Growth, Experience, and Empathy — Maciej’s Qualtrics Story

I'm a person who loves harmony and I'd love it if everything had its place, time, form, and meaning. That is of course not the case with 99.99% of things in the world, but every such one is inspiring me to build more of them.

I'm happy to say the place I work, Qualtrics, is aligned with my internal call to improve things.  We give companies knowledge, tools, services, and benchmarks - all of which is for them to become better - for their customers and for their employees.

What attracted you to Qualtrics and why are you still here?

It's people — I like to work with people smarter than me, as only then I can learn and grow. I've heard many positive opinions about those who were already recruited (I was applying a few months after the Krakow office was opened) so I decided to give it a shot, as I felt I stopped growing in my current job. I've been at Qualtrics for almost 4 years now and I must say I learned a ton during this time and the process didn't stop - that's in short why I'm still here. Additionally, my expectation about smart people was definitely verified positively. 

What was the turning point where you knew you 'had to have the job' at Qualtrics?

I think I became convinced I want to work for Qualtrics during its opening party at Manggha Center, when during the talk of the Krakow Site Leader - Piotr Uryga - he mentioned the importance of a high hiring bar as the "company culture eats the strategy for breakfast". I agreed and after a few discussions with Qualtrics people I felt that culture and it aligned with my expectations. 

What does your day look like?

As an engineering manager I have some 1:1s with my team members focused on their growth and whatever is most important for them, a team chat about one or two current initiatives - clarifying some requirements or adjusting scope if needed, some discussions with different stakeholders about their priorities, quick look at operational metrics - if everything is OK, a meeting of one of Qualtrics' QGroups I like to attend (i.e. Krakow Diversity, Equity & Inclusion) and a coffee (or three!) with Qualtrics friends from other teams, so we stay in touch and know what happens in our teams. It's hard to be bored!

What is your favorite part of your role?

My career at Qualtrics has been full of turns: I was hired as an engineer, but after a few months I switched roles to a Product Manager for 3 years. At the beginning of 2022 I switched again to Engineering Manager. It's great that Qualtrics gives me this ability to grow and learn different skills in different roles. The best part about being an engineering manager for me is to see how people on your team grow — and the satisfaction that the part of it is because of you. 

What life advice would you give to people?

Do not hesitate to reach out to some folks working here to ask for candid feedback. Prepare for interviews. Once hired, do not get buried in day-to-day activities, think which of them make an impact and make you grow. Ask yourself what you want to do. Do your job well. Get involved in additional activities that will make you grow even more. Prioritize monthly. Prioritize weekly. Prioritize daily. Aim high. 

What has surprised you most about working at Qualtrics?

How quickly the company grows and how it maintains its culture. When I joined in 2018 there were ~2,000 employees worldwide and 40 in Krakow, Poland. 4 years later we have >6,000 and >200. 

What made you want to get into software engineering?

I'm not very original — I like to solve problems in a good quality way, feeling autonomy — that's what brought me into engineering. After a couple of years I wanted to be involved in more than "just solving problems" and understand the bigger picture, and that brought me into both product and engineering management.

What are your aspirations in career/life?

Tough question. I aspire to be a good person, good husband, good father. I'd love to have a positive impact/influence on others and help them to discover their strengths, unify, build, create more harmony in the world, and be empathetic. 

What is your top #LifeHack?

Put yourself in other shoes often. It will make you only better, and the chance is, others around you will get better as well.

What's an impactful moment from your time at Qualtrics so far?

The most impactful moment for me in Qualtrics was shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine this year (2022). A few folks from Qualtrics started to look for an opportunity how Qualtrics can help Ukrainian refugees and found a way to use our platform to help Lithuanian Red Cross in a couple of their Refugee Centers — automatizing and centralizing their process. This initiative ended up as a very intense — a couple of weeks project with more than 60 Qualtrics people involved and it was a great honor and pleasure to work with all of them and use my product manager skills for this great cause. 

How have you become involved in the community at Qualtrics? What has that meant to you? 

As I often tend to look for more than it's described in my current role description, the process of becoming involved in community groups was quite natural for me. I'm involved now in Krakow Diversity, Equity & Inclusion and Krakow Mental Wellness groups. This is a great way of having more impact on employees/company and an opportunity to meet new people and do something good. 

What 3 words would you use to describe Qualtrics to someone?

GROWTH, EXPERIENCE, EMPATHY. 

How do you feel you've been able to apply what you studied at school to your career?

I can definitely say studies helped me in 2 ways: they showed that I can work hard if I need to and show many technologies / areas thanks to which I try to stay open minded and always think about alternatives. One could argue if studies are required to achieve it - I guess not, but definitely helpful in structuring this knowledge.

What's a myth about your type of job that you'd like to bust? Or about working at Qualtrics?

Myth: "Engineering Manager is the only way to progress in career/compensation once you're Senior Software Engineer". While true in some companies, I'm happy to say this is not the case with Qualtrics. We know if this were to be true, we may lose great engineers and gain unhappy managers who can even make the whole team unhappy. Nobody wants that. Fortunately we have the opportunity for IC (Individual Contributors) to be promoted while staying on the IC path, which (although it's not my career path) is great and many people value it highly.

Qualtrics is growing, and if you're ready to find your "why" at a place like this, you can explore our open opportunities at any time by visiting our career page or by joining our talent community.

Maciej Węglarczyk is an alumnus of AGH - University of Science and Technology and started his career at GameDesire - a small game dev company from Krakow. Some time ago there was a movie being filmed in his city and the crew was looking for German Shepherd dogs for a few scenes. Maciej applied with his parents' dog and his role was to take care of the dog, but in the end it turned out Maciej played in it and the dog did not.

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