1. Who are you?
I’m Jaroslav Brož and I work for Dlubal one year and one month now.
2. What studies did you do, and how did you come to Dlubal?
I studied structural engineering at Czech Technical University in Prague. After graduation, I continued as PhD student at the Department of Mechanics. I did research related to computing of large-scale engineering problems on parallel computers. During my studies, I learnt programming and software development. After the defence of my thesis, I have decided to pursue a carrier of a software developer. I joined one company which develops applications for structural engineers. Here, I have learnt about real software development and product management. Then, I’ve got the opportunity to join the Dlubal team.
3. What are your tasks?
I’m a leader of one of the development teams. We, as a team, work on the development of our WebService, API and scripting, also for the import / export modules, links with third parties. As I’m leader of the team, my task varies, depending on the situation. I’m running the scrum meetings and I take care of the team and its members. I’m collecting demands and request from various colleagues and transform them into development tasks. Furthermore, I’m also writing a code in various programming languages to demonstrate the usage of our WebService / scripting capabilities. I’m also an evangelist of our products and I do presentations and partly the product marketing of our applications and tools to our clients and prospects. I’m also involved in the discussion about mutual collaboration with third parties. As you can see, a lot of tasks.
4. What is important in your job?
It is a nice and tricky question. I feel that the most important is to be a good leader and support your teammates. I see myself as a servant leader who help them to do their daily work as well as motivates and coach them. That’s important. Without a good team, you are not able to deliver any meaningful value.
5. What do you look forward to when you come into work in the morning?
I think it is the opportunity to work with smart, open-minded and enthusiastic people in my team. I’m also looking forward to learning new technologies, concepts as well as releasing and presenting of our work to various stakeholders.
6. What do you like about construction/BIM/statics in general?
I like the creativity of the structural engineering work. Every project is unique and brings new challenges. I see also an opportunity for our industry to be fully digital. The first steps are made with the help of the BIM. Nowadays, we can see a rise of innovative technologies like virtual & augmented reality – to present the building to the client from architect or the usage of the Artificial intelligence for the better designs – less waste of materials or spaces. I’m a big fan of the technology, and I’m glad that we as engineers to use them to produce better life and a sustainable environment.
7. What has been the best experience so far?
I cannot say the there is only one. There are several experiences which I want to mention. The first one is with my team. I was very exciting to go from establishing a new team to the fully productive team. That journey was one of the best experiences that I want to mention. I have learnt a lot. The second one relates to the promotion of our product. I got an opportunity to attend events for our clients, where I present our WebService as well as make a webinar. I was nicely surprised how many of our clients are active in the automatization or the usage of APIs to make their life easier. It was a nice AHA moment to realize that there is a movement to the digitalization and automatization. The last one relates to the business development, where we are meeting our possible collaboration partners, and we are discussing how we can put our solutions together and bring value to our mutual clients.
8. What is your hobby? How do you combine it with your job?
I’m an avid runner and swimmer. I’m doing these activities to free up my mind as a kind of meditation. I do not need to race with others. I set my own limits or challenges, and then I’m trying to break them / complete them. I also enjoy the spare time with my family. All of this is possible thanks to the flexible working time policy and home offices.
9. What advice would you give to young civil engineers and graduates for the future?
My advice is rather simple. Never stop learning and improving your skills. You never know, some skill or piece of the knowledge could bring you a big advantage soon. At least, this is my experience. I learnt programming while studying structural engineering. I used this skill to get the job of a developer. While I was a developer, I improved my soft skills and got the job of a product manager. Let me use a quote from Forrest Gump: “My mama always said, life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get.”
10. What is your favourite building?
It is Sagrada Família in Barcelona, Spain. I firstly saw this building when I was a young boy. I was fascinated with so complex shapes. It was one of the things which brought me to structural engineering.