Building innovative e-commerce platforms at delaware

Hi guys! Let’s first go back to your first days at delaware. How did you experience them?

“The onboarding process was thoroughly organized by HR and the support team. During the first week we got to participate in a business game and joined some informal networking sessions to get to know all starters and new team members”, Viktor and Dieter tell us. “I immediately joined the team after my internship at delaware”, Thiebout adds. “During my traineeship, I had a conversation with our solution lead at the time, Christoph Bogaerts, during which he presented me with the projects the Commerce team was currently working on and I was immediately triggered. Not much later, I received a personal offer by HR, which I accepted on the same day”.

What do you enjoy most about working at delaware?

“Our delaware values are truly reflected in how we work at delaware”, says Viktor. “We work with very down-to-earth people who are experts in their field. We develop our skills very quickly because our customers encourage us to reach the best possible result and to try out new things”. Dieter and Thiebout fully agree. “In a fast-moving technological landscape, learning is the only constant to become the ‘best possible you’. At delaware, you can enroll in different hard and soft skills courses or obtain certificates offered by third parties. As SAP Commerce is a big platform, every day gives you opportunities to learn new things”. But, there is more than only training. “When you start working at delaware, you get a buddy who guides you through the first months. In addition, we are regularly coached and guided by our managers in developing new skills, setting objectives for projects or career advice. You’re never on your own, even during corona times.”

What do you appreciate most about your SAP Commerce team?

“Our team consists of people who are passionate about their job”, says Thiebout. “There is a lot of room for feedback, an occasional joke or to share some good food every now and then”. Viktor is, after his starters bootcamp, already looking forward to his new projects and opportunities in 2021 to reach for the highest peak together with his team of sherpa’s. “They are all very open to share their knowledge and experiences, to help me grow further in my role and career at delaware”.

How do you spend your working day? What are the typical activities?

“We usually start our day by checking emails or Teams notifications. Afterwards, it’s time for daily stand-ups. These short meetings make sure you are supported to continue your development or customer work, as your progress on technical or project topics are discussed”, Thiebout explains. “There, I can signal any difficulties to my senior colleagues or manager and we call afterwards to move things forward. When a feature is developed, we move on to a review with a functional colleague to check if the solution behaves as expected”, says Dieter. “Given our agile methodology, we also spend time in sprint planning, refinement and retrospective meetings. Other activities in the team include solving bugs in SAP Commerce or demo the results during sprint reviews with customers.”

Which skills or (tool) knowledge are required to do your job?

“We mainly use Java as a programming language in combination with HTML/JS/CSS. Our most-used working tools - that run perfectly on our Macbook Pro by the way - are IntelliJ, GIT repo and Atlassian”, says Dieter. “In terms of hard skills, it’s important to have a good knowledge of object-oriented programming”, Thiebout adds. “We develop in Java and use the Spring framework quite a lot. I wasn’t familiar with this framework before starting, but picked this up on the job. In terms of soft skills, communication is key. You should be able to talk about technical topics with functional people who don’t have any experience with coding. It’s also useful to understand customer needs and to be able to translate these into a solution”.

What does it mean for you to be successful?

“Most obviously I would consider myself successful when we can help our customers in improving their business process and add more value. A specific example is a project during which our team drastically decreased the number of calls to the customer service of our client, because their customers could now do more on the platform themselves”, Thiebout tells us. Dieter and Viktor nod in agreement. “It’s a great feeling when, at the end of the day, you can be really proud of the work that you and your colleagues delivered together, and your customers are satisfied with the achieved results”. Dieter made an internal switch at delaware and had to start to learn the technology from scratch. “If you’re motivated to take a deep-dive in programming, it’s all possible at delaware. And luckily, you also have your colleagues to support you – that’s really what separates delaware from our main competitors!”

We’re looking for new (experienced) colleagues to join the SAP Commerce team. Do you want to meet Viktor, Thiebout or Dieter in real-life and work together on innovative projects? Apply for a spot as Java Commerce Developer.