Swisscom will open the DevOps center in Riga

Swisscom, a leading Swiss telecommunications and software development company, has decided to open its second DevOps center outside Switzerland. The investment project was implemented in close cooperation with the Latvian Investment and Development Agency (LIAA).

Swisscom is the largest telecommunications service provider and one of the leading IT companies in Switzerland. The company offers a wide range of services to both end users and business customers. The company offers telecommunications, Swisscom blue TV services, as well as various IT solutions for the banking, healthcare, energy, entertainment, advertising and other industries. In line with the company's stated goals, Swisscom is also one of Switzerland's most sustainable and innovative companies. For several years now, Swiss IT professionals have rated Swisscom as one of the best employers in their industry, alongside Microsoft and Google.

The decision to expand outside Switzerland was made in accordance with Swisscom's strategy to establish one of the leading technology development centers in Europe by 2025. The demand for IT services and innovation is growing, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to attract the necessary professionals to meet this demand, so the decision to expand outside Switzerland is a logical step in continuing its development path.

Riga is an ideal place for the development of Swisscom

Latvia and, in particular, Riga have an internationally good reputation as a rapidly growing center of technology development and software development. The state invests in the education of qualified IT specialists, which forms a good basis for Latvia to become an important center of excellence in digitalisation. Therefore, Swisscom believes that Riga is an ideal place for the development of its technology center. It should be emphasized that this will be only the second Swisscom technology center outside Switzerland, the first of which was opened in Rotterdam in 2019.

The Swisscom DevOps Center in Riga was established on October 8, 2020, and the first engineers will start working in January 2021. Initially, the company will be located in the temporary “Workland Telegraph” co-working premises in Old Riga, but later it will move to Z Towers in Pardaugava. By the end of 2021, Swisscom plans to attract 40 employees, the selection of which has already begun.

“For several years, the Ministries of Economics have been working to realize the ambitions for Latvia to become a center of excellence in higher IT education in the Baltic States. By purposefully creating cooperation between public administration, leading IT companies and higher education institutions, we have provided an environment for training high-level specialists in the field of IT. It is a pleasure that a well-educated workforce is one of the reasons why the leading Swiss telecommunications and software development company Swisscom has evaluated Latvia in order to establish one of its technology development centers right here. This gives an incentive to continue working on the issues of improving the qualification of the workforce, ”emphasizes the Minister of Economics Jānis Vitenbergs.

Swisscom employees will have the opportunity to create their own work environment

At Swisscom, very little attention is paid to the employee hierarchy. The company highly values employees as professionals in their field and provides them with opportunities for self-realization. As the Swisscom center in Riga is being rebuilt, all its future employees will be involved in shaping the company's structure, processes and work environment. A good example will be the relatively recently established center in Rotterdam, which was modeled on this model.

More information about SIA “Swisscom DevOps Center Latvia” can be obtained on the website: https://www.swisscom.ch/devopscenterriga