Meet Søren Lisby Schmidt – Consultant in Copenhagen
Hello Søren! Can you tell us a bit about yourself?
I was born and raised in Esbjerg in the western part of Denmark, but moved to Copenhagen to study at the Technical University of Denmark. Now I live in a Copenhagen suburb with my wife (we recently married, the picture is from our wedding!) and two daughters.
A lot of my time is spent with the kids or on work around the house. When possible I enjoy nice food, board games and drinks with close friends. I also enjoy playing table tennis, shuffle board or pool for fun. It's also worth mentioning that I follow MMA and Danish football closely.
I've been working primarily with back-end development in C# .NET for more than 10 years. I've always liked computers and gaming. And I guess my interest in coding emerged when my father started poking around with creating a basic website in HTML when I was a kid.
Why should one work at Cygni according to you?
In short, because of the culture. The blend of people's technical skill level, dedication to learning, and the social activities is just really nice. People are ambitious, but the atmosphere and work-life balance are really good at the same time. It's a great place to work regardless of your age or level of experience.
The hierarchy is very flat, and there's no focus on titles. So it might not be for everyone in that regard. Also, I really like that you don't feel like just another number in an endless line of consultants. It's more personal and with focus on how you want to develop and work. Getting to choose your own hardware is a great perk as well. Some people are still surprised to see a .NET developer working on a MacBook Pro. :)
Another nice memory is actually the technical interview when I was recruited myself. It might sound strange, but I was impressed by how it was conducted and the pleasant atmosphere. I felt that I was doing well, but also that I could learn a lot at Cygni. I immediately got the impression that people at Cygni are very skilled and down-to-earth at the same time.
What is your role at Cygni, and what might a typical workday look like for you?
Since joining Cygni my role has been to act as a software developer and consultant. So far I've been on a single long-running assignment, which is with a large Swedish client. Tech-wise I do back-end work in C# .NET 8 on Azure cloud. It's a good fit for me and I'm really happy to be there. It's also really cool that the client embraces the use of Github Copilot!
I work remotely on my assignment, so I go to the Cygni Copenhagen office on a typical day. Sometimes I work from home and having that flexibility is very nice, especially as a parent. The client uses the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), but my team is quite pragmatic in day to day work. We have a daily stand-up meeting at 9:30, and generally try to avoid filling our calendars with too many meetings. So a lot of time for coding-related tasks, but also a large backlog and some time spent on operations each week.
Speaking of my role at Cygni: Very recently plans have been announced for me to also move into a team lead role at the Cygni Copenhagen office, which will be an exciting addition!
What is your best memory from Cygni?
That's actually a tough question. Cygny's luxurious trip to Kitzbühel for the entire company back in March was an obvious highlight. Being part of the Cygni Copenhagen office from the beginning, with sort of a start-up feel too it, has been exciting as well. Contributing to building a culture, recruiting people etcetera.
Another nice memory is actually the technical interview when I was recruited myself. It might sound strange, but I was impressed by how it was conducted and the pleasant atmosphere. I felt that I was doing well, but also that I could learn a lot at Cygni. I immediately got the impression that people at Cygni are very skilled and down-to-earth at the same time.