Our IT department is growing and looking for talents to join the team. CTO Marco Kunze told us what the day-to-day work and tasks in IT at XOM Materials look like. He is Chief Technical Officer (CTO) at XOM Materials and is responsible for the construction and technical implementation of XOM products.
Marco, can you briefly introduce yourself to the readers?
Sure. My name is Marco Kunze and I have been living in Berlin for over 20 years. I moved here from Bad Schwartau for my computer science studies. After a short stopover in Shanghai, I enjoy living in this diverse city with my wife and our two children.
How long have you been working at XOM Materials and what are your responsibilities?
I have been with XOM since mid-2019. As CTO, I am in charge of the IT department. On the one hand, this means that I take care of organizing and building the product and development teams. It is always close to my heart that the employees can identify with their work, know how they contribute to the big picture and have fun at work.
On the other hand, I am very much involved with our products, XOM eShop and XOM eProcurement. Here the focus is particularly on our goals for these products and how we can bring the best value to our customers. Technical topics like technology stack, resilience, scaling and data security also belong to this aspect of course.
Can you describe your typical workday?
I don't really have a typical workday - and I like that. From strategic topics to technical deep dives, it's all there. As CTO, I'm involved in a lot of topics and have a lot of meetings with colleagues and partners. I really appreciate the exchange and the short communication channels.
What else makes working at XOM IT special?
With IT, we are very close to the customer and the pulse of the company. Through the close exchange, we manage to work efficiently and with high quality. We build something, roll it out and immediately see the added value of it for our partners and users - that's fun for everyone involved. Our partners are often not used to being involved in the development process, user tests and feedback sessions. But they are quickly convinced of this approach.
We work in a very exciting environment. A large part of the materials industry is still offline. There is room for change, the potential is huge.
– Marco Kunze, CTO XOM Materials
How exactly does the IT team work at XOM Materials?
Our teams are built around our products - XOM eShop and XOM eProcurement. We work closely with Scrum, a method for agile product and project management. The goal is to always allow the teams to work in a focused way. At the same time, good exchange within the team and with the other departments is really important. We rely on modern cloud technologies that make our lives easier and offer our customers high reliability. Thanks to these technologies, the transition to working exclusively from home due to the COVID pandemic went very quickly and smoothly.
What makes XOM Materials a special employer in your eyes?
We work in a very exciting environment. A large part of the materials industry is still offline. There is room for change, the potential is huge. It is fascinating to act in this environment as a small, flexible, fast start-up. On top of that, XOM cares a lot about its employees. Especially during the Corona period, we always try to make the teams' lives, which are complicated anyway, more pleasant.
And what do you do when you are not working?
Since we have two small children, we don't really have time for hobbies – and we have enough fun with them as it is. When my kids don't manage to get me physically exhausted, I always find it great to enjoy nature on relaxed runs.
Thank you very much for the interview!
We are looking for more talents to join our IT department. You can find our open positions here.
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