Employee stories: Interview with developer Sebastian

When I applied at the time, I had honestly never heard of JTL. First and foremost, I was looking for a job in my region in the Heinsberg district (NRW). The eCommerce industry, which was still young at the time, also appealed to me. At the interview, I immediately felt at ease. Janusch and Thomas Lisson, the two JTL founders, took a lot of time to introduce me to JTL and their plans. That was ten years ago now.

I was able to try out a wide variety of positions. I was hired as a developer for JTL-Wawi in the areas of databases, shipping and reconciliation. As we continued to grow and had to set up new company structures, I became Head of ERP Development at the Hückelhoven site in 2018. My primary tasks here included employee management and strategic product development.

As head of the “Matching” team, I have been working more in development, my favorite field, for a few months now. At company events, you can also find me on stage as a speaker or at trade fair stands talking to customers. I’ve learned a lot myself over the last few years and have grown with the company.

It is a challenge for any growing company to quickly establish the necessary structures. But I find that particularly exciting because you can help shape things and contribute your ideas. JTL is constantly changing.

At the same time, it is important to me that employees can develop according to their preferences and abilities. What support do they need to take the next step and what opportunities can I offer? I try to find out in personal discussions. Direct contact with the team is essential for me.

You should definitely be innovative and not be afraid of change. Not only is the eCommerce industry very dynamic, we as a company are also constantly coming up with new ideas. It’s always about how we can make our solutions even better for our customers. That’s why JTL is the right place for anyone with initiative. You should also enjoy familiarizing yourself with complex issues and sharing responsibility with the team. After all, over 50,000 merchants now use our software. Companies and livelihoods are linked to it.

In my view, what makes us special is that we have retained many of the advantages of a smaller company despite our steady growth. In addition to the aforementioned creative freedom, I also appreciate the friendly and helpful cooperation. Last but not least, JTL has a lot of flexibility and security due to its diversity of customers, because we are not just dependent on one major customer.

It sounds strange, but I love problems! It fascinates me to work out solutions to technical development issues, no matter how tricky they are. If I don’t know my way around a subject, I teach myself. This has always been the case and started very early on. I was ten years old when I first tinkered with a computer – a Schneider PC1512 with two 5.25-inch floppy disk drives, a black and white monitor and 512 KB of random access memory!

I also like to tinker around in my free time and build things like LEGO. During the pandemic, I also rediscovered online chess, one of my old hobbies. DIY, gardening and going for walks with my family are also a great way to unwind from working on the PC.