Interview with Vojta Petrus: Creative Handles through the Eyes of CTO

In November, Vojta Petrus joined the management of Creative Handles and, together with Tyna and Ondrej, became a leader of a company. However, it wasn't his first experience with Creative Handles. In fact, Vojta has been working with us as a technical advisor and external consultant for some time but never had a chance to interfere in the operation of the company. What has changed the most for him from the position of CTO, and how does he perceive the future of the company? 

When did you start cooperation with Creative Handles and why?

I've known and have been working with Ondra for a long time. He hired my friends and me from university to create smallish web applications. That was even before he and Tyna had any developers of their own. Later on, at the beginning of a company that preceded Creative Handles, he asked me to mentor his programmers. Even if for a few hours a month, we never stopped cooperating.

When I got to know him and Tyna better as people as well as company owners during our adventures in Vietnam and Sri Lanka, I was fascinated by their incredible passion for creating business opportunities and improving themselves in every possible aspect. So when they offered me a CTO position in Creative Handles, it was more of a question of "How to make this work?" than "Should I take it?".

What was the most attractive for you in becoming the CTO of Creative Handles?

I've been thinking about leading a small team of skilled developers for a long time. I love solving complex technical problems, and I think I love even more to be a part of a group of determined people that believe in what they do. Being CTO is a huge step out of my comfort zone, but so far, I really enjoy it. I'm learning new things every week; that's awesome.

Let's take it from a broader perspective. What do you enjoy most about working at Creative Handles?

Definitely the people. I'm honestly proud of every single of my colleagues, and it's fantastic how everyone brings something unique and valuable to Creative Handles. I know that working in a growing company that's scattered across the whole globe can be super challenging, and that's why I'm so grateful for the people around me.

How do you manage to coordinate a team that works from several countries and time zones?

To be honest, you should ask for tips Marcel, our delivery manager. He's the one doing the real magic with managing time and our schedules. For me it just means picking different times for meetings that I would usually pick; it's not a huge inconvenience.

The vision of Creative Handles is “We build a world-class technology company, which positively influences billions of people.” How does it correlate with your personal vision?

We've built the vision with Tyna and Ondra, and it's funny that everyone has an emphasis on different words. For me, “positively influences” is the key point, along with “technology company”. The technology part means that I will enjoy it because I'm still fascinated by almost everything related to IT. And to positively influence people gives meaning to it. Otherwise, I would feel something is missing. So I guess it correlates with my vision to enjoy life and leave the earth at least a tiny bit better place.

What is your vision from a technological point of view?

I would like to create a stimulating and safe environment for the best developers in their field. A place where you're not afraid to take on the biggest challenges no one had to solve before because you feel the support of the whole team. I would like to share our knowledge with people outside the company. Last but not least, I would like to have more financial freedom for my team to experiment with different technologies and approaches.

Have you decided how you want to implement it?

That's a million-dollar question. We've introduced learning sessions where someone explains new technology or approach to others. I love those! Also, we're starting with writing tech articles, everyone can pick some topic that they would like to explore and share with the community. And the main focus right now is to find new colleagues (mainly React on front end and Laravel on back end) that would be a good fit for our team.

What should customers, fans and colleagues expect from Creative Handles in the upcoming months or years?

As I mentioned before, we would like to share our internal learning process with the public. You can expect some articles, maybe even videos. In the second half of the year, we would like to start our new product, hopefully! We'll have to wait until then, but I'm super excited about that. 

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