Thangavel Vaiyapuri is a highly valued DevOps engineer and a real sweetie! We had a chat about his time at Sweet Systems so far and what he feels is the work culture here.
Hi Thangavel, you are a most appreciated DevOps engineer at Sweet. How long have you worked here?
– I have worked at Sweet since August 2021. Recently I got promoted as Head of Azure Operations and DevOps, so I have been in my new role for a couple of months. I’m in the same area of business, DevOps, but with some more responsibilities such as Azure operations.
How was it to start at Sweet in August 2021, can you tell me about Sweet’s onboarding process?
– When I started, I got two fantastic intro-buddies, Linda and Jimmy. Jimmy gave me an introduction about Microsoft Azure and Linda about DevOps activities. The onboarding concept is very good at Sweet. In some companies, it’s like, here is your desk and computer – start working. Here you have an onboarding process for two weeks and intro-buddies. Both Linda and Jimmy where so great to me during my onboarding. They guided me so well that I had a very smooth transition and felt confident to start my tasks at the end of the onboarding process. The two-week introduction period makes you understand both the company, our products, and our purpose.
What have you learned during your time at Sweet?
– A lot! After coming to Sweet I had to learn new things about servers, site management and backups & SQL-management. It has been a nice learning since I started, and I feel incredibly happy to be able to keep on learning new things. One of the reasons I chose to work at Sweet Systems was that I could see there were new areas for me to learn.
How is the work culture at Sweet?
– Good question! I wanted to talk about that because it’s so important. At Sweet the culture is good. The people here are super sweet, kind and help and support each other. My managers support me and ensure that I´m not stressed. One way they do this is by being good at giving me a heads up that this and that will come my way next week, so that I can prepare and be ready. Nothing gets thrown on me the same day as a surprise. I really like working in the Sweet environment where everything is planned, and people support each other. It’s a lovely experience for me.
I understand that work-life-balance is important at Sweet and everybody here makes it easy to have full focus on work during regular hours and then be able to focus on family and the rest of your life after working hours. It works best when this is separated and not in a constant mix, and that’s easy to do at Sweet. I don’t have to take work to home after evening or on the weekends. I have worked with IT for 13 years and Sweet Systems is the best workplace I’ve been in during that time.
Sweet is both a fun-loving place and a wonderful place to learn.
Have you had any surprises during your time at Sweet?
– Mainly, All the super friendly colleagues. There are so many fun people here! Always supporting each other and ready for some fun time, like after-works. We have organized one afterwork a month, which is good for relaxing and getting to know your colleagues outside the work environment.
– Another surprise is the trust. The managers have trust in every employee. That’s a big thing, I think. I get a lot of responsibility and with that a lot of trust. That feels good. And it’s trust both ways. If I do feel stressed or overwhelmed about something, I immediately tell my manager because I know he will listen and help me, he always does.
What is your expectations going forward?
– With my new role, I have more responsibility and want to contribute more. Over the next few weeks, I want to keep contributing in our “SaaS” approach. I’m also looking forward on optimizing costs regarding cloud environment and optimizing the onboarding process for new customers is also something I’m looking forward to work with.
Do you see yourself staying in Sweden?
– Yes! Me and my family have lived here for four years now, and we are all incredibly happy with that. So, I feel that we probably will stay here much longer than we first expected. My colleagues help me to get better at the Swedish language. They have great patience, talking Swedish slowly to me, and listening to my replies that probably sounds both funny and childish. But it really helps me getting better at Swedish, and I’m very thankful to them.
– Sweet is simply a wonderful place to work!
