know what it does right away, neither can your teammates.
Avoid premature optimization
We are building systems that solve problems for our users. First and foremost we need to make sure we are delighting our users, listening to their feedback and solving these problems rather than optimizing every last line of code. There will be plenty of time for that once the users come flooding in.
Don't optimise for the sake of it
We always try to make time for optimising and refactoring code, but never for the sake of it. We always quantify the impact first. If it’s performance-related, it's done with appropriate instrumentation. If it’s code quality, we consider the importance of the code and its impact on other features.
Be the client
We aren’t building systems for outsourced third parties – we are stakeholders in everything we build. We work with the business collaboratively to solve problems, and not just build code to specifications. Use your initiative to suggest changes – everyone’s views are heard.
Don’t depend on dependencies
We use plenty of third party systems and platforms in the delivery of any piece of software, and the ones we choose in the first case are not always the ones we end up with. Avoid tightly coupling any dependencies (or any code we haven’t produced) and prioritize the ability to swap providers in and out.
Be a good mentor
Good coding practices come with practice and time. Spending care and attention on code reviews with less experienced members of your team helps them to develop these practices, which benefits us all. And we’ve all been the new guy once.
Evolve your stack
Technologies evolve at a rapid pace and we need to make sure our knowledge keeps up. Embrace new languages and systems and use them where appropriate – the wider our base of knowledge is, the more able we are to suggest the right tech for the right solution.
Take pride in our creations
We are building real world systems for real users – and we should be proud enough to show them off. Show your family at the dinner table
Team manifesto
Technology stack(…s)
We work primarily with Microsoft .net, sql server, and Javascript frameworks – mainly React. Pretty much like everyone else right?
Well…not quite like everyone else. We are stakeholders in our products, we aren’t just suppliers and we define the tech stack that goes into them. .Net 5? Absolutely. Mobile app in Flutter? Why not.
And if we find a new framework we simply have to try…then we’ll come up with a product and a reason to use it
Your career path
At Sopro we assess all roles based on ability – not years of experience. With clear, objective criteria everyone in the team knows where they are, what they need to do to progress, and most importantly how we are going to help to get them there.
We also recognise that people management is not for everyone, and have two clear, separate paths for progression. Both involve constantly developing and improving engineering skills, with the leadership stream also progressing to line management of your own team (and ultimately – teams).
Dedicated mentor
You will work closely with a mentor who will guide you through a project, explain systems structures and review every line of your code.
Regular reviews
Six monthly reviews to track where you sit in the Sopro performance framework, and top help you progress as quickly as possible
Real projects
From day one you will work on real projects, with real users. You’ll be interacting with stakeholders (with the support of your mentor) and gaining valuable experience. No made up projects here
Room to grow
At an intermediate level you will be comfortable to work independently but can expect the same level of support from senior members of the team to further develop your skills
Regular reviews
Six monthly reviews to track where you sit in the Sopro performance framework, and to help you progress as quickly as possible
Mentorship
All intermediate team members are introduced as mentors – reviewing other developers code is an important aspect of improving tech ability, and understanding system architecture
Architecture decisions
Everyone in the team has a voice – but as a senior you’ll be expected to have a researched view on what tech stack and platforms we should be using to solve any given task
Bespoke development
Once you hit the more senior levels, we throw away the competency frameworks and focus on working closely with you to develop skills in the areas you need
Develop your specializations
New frameworks? AI? ML? Distributed computing? Whatever tech is at the top of your list, we’ll work with you on incorporating into real projects
Own the code
As a lead developer you’ll be responsible for the code and product quality – owning the process and developing your skills further
Choose your path
We’ll work with you to help decide if you want to pursue a leadership, or pure engineering role, with plenty of opportunity to try both
Be an ambassador
We encourage face to face meetings with stakeholders – which often involves international travel. Honing your skills by developing good stakeholder relationships across the whole team forms a key part of your development
Real world products
Work - life balance
We’ve all been there: someone decides it’s a good idea to deploy on a Friday afternoon because ‘it’ll definitely be fine’ and then you end up pulling an all nighter tracking down that query that deadlocks all 700 clients. It happens. Generally speaking though, we work flexible, human hours, with options for part remote. And we don’t deploy on Fridays.
Benefits
Competitive salary
It’s not all about the salary…but it’s important. We pay well, and regularly review our structures to keep that the case.
Private health care
We look out for your health with a high level of private medical care. Cover includes specialist outpatient and inpatient treatment, and insurance for all surgeries and childbirth.
Social events
Whether it’s sports, eating out or just socialising (with a Skopsko or two) we’ve got you covered. Being part of a team is about more than just working together.
Fruit, drinks, snacks..
Nobody works well on an empty stomach – we keep the office full of more snacks than you can shake a stick at.
Social/Wellbeing Budget
We have introduced a budget to fund social activities that should nurture the team spirit and human relationship among the team.
FitKit Credits
FitKit is a mobile app that allows you to workout everything, anywhere and anytime you choose, at the best gyms and studios near you. You can pick from the wide variety of workouts: Gym workouts, Yoga, Zumba, Pilates, Crossfit, Kickbox, Swimming and many more.
Conference budget
Want to attend the latest greatest javascript conference in Barcelona? There's a budget for that. Just bring us back some ES6 goodness.
Company profit share
All team members are automatically enrolled in the company profit share scheme. Every month your share increases which goes towards an annual dividend payout, and more importantly a share in any potential sale of any of the companies in the group.
Extended Annual Leave
Paid annual leave goes way beyond being a 'perk', it's a health and wellbeing essential, therefore we have additional holiday allowance to the paid leave determined by the law.
Our engineering recruitment process
We keep it simple - all roles follow the same four step process.
Screening
Send us your CV. Or your portfolio. Or even better a Github link full of half finished hobby projects and a stack overflow username.
Initial chat
Initial interview to meet you, explain the role and make sure we look to be a good fit for each other.
Task
For some of the roles you might get a task that simulates the kind of technology or job they would be involved in. Аll our past tests are a creative piece of work done with great inspiration from our candidates.
Tech Interview
An in depth interview with your potential line manger and one senior manager from the team. We won't ask you to write whiteboard code, or remember sorting algorithms, but do expect technical questions
Sell more.
