Petr Heinz

They’re not looking for “something new.” They’re looking for a safe harbor. This sentence perfectly captures what’s happening right now on the Kraków IT scene. I see it in almost every recruitment process we lead at itMatch. Just a few years ago, developers were eager to "hop" into new projects, lured by the latest tech stacks or "Fruit Thursdays." Today, the tide has turned. Voluntary attrition in Kraków has dropped to around 6%. What does this mean for you as an employer? Candidates are no longer looking for an adventure. They are looking for stability and peace of mind. If you want a top-tier Senior to leave their secure position for your offer, you have to prove that you are a safe harbor. And you don’t prove it with words- you prove it through your hiring process: 💡 Your process is your "stability" business card If your recruitment drags on for a month, spans five stages, and lacks concrete feedback, you’re sending a clear signal: “There’s chaos inside.” For a candidate seeking stability, that’s a massive red flag. A lean, 2-stage process shows that the company knows where it’s going and can make firm decisions. 💡 Transparency over empty promises In 2026, a “cool project” isn't enough to close a deal. Candidates want to know: Your growth strategy. The company’s financial health. The long-term product vision. If you can't answer these questions during the interview, the candidate will view your "port" as too risky and will choose to stay exactly where they are. 💡 Flexibility as the foundation of trust A rigid "back to the office" mandate is now perceived as a lack of trust. It’s hard to feel safe in a place that doesn't trust your competence or your way of working. Local talent still prioritizes hybrid or remote models- giving them that choice proves you actually care about their work-life balance. The Bottom Line? Your offer doesn't necessarily have to be the most expensive on the market. It has to be the most trustworthy. Don’t just benchmark salaries; benchmark the entire Candidate Experience. Does your process feel like an invitation to a safe harbor, or a leap into deep water without a life jacket? When was the last time you looked at your company through the eyes of a candidate who doesn’t need to change jobs?

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Most people read “EU Platform Work Directive” and think:   “That’s for delivery apps. Not my problem.” I’m not so sure. From 2025, the Directive starts reshaping how EU countries classify platform workers and “dependent contractors” – with a presumption of employment, more social security, and stricter rules on algorithmic management. For EOR, staffing and payroll providers, this quietly changes the game: - More workers will be treated as employees, not freelancers → payroll, not “vendor payments”. - Misclassification risk moves from “legal nuance” to “regulator priority”. - Clients will expect clearer reporting on who is treated how, and why. Practical baseline I’m now recommending to EU-exposed firms: - Map all “contractor / platform / gig” roles and flag those under platform-like control (fixed schedules, app-based management, KPI tracking). - For high-risk roles, prepare an “employee version” of the model: contributions, leave, social security, cost per FTE. - Make sure payroll/HRIS can switch classification without rebuilding your whole setup. This isn’t about fear. It’s about being the provider who can look a client in the eye and say: “If these roles must be reclassified, here’s what it does to cost and payroll – in numbers.” Do you already know which of your “contractors” would flip to employee status first under the new rules?

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👩‍💻 Pair programming isn’t just about writing code together, it’s about thinking better together. In her latest blog, our developer Polina Tikhomirova shares how pairing changed the way she approaches code quality. It’s a great reminder that quality doesn’t start in code reviews, it starts in the conversations, decisions, and moments when two developers challenge each other to think deeper. In this article she explores how: + Real-time collaboration drives better decisions + Shared ownership improves long-term quality + Human pairing still beats any AI assistant Link to Full article in comments 👇 #NerdSHT #CodeQuality #SoftwareDevelopment #Cincinnati #AI

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Post no. 4 - Status reporting in software development HOW TO BUILD A CULTURE WHERE HONESTY ISN'T PUNISHED Transparency is the hardest thing to sustain in software development. Not because people are malicious, but because they’re human. I’ve seen it happen many times: Teams polish reports to look more positive than reality, risks are left unspoken and vague optimism replaces direct answers. Most of this doesn’t come from bad intent. It comes from fear and pressure. If raising a problem feels dangerous, people will delay it until the last possible moment. By then, options are limited and costs are higher. What you need to do is build a culture of transparency. Here are the practices I’ve seen work: ➡️ Normalize problems. A Yellow (at risk) or Red (off track) project status should not be seen as failure. It should be seen as a signal that the system is working: the problem surfaced early enough to be addressed. If marking something red gets you punished, no one will ever do it again. ➡️ Add structure to reduce spin. Honesty thrives when there’s less room for subjective interpretation. A traffic light system (Green / Yellow / Red) helps, but only if it’s tied to facts: % of work completed % of time elapsed % of budgeted hours consumed If 80% of the time and hours are gone but only 40% of the work is finished, the project can’t be green. No amount of confidence changes that. ➡️ Support the messenger. How leadership reacts when someone reports risk is critical. If the reaction is blame, honesty disappears. If the reaction is: “Thanks for flagging this, let’s work on it together,” honesty gets reinforced. ➡️ Make predictions explicit. When asked “Will this deadline be met?”, project leads should be expected to give a clear yes or no. Not vague optimism, but a prediction. It might contradict earlier sales estimates, but it’s far better than letting silence hide the truth. ➡️ Treat mistakes as learning. After setbacks, postmortems should focus on what happened, what contributed, and what needs to change. Not who to blame. When the outcome is learning, people are more willing to be honest about what really went wrong. The key lesson 👇 Transparency doesn’t grow on its own. It needs a culture where people can raise problems without fear. P.S. I’ll detail the traffic light system in one of my future posts.

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🚀 I spent the last 3 months building my own AI Coding Agent from scratch. Meet Dodo. Coding agents lik 😊 e Devin and Cursor are changing how we build software, but they often feel like "magic" boxes. I wanted to demystify how they actually work. So, I took on a challenge: build a fully functional, production-grade coding agent in just 3 months. The result is Dodo. It's not just a wrapper around an LLM. It's a complete agentic system with: ✅ No frameworks: Zero LangChain/LangGraph. Just pure Go and OpenAI SDK. ✅ Custom Engine: I built my own LLM engine with advanced agentic patterns and lifecycle hooks. ✅ Sandboxed Execution: Runs commands safely in Docker containers. ✅ Planning Capabilities: Breaks down complex tasks into actionable steps. ✅ Semantic Search: Understands your codebase context. ✅ Terminal UI: A beautiful, developer-first TUI built with Ink. I'm making it 100% Open Source. I built this to learn, and now I want to share that learning with everyone. You can fork it, break it, and build your own features on top of it. My goal is to eventually use this core engine to power a larger platform in the future. Check out the code, give it a star, and let me know what you think! 👇 [https://lnkd.in/dzR_JNMS] docs: [https://lnkd.in/dJWM3abn] #OpenSource #AI #CodingAgent #Golang #TypeScript #BuildInPublic #SoftwareEngineering

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"Why do you think developers leave a company?" A recruiter once asked me this question in an interview a long time ago. I think this is a safe, indirect way to ask: "Why would you leave a company?". It allows the candidate to explain their values and motivations without feeling personally exposed, because the question is framed as if it’s about “other developers.” Or maybe I'm just overthinking it. :)

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