Laser-focused on helping teams position themselves and expand on the market, Marko Zdravkovski, Engineering Manager at HTEC Group, located in Skopje, North Macedonia, has had a tremendous experience in enabling companies to drive growth globally. We talked with Marko about his career, education, and his decision to join HTEC’s thriving culture and contribute to its growth in the long run.
Inspired by people’s culture, ground-breaking projects with the leading clients and high tech solutions HTEC delivers, Marko got really enthusiastic about joining the HTEC growing team and becoming part of HTEC’s mission to make an impact across industries worldwide. We bring you his story.
Educational Path
Marko was first drawn by the world of technology when he was only a kid — when he got his Commodore 64 and spent hours playing games on it. His curiosity boosted his creativity, and he actually programmed one of the games.
“I programmed a simple version of a tic-tac-toe game, where you could play with another player or against the computer, and this is how it all started. Later on I decided to become a member of what was then called “Narodna Tehnika” where I learned the basics of informatics. In parallel to that I started learning languages.
So to sum it up, I had three passions when I was a kid — one was computers, the second one was languages, and the third came later in high school, and it was psychology. All these three combined created a synergy that powered me to do what I do today.”
When it comes to college education, Marko explains that he went back and forth to the university. At that time, the biggest challenge in education was the gap between what was needed in the market and what universities had to offer.
“There was a lack of curricula at the universities that could help you with it, and you had to do pretty much all of it yourself. To research. The Internet was just in its early age, and only a handful of people in the universities had Internet accounts. That’s when I decided I am not ready to step into this world yet. However, I did come back years later to finish it because I wanted to wrap up on the projects that were sitting on the shelf for too long. You just don’t leave things unfinished. That’s my motto, so I got back and overcame the challenges I came across on this journey. It was hard, but it was worth it.”
Driving Career Growth
With the burning desire to become a part of the world of opportunities IT offers, Marko started building his career as a software developer early and got his first real job in this field of expertise. Soon after, he started leading teams as a project manager.
“I was a software developer, and started with programming languages that are not much used now. When we started, there were only desktop applications. The Internet and web applications came later. Gradually, I started joining different teams, and, at one point, started leading some of those teams. That’s when I switched to project management and did that for several years, and eventually moved forward to leading bigger teams. At that point, I started working as a division manager, leading a team of roughly 100 people helping the company I worked for expand on different markets within the region and different countries. That led to taking upon the role of expansion manager, where I led a team of different verticals, like recruiters, marketing people, H.R., worked together with business divisions and logistics, managing specific activities aimed at capacity growth of the company. After that, I kind of went into a completely different business domain, and it was very interesting to be a part of it. This is when my career changed. I spent three years in the defense and space industry before I joined HTEC Group.”
Joining HTEC Group
Marko’s experience with HTEC Group started when Marko Anic, Engineering Manager at HTEC, contacted him explaining that the HTEC Group is going to expand their office in Skopje.
“At the time I was not sure I wanted to leave the defense industry, but after having a few long calls with Marko, I was invited to meet Darko, Srdjan and Vlada and the rest is history. So, now three months later, we are making history together 🙂.”
When asked what made him decide to join HTEC Group, Marko said that it is really hard for him to choose one thing. So, he singled out three things why he believes that being a part of the HTEC’s mission is the right thing to do.
“It’s very hard for me to explain the reason why I joined HTEC Group in just one sentence, but I’ll try to make it simple. When I talked with the leadership about HTEC and its vision, I saw how passionate these guys were about the things they want to achieve. I was impressed by three things, people-centric culture, groundbreaking projects and leading clients, and high technology. And when I joined HTEC, it turned out that this is not only a fairytale but a mission implemented in all the verticals of the HTEC Group.
The first thing that caught my attention were the people and the way they treat each other. HTEC Culture is very supportive and people-centric, and I’ve always loved and admired this.
The second thing are the clients and the top-tier companies HTEC has been and is working with. More importantly, I was fascinated with how projects are hand-picked, allowing us to build meaningful relationships with clients and bring value and disruption across industries. We focus on understanding what clients do, where their pain points are and then try to help them throughout this process, while building a long-term relationship with them.
And the third thing is the high tech. You know, I read a lot about HTEC Group before joining it and I was fascinated with all the tech solutions they have built, starting with the most famous one at the time, Humeds.
With these three things combined, how can you say no?”
Growing with HTEC Group
Marko explains that one thing that distinguishes HTEC Group from other companies on the market is its incredible drive to grow fast.
“I like to call HTEC the platform for growth. This platform consists of two main streams: Having a clear path, like a road map that allows you to grow business-wise to the point where you’re part of a team of, say, nine thousand people. Then there’s this educational stream where you can learn a lot and expand your knowledge immensely. I haven’t seen such a platform for growth anywhere else, and this is what makes HTEC very distinctive and ahead of all other companies on the market.”
He also shared how he contributes to HTEC Group’s growth and what values he brings.
“So there are three areas where I believe I bring value to HTEC and this is what is hopefully expected of me. Leading people and being a part of teams, helping them grow so we can grow together is something that I love doing and I’ve been doing for quite some time. So this is one thing. Then, working with clients, building long-lasting relationships with them, understanding what they do, understanding what challenges they face and helping them overcome those challenges together is the second thing. So our people and the clients are the core areas where I can bring a lot of value and I also get a lot out of it, because, in the end, it’s a two way street. The third pillar is everything that happens in between. So it’s all the processes, systems of procedures and the backbone of how we support those two pillars to grow. We have to have the systems in place, and when I say systems, I don’t mean only software solutions that we use to get our job done throughout the day. I mean all the processes, all the steps, all the procedures, along with software solutions that help us and the clients grow.”
Why HTEC Group?
Marko points out that there is a lot of competition out there and that the latest technologies and people’s capabilities are mixed in HTEC in a unique way.
“I haven’t seen it in another place. Let me give you one example. There are other companies that offer career development. But then you get to a point where there is somebody on the next level that’s not going anywhere, and the company has grown so much that it can’t change the systematization or the structure, what they do then is they invent job positions just to keep people. Now, the way HTEC is structured allows someone like me to grow career-wise and at this point, I don’t see the end to the opportunities it offers. Currently, we are 900 people strong, and we can go up to 9000, and I would still be able to grow.”
“I think values overlap. They’re universal, but it’s all about how you implement them. Transparency, building meaningful relationships with clients, leading with integrity — these values are all perfectly combined and this is special about HTEC. This is what makes HTEC Group a unique place to work at.”
Finally, Marko shares some advice to anyone who is thinking about becoming a part of HTEC Group’s mission:
“HTEC Group is like a magnet for good people. It’s a supportive environment, offering a chance to work with great technology for solving interesting problems, and with leading clients in their business domain. This is what I keep repeating to anyone who is considering becoming a part of our adventure. Come join us and see it for yourself!”
Curious to find out who’s next in our HTEC Features series? Stay tuned!
Meanwhile, read about our experts: Katarina Urosevic, Niko Slavnic, Dragomir Krstic, Mladen Karadzic, Ivana Stojanovic, David Schoch, Miroslav Virijevic.
