Marek

Before I joined the firm, I was a software developer at a telecom company. In university, I didn’t consider working for a bank, as I thought you needed a background in finance. But the firm ended up being a great fit for me. The type of development I do here is similar to what I worked on for more than a decade at other places.

For computer science majors, working at a bank is a great option. As in my case, you don’t need a background in finance. I’ve heard from other developers who think that things move more slowly in large corporations like banks. At Goldman Sachs, I’ve found it to be the opposite. The firm is organized in a way that, as a software engineer, I have a lot of independence and influence. When I have an idea, I can work with my team and others to roll it out quickly. We’re very much on the cutting edge of pushing computer science forward.

Since I joined in 2016, the product I work on has grown significantly. I’m part of the Workflow global team, and we develop a platform that helps other teams around the firm make decisions about trades, reporting, and more. The platform is a centralized RESTful cluster implemented in Java. When I first joined, there were fewer than 20 client applications using it for around 100k executions a day. Now, we have 70 clients and more than 250 million executions a day.

Coming in to Goldman Sachs was such a positive experience. I find the firm to be organized, efficient, and inclusive, with a strong focus on communication and teamwork. We spend plenty of time as a team, talking through why we’re making certain decisions.

The firm values staying connected to the broader software community. As part of our commitment to open source, we manage an open jDMN library on GitHub. We also present our work at prestigious technical conferences. It’s a true benefit of working here, that I get the opportunity to support not only internal clients at Goldman Sachs but also my external peers around the world. We have a significant footprint and visibility.

When I’m not at my desk, I spend time with my family, my wife and two young daughters. I also have several hobbies, including running 10k’s and playing classical guitar. On weekends, I head up to my small vineyard, 300km south of Warsaw. We’ve had the vineyard for five years and it’s our second year producing wine (two-thirds red and one-third white).