Ukrainian Adventure Engineer in PayrollHero Singapore

Announcing Our Latest Import
Capture MYKOLA KYRYK

Our #AdventureEngineering message has reached far and wide! Software developers who have heard about PayrollHero’s Adventure Engineering have written to us, aspiring to be part of the team.

“I felt like it was a perfect match
from the moment I saw this video”
Mykola Kyryk

Here’s what Mykola did to catch our attention from his point of view:

Mykola: We had a couple sessions of remote pairing/discussion sessions. All people I talked to were very interesting interlocutors and I felt like I could bring a lot of value into the team.

Mykola spills the beans about his home country and moving to Singapore.

Tell me about your hometown. How many people are there?
Mykola: I’m from Lviv, Ukraine. It is a nice ancient city (founded in 1256). This city was part of Poland, Hungary, Austria and Russia for many years. So the country side has mixed architecture and culture with a population of around 850,000.

What kind of things you like to do back at home?
Mykola: Besides IT? Well a lot actually. I play basketball and travel a lot. In the last 2 years I’ve been to 8 different countries. I like different extreme activities. I’ve already tried scuba diving, skydiving and caving. I also like to ride my bike and go skiing.

What did the people closest to you say about your plan to move to Singapore to be a PayrollHero Adventure Engineer?
Mykola: That I was mad 😉  Some were surprised that I’m going that far away from my homeland. Most knew nothing about Singapore at all.

What were your first thoughts on Singapore after you’ve arrived?
Mykola: It is hot here! I went from +12 to +32 in 20 hours. Now I don’t find it hot anymore. I was also amazed with how structured and well organized everything is. Really convenient place to be.

What you think about the food and the hawker centers?
Mykola: Like nothing like I’m used to. Ton of options, any cuisine, for any taste. I’m still far from saying I’m used to all of this, but I love the adventure of it all. Hawker centers are great and also cheap!

Do you like the beaches in Singapore?
Mykola: That was the first thing I did when I arrived. I didn’t know how to get to the beaches so I spent almost 2 hours walking there. Night swimming is prohibited here, but I got what I came for. Beaches are really nice, especially at Sentosa island.

Was it easy for your to get your Singapore Employment Pass (EP)?
Mykola: I got mine while I was still in Ukraine. It was really a really quick and straightforward process. Once I arrived I had to go to the Ministry of Manpower to finalize the paperwork and got my EP card in 5 days. Amazingly quick and efficient.

What do you miss about home?
Mykola: I don’t really have time to miss about anything. Singapore is an amazing place. And there is still so many places I want to go and things I want to try. Of course, miss my family, but Skype helps to stay in touch. Hope to see them soon.


Did you know,… We’re Hiring! 

Wanna be an Adventure Engineer with PayrollHero? Check out our job openings and get in touch!

Whistler, British Columbia: The Best Place For A Startup

As a technology startup on the west coast of Canada, most people would expect that we’re based in Vancouver. Which isn’t a bad guess really considering that Vancouver has incubated some amazing startups, including Hootsuite and 7Geese. But, as awesome as Vancouver is, we decided to buck the trend and move 90 minutes north to a resort town called Whistler – and here’s 3 reasons why:

1. Adventure Engineering

We’re looking for Adventure Engineers who are as comfortable in the bike park as they are leading an orchestra of disruption with RoR, JS or another weapon of choice from your vast array of code bases.
Never seen Whistler Bike Park? Watch this video.

– Ad-ven-ture En-gin-neer-ing                                                                                            Noun: An unusual and exciting experience or activity built around a flexible work schedule

Adventure Engineering is just as much a lifestyle choice as it is a set of personality traits a person must have to be successful in a startup. Adventure Engineers have a thirst for learning, for experiencing new things and they actively seek discomfort over predictable situations – these are the very foundations that PayrollHero was built on. After living in Whistler for many years I realized that the town’s transient, travelling, adrenaline junkie (and extremely well educated) community was naturally breeding the Adventure Engineers I needed. I just had to convince them to stop travelling (for a short-time), not to go back to their existing jobs and to stay in Whistler with PayrollHero.

To attract and retain the best software engineers we started offering full time and flexi-time working hours, with great success. We then added our Adventure Engineers in Residence (EIR) program with the purpose of:

1.Cultivating our thirst for learning by bringing different methods to the table and new ways of thinking from across the globe

2. Enabling engineers from different cultural backgrounds and experiences to join us at PayrollHero, without the pressure of making a permanent move to Canada

Our first Adventure EIR, who is currently making a very big impression, is Dane Natoli from Australia – you can read more about his story, here.

Sound like something you’re interested in? Get in touch, and if we think you’re the right fit we can help you move to Whistler. We have excellent relationships with local immigration lawyers who are experts in working holiday visas, permanent residency and citizenship.

2. Jam with Incredibly Smart, Entrepreneurial People from all over the World

Most people who travel to Whistler have one thing in common – they’re all pretty damn smart! And I’m not talking about university smart, I’m talking about entrepreneurial smart. They have masters and doctorates; want to run or currently do run their own business; and are usually here on some kind of sabbatical or a career break. Whistler is a fruitful intersection of international disciplines and skills that is ripe for the picking.

We feed off this at PayrollHero. France, Australia, Poland, India, England and Canada are just some of the countries representing the team in our Whistler office; and each person brings their own unique brand of knowledge, experience and wisdom from their respective corner of the globe. In an environment that promotes high levels of developer collaboration and has constant focus on improvement it’s easy for creativity and innovation to spread through our products like wildfire.

3. Happy People make Happy Employees

Whistler Blackcomb in full summer bloom

Whistler in the full bloom. Taken from the top of Flank Trail on Sproatt Mountain

Vancouver is constantly listed as one of the top 10 most ‘liveable’ cities in the world, and one of the reasons is its proximity to the mountains and to world class ski resorts such as Whistler. So we skipped Vancouver and came right to the source.

Video on Whistler summer

Biking, golf, lake swimming, hiking, skiing  frisbee golf, bear watching and more, whistler has it all. Watch this video and experience a small fraction of summer in Whistler

With endless activities and flexi-time at work, we encourage everyone at PayrollHero to exercise their brains outdoors, as well as at the office. Here’s just a few examples of what we have to play with:

Einstein on a bike

Even Einstein rode bikes to help fuel his creative thinking!

I like to think we’re running PayrollHero in the spirit of the book, Let My People Go Surfing by Yvon Chouinard. To get a better idea of how easy going life is at our office, read my other blog post: Do You Work to Live or Live to Work?

Having said that, don’t be fooled into thinking that every day is a holiday, here. We play hard and we work hard. If this sounds like the kind of environment your talents could thrive in, get in touch!