Be the Ball
Every year we hold a number of SEC's (Software Engineering Conferences) around the world. The goal of these conferences is to build internal communities of experts and to share experiences amongst our best and brightest engineers, designers, architects and business people.
This year for the first time in our history (20+ years) we held our winter SEC in North America, to be more precise, at The Filmore in Philadelphia (http://www.epam.com/ideas/videos/software-engineering-conference-winter-2016?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=SEC2016). The event itself and the venue selected, while very close to our global headquarters in Newtown PA, couldn't be further from the traditional image of EPAM. It got me thinking about how much things have changed and how much they really haven't.
First for the changes: We are starting to become 'cool' - man-bun toting, beard-growing, branded euro-geeks. Our meetings are held at rock venues and we chow down gummy bears while doing Virtual Reality demos. We haven't quite become 'too much' - no significant glass-holes abound (those are google-glass-wearing people walking into walls), but we have taken that all important step to recognize that form and expression matter and that engagement is driven by interesting people, working on exciting projects who can actually give good talks. For some people like me, this shift is mind-blowing and I can't wait to come to work to see what's next. For others, I'm guessing here - they feel like the true EPAM is behind us and we maybe lost our way a little. Pshaw!, I say to that - that's fear talking and maybe a little bit of age and tiny bit of ego too. We can change ourselves as surely as we change our customers' organizations. We just need to decide we want to change our mind first, and the rest will follow.
Next to what hasn't changed at all: We had several very, very important customers at our conference this month and if there is one thing we do better than most (I hope) is listen. One incredibly articulate and brilliant CTO of the quintessential Canadian retailer told us to look in the mirror and realize that we are not just a Software Engineering company, but rather we have become a Solutions company. We were so touched by this clearly stated truth that we went back thinking that our transformation was finally complete. I especially thought about how this could mean that we've transcended a world where we were providing the best Talent into a world where we suddenly provide Solutions. After all, solutions are things that everyone wants and needs and who doesn't want to provide solutions to the myriad of difficult problems disrupting entire industries out there?
But then I looked at some of our old pictures from when EPAM was a brand new and fledgling company - pictures of people who helped engineer their way out of impossible software challenges, people who took incredible risks and liberties to push the limits of our growth, and those who spent all of their time and creative capacity to build the company we are today. It dawned on me then, that we were never about just engineering talent or expediency, nor were we looking to provide solutions precisely. The people we were, and still are today - are people who look for problems that others would avoid because those problems are interesting and they make us sweat and stay up late and push for breakthroughs. We are not today, nor will we ever be, people who just throw the ball in the game of success. We ARE the ball! We may be providing solutions and certainly that's better than just billing time, but we are and have always been a People company and as we say still on our new-ish and cool-ish website - the Team You Build, Is the Company You Build and our Solutions are our People.