Who will be sitting next to you in the new TomTom office in Łódź?
Can you guess where TomTom's second biggest office in Europe is? Łódź, Poland – home to leading engineers, testers and software developers. And today, we welcome more than 700 of these TomTom’ers to our brand new, state-of-the-art office! If you take your seat with one of these teams, you’ll be coding the future at the heart of mapmaking and location-based technology. And you could have Lukasz, Agile Leader in our Nav Team, as your new desk neighbor. Luckily, you don’t have to imagine what it’s like to sit next to him. He offers you a thorough introduction. Just watch out for his homemade quadcopters…
In a few words, who are you?
I'm Lukasz and I'm a geographer. I joined TomTom in 2007, as I wanted to combine my passion for GIS with IT innovation. A few years ago, I swapped my GIS passion for people and right now this is my main point of focus.
What is the coolest thing you did since you started at TomTom? In December (12-14) TomTom will hold a 24h Hackathon, followed by a TomTom Day in Łódź. As part of the organization team, I know what’s coming and I can already tell you, we will have the most awesome event in the history of TomTom Łódź!
What do you think about on your way to work? I usually commute by bike; it wakes me up in the morning and relaxes me in the afternoon. Thanks to audiobooks, I can treat this time as "reading" time, diving deep into a story while speeding along on my bike.
What is the first thing you do when you arrive in the morning? I check my calendar and clean my inbox. In other words, I plan my day.
What do you prefer the most about the new office? I'm very happy that the entire TomTom Łódź team will be now located in one campus, as we were separated in multiple buildings before. This should support integration of all Łódź TomTom’ers from different PUs and TUs.
How long did it take you to move your stuff? My team will move in the third week of December, but I will probably need just 30 minutes to put my stuff in the box :)
What does your desk look like? Simple, lifted rectangular desk with two monitors and trinkets: lump of salt from Klodawa, picture of my wife, Tytus, Romek i A'tomek figures, a lot of pencils...
What is special to Łódź? Łódź is my hometown and I see how it is changing. Old factories are being renovated as the city center gets a new shine. Łódź is a place where almost on every step history meets the 21st century. Visit it in May or June and you won't regret it!
What is your favorite Polish meal? Mushroom soup. Real mushroom soup, not the one made from champignons. I'm thinking here about Autumn mushrooms, collected in the forest, like porcini and boletus.
What do you do when you’re not at work? I sail, ski, ride a bike, dive – but I have two big passions in my life: river Wisła and quadcopters. I believe that "navigare necesse est". Simply, I can't live without sailing. I sail on seas and lakes, but my favorite area is Wisła – the queen of rivers in Poland (1047 km).
Sailing on a river is tricky and risky, as literally everything is moving and you have to avoid submerged rocks, old sunken trees and sandbanks. I've combined this passion with my other interest – GIS – and I created, on my own, a river map as a navigation aid for sailors.
My second passion is relatively new and connected with building and flying quadcopters. It’s so much fun to see that you can build something that actually flies, and it flies fast! I'm using FPV goggles, so I feel like a pilot. My challenge for next year is to start participating in quadcopter racing.
Do you feel Lukasz and you could be desk friendly? Then you know what to do: visit our profile on Bulldogjob.