Michal joined msg life Slovakia 15 years ago, and is now the company’s managing director. In this interview, he reflects on his career, viewing it as a unique opportunity offered by the company that he embraced with great responsibility. He also mentions the challenges that msg will face in the coming years, highlighting the importance of work-life balance. He talks about how he got into testing and offers advice to those considering a career in IT or looking to advance.
Let’s start at the beginning. Please, describe how you started at msg life Slovakia.
I started as a hotline agent in 2009, later becoming an IT tester. In my role on the hotline, I provided customer support for COR Slovakia, the predecessor of msg. My responsibilities included logging bug reports, redistributing them internally and providing clients with updates on our progress. This role often brought me into direct contact with customers. To this day, that position is still active.
Do you have a degree in IT or insurance?
No, I think what helped me the most in the interview was my strong language skills, particularly in German and English. That’s still the case in more junior positions today – language skills are fundamental, and the technical side can be learned quite quickly. Of course, a willingness to learn new things and move forward is also important. I had that, and I soon started looking for a testing position.
What attracted you to the field of testing?
As well as communicating with customers, I also came into contact with analysts, developers, and IT testers. Since testing is the ‘gateway to IT’, I decided this was the direction in which I should move. It was a natural fit. I joined a team led by my colleague Michaela — read her interview: Cloud Deployment. At the time, I had no idea that I would be replacing her in a management role so quickly.
Were you surprised?
Yes, I was. I took over leadership of the testing team just a few months after starting as a tester. I quickly got to grips with the issues, started solving tasks and began working on projects. I was promoted to managing director this year, but the move from tester to team leader surprised me more. I think that’s one of the unique things about msg life Slovakia. If you believe in yourself, work hard and want to progress, the company will give you the opportunity to do so. There isn’t a strict hierarchy here.
How did your colleagues perceive it?
Although I was more junior than many of my colleagues, they supported me and wished me well. I believe that attitude is very important, and my attitude was that I wanted to create good working conditions and allow people to do their jobs. That’s probably the main role of a line manager. This approach met with both understanding and success. The testing department grew considerably in the following years. We worked on new projects and trained new employees, who then moved forward. It’s a real joint effort.
If someone is looking for a Tester job at msg life Slovakia, how would you describe this department to them?
It’s primarily a ‘gateway to IT’, so if someone is considering this field and doesn’t have any experience yet, testing is a good place to start. At msg life Slovakia, knowledge of German is essential. The company is gradually working on incorporating English into projects, but this is a long-term endeavour and not feasible everywhere. From a tester position, you can progress to either a business analyst or an integrator role, both of which are very promising career paths.
As far as the working atmosphere is concerned, I believe this is one of the advantages of working at msg life Slovakia. This applies not only to colleagues, but also to management and staff. I think this is a long-term merit of the managing directors, Milan and Robert, who have cultivated such a culture for several years now. They participate in company events and take an interest in their colleagues. They have treated me particularly well and communicated with me in a special way.
In addition, I like how we present this externally. For example, we include photos of our colleagues in advertisements to give people outside the company an idea of the atmosphere at team-building events. We have received positive feedback from both internal staff and applicants, which makes me very happy.
You also took a break from running the testing department for a while and took the opportunity to spend some time on parental leave. How do you evaluate this time, what did it bring you?
Yes, I took two months of parental leave. My wife was on maternity leave at the time, so I wasn’t alone — I have two kids. We enjoyed spending time as a family, especially when the kids were young. I changed my daily routine, stopped working altogether, and helped with childcare, which can be challenging at times because there’s no ‘end of shift’. I also took the opportunity to switch off and reinforce the idea that no one is irreplaceable at work. This gave me some distance and, of course, enabled me to build a deeper relationship with the kids. At that time, I had no idea what my next career move would be — I was just focused on my family.
Your next step in your career was promotion to managing director. How do you feel about that?
If someone had told me fifteen years ago how my work would evolve, I would have thought they were talking about science fiction. I never thought I would reach this level of responsibility. It’s a significant role, and I have a lot of respect for it. When I received the offer, I consulted my wife. She’s a wonderful wife who made this decision easy for me. Since she has just returned to work after maternity leave, she felt that it was now ‘my turn’ to advance my career. She currently works part-time, so she can juggle that with family responsibilities. I’ll be doing business trips abroad, especially to Slovakia and Germany, but for now, it’s manageable. This is another benefit of working at msg life Slovakia, where everyone understands that employees also have a private life and that a solution can always be found if necessary. Many of my colleagues congratulated me, which made me very happy.
You’ve also got a lot of new tasks coming up; we planned the timeslot for this interview three weeks in advance. What’s your recipe for work-life balance?
In my free time, I like to spend time with my family, play sports and pursue my hobbies. I am a trained musician who specialises in classical, film and pop music. I enjoy folklore and played in a cimbalom band for many years. I also play the accordion and had a rock band while studying. After university, however, I had to face reality and accept that I couldn’t pursue a professional career in music. I have kept it as a hobby, and I would like to encourage my children to take it up, too. I also enjoy cycling, swimming and reading, especially non-fiction. To save time, I often listen to audiobooks. I am particularly interested in IT, science and physics and take online courses in these subjects. However, I also enjoy listening to music and learning about art. In fact, I bought waterproof headphones so that I can swim and listen to audiobooks simultaneously. This is how I relax and make effective use of my time.
What would you like to contribute to the management of msg life Slovakia? You will also be part of the expansion of the company.
msg and the environment is constantly changing, so it is up to management to identify areas where change is important. Yes, we are planning to expand our cooperation to Asia. When we were last there, we were just checking out the teams and the first communication had only just begun. Now, we are embarking on active cooperation. My task will probably be to find a suitable model that maintains the position of the Slovak branches while training people in India. We have done this before with Portugal and it was very successful. Slovakia’s advantages are our expertise in the required areas and, of course, our knowledge of German.
We are also facing many challenges with artificial intelligence. I see it as an opportunity in positions where there is a shortage of IT experts and also as an automation tool for various administrative activities. I believe that AI can partly solve the problem of an ageing population and the related shortage of workers. I am actively using Chat GPT myself and I think it would be ideal if everyone had an assistant to help them in some activities. Within the msg group we are already using some of the tools to assist with programming as well, first measurements show an increase in efficiency. However, we still need to investigate this in the longer term. These are also the challenges that await msg in the coming years.
Sounds like a lot of great challenges await you, but are there any activities that you enjoy more than others?
It changes over time. I like the communication, the direct approach, and also when we have to solve a challenge. Strategic thinking is also interesting to me -where do we want to get to in the longer term? This is something I would like to pursue. I think there will be more time for that as well, as my role as a Test Manager is coming to an end. Now I’m going to stop doing project work, so I hope that there will be more room for such activities too.
What advice would you give to colleagues who also want to advance their careers?
Do not be afraid to take responsibility, take initiative, or seize opportunities – even if we often feel we’re not there yet. These are normal feelings when facing new challenges. msg life Slovakia is a company where we try to recognise the contributions of individuals properly, not to suppress them. Not everyone may become a member of the management, but professional advancement is highly in demand. The company is growing; we are constantly advertising new jobs, new staff are coming on board, and it’s necessary for current colleagues to move forward and train new ones. I think the company always tries to reward this with various employee benefits as well.
