Bogna Flieger

Hello, I'm Bogna. I'm from Poland, born and raised in Poznan and still living in this city. I joined cargo.one in 2021 as a Frontend Engineer and recently got promoted to Engineering Manager.

What brought you to cargo.one?

To be honest, it's really people. I received another message on LinkedIn that I would usually never reply to, but I did reply to this one. From the very first coffee chat that I had, all the people that I met during the interview process were amazing. It was hard to fight against. Even though the air cargo business did not sound super exciting at first, the people won me over. 

Would you say that the people are what makes cargo.one special to you or is there any other secret to this?

I would say the people and the culture that we built at cargo.one. It's amazing to work with people who really care. It's not that we are here just to do our work, but everyone really cares and it's motivating and amazing to see.

You also mentioned that you joined as a Frontend Engineer and you were recently promoted to an Engineering Manager role. Tell us what your day looks like. 

So, what do I do? I make sure that my fellow engineers stay happy and wake up with a smile thinking "okay, I'm going to do some cargo.one work today and I feel excited about it". Jokes aside, I usually start by checking all of my messages and making sure that I'm up to date on all of the topics. Then I am aligning with the team, helping them with organising their day. The majority of my day is either in meetings with the team members or making sure that I can tackle any sort of distractions that the team may face.

You are inspiring people with your knowledge and the level of energy that you got. You also have a family and a big energetic doggo to take care of. How do you manage to handle everything SO well and be successful at all of it at once?

The answer to the energy level is very simple - it's caffeine. How do I manage? It's very hard to say that I have reached a certain level of managing stuff, I think it's still a process. I got promoted and I was struggling a bit with figuring out how to structure a day and make sure that I am available, but at the same time have a work balance that is manageable for me. It was a constant process and it is still a journey, however, after being in this role for 6 months, I can say that I have finally figured this out. 

What is so special about cargo.one is that it's an environment that makes it comfortable to fail. I know that I have the support of the people and I have a team who would help me if I fail, so it's easier for me to experiment, push and look for the optimal way of working that is sustainable for me and the team in the long term. You see, again, it's the people. This may sound cliche, but it's also interesting because as an engineer I was always considering my own team as my engineering team and it took me some time to realise that now I have my team and a team of other Engineering Managers who are in it with me and they support me as well. There are always people that I can reach out to in case I am struggling or trying to figure something out, so we can do it together.

What do you think a candidate should know about cargo.one when considering joining?

Of course, it's a fast-paced startup, so a lot of things are happening and changing fast. It is easy to put pressure on yourself when you also want to push hard and have great results. At the same time, it's an environment that is so flexible that you can always find a way and make it work for your case. It is a very proactive kind of culture, so if you want to change something, you can always do that.