Building systems from scratch in telecoms

Elena Tassy Kokkalou is HR manager at Ceranext

Ceranext designs smart, tailor-made, communication solutions that provide cutting-edge operational advantages. Our bright team strives to invent, shape and customise solutions which cope with global modern challenges more efficiently than ever before. Ceranext’s mission is to provide communication when it is not available, and to prevent communication when such is used for unlawful applications.

Developers at Ceranext build telecommunications systems from scratch. These are often used for law enforcement or military applications, so the levels of quality and security are the highest.

“Finding experienced developers who can work in these specialized areas is challenging, because the qualifications are very specific. Our main team consists of very senior people whom is challenging to retain, and then we have more junior staff who are excellent team members, but it takes some time in order to be able to undertake all of the challenges we face,” Kokkalou explains.

“We work very hard to recruit these senior developers. But retention is an issue: The market moves fast; the demand is high and because of that its easier for these occupations to change working place. We faced cases that developers stayed for one – two years.” she adds.

In the five years she’s worked at Ceranext, Kokkalou says that she has learned a lot. What she would like to apply more is recruiting using social media. “We’re not yet doing it enough, but it is often the way to reach experienced developers.’’

Today, in the modern employment market, it is not just the compensation that keep employee engaged, it is also the company culture and work interest. The nature of the work we do enables them to enrich their skills and advance their careers. What is also important is to provide a great deal of flexibility in their working environment. When we can reach the right people, they get very excited.”

Kokkalou says that she is working to improve retention, and helping developers to connect with the IT community, as well as with other likeminded individuals and families, is a major step in keeping them on the island.