How is global software development business expanding in Serbia?
The development of IT in Serbia has started at breakneck speed in the past ten years. Serbia has positioned itself as one of the most important IT centers for global companies that employ experts for the development of software solutions. This led to the need for an increasing number of development centers, but not only that, but also to the decentralization of the industry. For developers, the rule does not apply - come to Belgrade to succeed, because the industry itself is also moving outside of Belgrade in search of new staff who want to stay in their cities. Niš, Zrenjanin and Novi Sad are just some of the examples that large IT hubs can function in other areas of Serbia as well.
Decentralization of the IT industry
We talked about this trend, as well as how the global business with software development is expanding in Serbia, with one of the world's largest players - Schneider Electric.
Namely, as Vladan Krsman, VP Operation Management League of Schneider Electric says, "Novi Sad has been a development center for Schneider Electric for several years now, where teams are engaged in research, development and software engineering in the field of power engineering. Based on the success of this team, we brought the decision to expand further, to use our knowledge, competencies, IT ecosystem for a wider portfolio of software products that fundamentally enable the effective decarbonization and electrification of the planet."
We saw a specific phenomenon with it - the expansion from Novi Sad to Belgrade. A well-established work system and excellent conditions made it possible to expand from HUB in Novi Sad to Belgrade in Serbia, where they opened offices before the pandemic.
Working on projects that affect life
Globally, there is a growing trend for developers to seek to work on projects that have a truly significant purpose for the life around us. At Schneider Electric, they gave developers the opportunity to participate in projects whose implementation will affect our environment. Following the trends, they saw that the dramatic increase in electric cars, as well as renewable energy sources, will significantly increase the needs of modern society for energy stability, and the existing power systems cannot withstand this. Right here in Novi Sad and Belgrade, developers have the opportunity to work on the development of the best solutions for the digitization of power systems.
Think globally, develop locally
Schneider Electric experienced its greatest success precisely by turning to the internal development of solutions for the global market. Their team in Novi Sad created the software solution ADMS (Advance Distribution Management System), which was declared the best in the Smart Grid IT field seven years in a row. In addition to this, they also developed AGMS (Advanced Gas Management System) and DERMS (Distributed Energy Resources Management System) solutions, which are recognized worldwide as advanced energy solutions. With this, they proved that it is possible to create a solution on the Serbian developer market that will have a global application. For example, this solution is used in more than 100 countries around the world, enables the management of electricity distribution systems and includes various analytical functions for the calculation and optimization of the work of electricity distribution companies, and achieves great savings not only in energy and time but also in the fact that continuously adapts to the goal that is important to everyone, which is sustainability.
Permanent development as a direction of sustainability
The mistake that many companies make is that after creating a good product, they neglect the development path of the company itself. This leads to stagnation, but also to the loss of employees because developers like to work on significant projects and thus get an opportunity for development. Therefore, the Schneider Electric team decided to work on expanding not only the team, but also the development of the products themselves. From this year, new opportunities are opening up, because Serbia will develop a large number of software for the global market in the field of Smart Grid. Of course, excellent information for all those who want to work on the development of new global software is to plan the expansion of the team specifically in the field of software engineering.
What are the new solutions from Schneider Electric kitchen?
What is being done in Serbia that can be placed on the global market? What technologies are used? The answers to these questions are provided by Schneider Electric and they give a sneak peek into what they are planning and the development of what kind of projects will be developed by the developer who sees them as a perfect match.
• Smart metering and related grid edge solutions. These are software solutions for collecting large amounts of information from measuring devices at the border of the infrastructure network (for example, power distribution networks) as well as behind energy flow meters (various devices inside buildings, industrial plants, etc.), analyzing that data and optimally managing the devices. This solution uses .NET and Java technologies and is in the early stages of cloud migration.
•Grid Asset Management solutions for monitoring and optimal maintenance of various assets connected to the infrastructure network (for example, a transformer in the power network). Here too, Microsoft technologies are represented, primarily .NET, and these solutions are already in an advanced stage of cloudification using the Azure platform.
• Microgrid solutions for optimal management of "small" electric energy networks that can be independent or connected to the distribution network. These solutions allow greater robustness of the electricity supply (if there is a failure of the distribution network, they can function independently), enable the electrification of places on the globe where it has been too expensive until now (for example, a lonely farm in the Australian desert miles away from any populated place ) and fit perfectly with increasingly available green energy sources such as solar panels, wind turbines and small hydroelectric plants supported by increasingly available batteries and other "storage" of electricity. This solution is based on open source and java technologies, from the start it was designed on the cloud (multivendor - AWS, Azure, Google) and consists of two components - on-premise controller and cloud analytics.
• Autodesk Revit module for the design of the electrical subsystem of buildings and the creation of a digital model. Autodesk Revit is the leading software for BIM (Building Information Management), and we recognized the opportunity to offer Revit users a significantly improved module for the design of electrical installations and devices. Buildings are becoming more and more demanding in terms of the electrical subsystem, they are no longer passive consumers of electricity, but renewable energy sources, batteries and systems for optimal management of the overall energy footprint are installed in them. Optimization is carried out on two grounds - reduction of CO2 emissions and optimization of costs. Technologies used here are .NET, Web, Cloud.
-Energy sage is a web portal that connects individual homeowners with solar panel installation service providers and allows users to get the best available contractor at the best possible price. In addition, the portal helps homeowners calculate the savings they can achieve by installing solar panels and advises how to use them optimally. There are great ambitions for further development and improvement of this platform, and as far as technologies are concerned, Python/Django, Javascript, cloud and the hosting platform is AWS.
•IGE-XAO is a software solution for the design of electrical distribution boxes/panels for any purpose (residential and commercial buildings, industrial plants, ships, airplanes, cars ...). Microsoft technologies .NET C# and Azure platform are used.
Step into the world of software development
If your adrenaline has jumped from the desire to work on such exciting projects or you have the desire to use a wide range of technologies that will be used from embedded software, through near real-time, IoT solutions to the cloud and artificial intelligence, as well as a wide range of programming languages and associated technologies such as Python, Java, various platforms for the development of web and mobile applications and Microsoft technologies (.NET, ASP.NET, C/C++, etc.) then we have good news for the very end of the text.
Schneider Electric currently has various open positions and they are accepting multiple applicants for each position. And if it turns out that you are a perfect match - we at Joberty will be overjoyed to have helped you find the right match.
