Insider Story - Maurice Borgmeier

We, as tecRacer, thrive on our individual and unique employees. In our series “Insider Stories” Maurice will tell you how he found his way to the company as well as how he experiences working for tecRacer.

Who am I and where do I come from?

I’m Maurice and I was born in a region of Germany known for its outgoing people with a great sense of humor¹ - Ostwestfalen-Lippe (OWL). As a child I was fascinated with taking things apart (old electronics mostly) and trying to figure out how they work. Putting them back together - not so much. I also loved reading to the point where I avoided humans to spend more time with my books (I still occasionally do that, but it has gotten better).

I selected computer science as a subject when I was 11-12, mainly because my friends did the same. At that point I had little experience with computers beyond playing Age of Empires and building PowerPoint presentations with crazy animations for school. In the same year we also got our first “real” family laptop with the infamous Windows Vista and I was put in charge as the administrator without having a clue what that word actually meant.

I somehow got hooked to computers, programming and especially the internet. That led to me spending a lot of my time building little programs and bots. My parents recognized my interest (or wanted me out of the house) and organized for me to do an internship at a real company. There I met Sascha, a really nice guy, who taught me a lot and tolerated me hanging out there two afternoons a week for a few months. This experience was a big factor in my decision that computer science was something I wanted to focus on after school.

When it was time, I completed a dual degree with a large company in this area. I studied a mix of business and computer science and got a bachelor’s degree out of that. During this time, I was fortunate to have learnt from great colleagues and professors. I also found ways to explore different technologies that were sometimes even related to my job. After the degree I worked there for two years and learned about operating critical infrastructure. I also tried to (unsuccessfully) automate myself out of a job (especially the incident-at-2-am kinds of jobs), which was fun. At some point I got the opportunity to take part in an internal AWS training program.

How did I get to tecRacer?

That’s when I met tecRacer. I took part in two trainings by my now colleagues Thomas and Marco and was very impressed. The way they confidently explained this brave new world fascinated me and I learned a lot. I didn’t think I could ever do anything like that at the time, but that was to change. Since I had gotten hooked onto AWS, I did a few certifications and was eager to apply what I had learned.

Unfortunately, that proved difficult in my job at the time, so I started considering other opportunities. At some point I was contacted by a recruiter who was looking for someone to work as a Trainer and Consultant at a company that went all in on AWS and had a very high job satisfaction rating on Kununu. There aren’t many companies that match these descriptions and immediately I had my suspicions. Those were well founded, it was indeed tecRacer.

Then things happened very quickly. A few days later I had a first meeting with one of the managing directors in Duisburg and another 2-3 days after that with the team in Hannover. Coming from a large organization, I was very impressed with the speed and agility of the process. Meeting the team and learning about the kinds of things they do, made me want to become part of that organization. Fortunately tecRacer wanted the same thing and now I’ll have my two year anniversary here in a few weeks.

That means, I was unfortunate in not experiencing the famous application day from an applicants’ perspective. I’ve been on the other side a few times now and it’s always really cool (free pizza!). Getting to participate in choosing your coworkers is one of the things I really like about the company. It’s also a good example of the culture of participation we have at tecRacer.

My experience with tecRacer

As a native of OWL, I’m not very prone to outbursts of emotion, but it has been a really cool experience so far. In the first days I had doubts if I could do the job, because everybody seemed so much more knowledgeable than myself. At the same time I also felt at home and quickly realized that these are the kind of people I want to be around. People that enjoy learning, helping each other and trying out new technologies.

Since then the company has grown considerably and so have I (professionally). I’ve had the opportunity to work on interesting projects in different industries with colleagues from different backgrounds, which I value very much. They and the projects taught me a lot about AWS, Python, and many other technologies. I’ve started writing blogs, gave a conference talk last year (online) and delivered quite a few trainings, which I particularly enjoy.

In addition to the technology, what I value most are the people and culture at tecRacer. When we’re looking for new talent it’s important to us that we find people that we’d enjoy working together with. A strong background in technology is nice to have, but we also feel comfortable introducing smart people from different fields to the exciting world of cloud computing. You can learn more about this in the previous insider stories. I’m also continuously impressed by the level of trust that is extended to us as employees and the autonomy we have.

The only thing I don’t really like is that we often don’t get to talk about the kinds of projects we do because of NDAs. I understand the need for these. I’d just like to be able to share more to show others what kinds of things are possible.

Bottom line

One of our founders once said that his goal was to create a place where he can go every day to meet people that enjoy being there. Speaking for myself, tecRacer is such a place (although meeting in person has become a rare event in recent times).

If you are interested in learning more about us, take a look here: www.tecracer.de/jobs/