Softer Side of Skype — 2007
By
Riina Einberg on April 24, 2007.
In January 2006 Skype had a company meeting in Pärnu, Estonia. And our CEO Niklas Zennström talked about the values that make Skype what it is. There were about 300 Skype employees then, twice as much as the year before, discussing our plans for 2006 and having fun. We even made movies about our values. Skype was still very much a startup.
In 2007 Skype is more than three years old. In Internet time, it means we’ve matured and reached adulthood. And we realized that we barely fit in our old brand design or old values. It’s kind of like growing out of your old clothes. And when we convened in Pärnu again this winter, we barely fit in the same hall with our almost 500 employees. When we emerged, we did so with a new visual and brand identity and reviewed and rephrased values. Here’s what we’re about today:
Philippe Bernard Joins Skype to Run Our Prague Office
By
Riina Einberg on April 20, 2007.
As the launch date of our software-development center in the Czech Republic approaches, we’ve hired Philippe Bernard, 32, to establish and lead the new office.
Continue reading “Philippe Bernard Joins Skype to Run Our Prague Office”
Skype to launch engineering branch in Prague
By
Riina Einberg on December 5, 2006.
LUXEMBOURG, December 5, 2006 – Skype, the global Internet communication company, will open a development branch in Prague in early 2007 and plans to hire up to 30 senior software developers by the end of that year.
Prague-based positions will represent about 20 percent of the company’s product-engineering workforce. The announcement cements Skype’s commitment to the Czech Republic, where the company recently launched a co-branding partnership with Centrum.cz.
Continue reading “Skype to launch engineering branch in Prague”
Developers welcome
By
Riina Einberg on September 20, 2006.
Web development is quite a wide concept. It could mean anything from webmasters who update a webpage to creating complex e-business solutions. Therefore I’ll try to give some insight what do we mean by that at Skype and what kind of people we are looking for.
Bumper stickers in the Skype town
By
Andrus on August 22, 2006.
Jaanus wrote about a colleague spotting Skype bumber stickers in Tallinn in the Skype blog. It’s kind of cool actually. We don’t have company cars at Skype, but what we seem to have is lots of different reasons why almost everyone in the Tallinn office has a similar sticker decorating one’s very own private car. Go figure.
Communicating the Skype Way
By
Ingrid on August 18, 2006.
Check out this article in The Economist featuring our very own Sten Tamkivi on the Skype story!
New Mac version and Mac job
By
Riina Einberg on July 26, 2006.
Hello,
I hope all Mac-friends are really happy at the moment - Skype just launched a new Skype for Mac version.
More Mac news - we are looking for an additional UI developer - Skype for Mac. Location - Tallinn, Estonia, Europe.
Riina
HR manager, Skype, Estonia
Welcome!
By
Riina Einberg on March 3, 2006.
Hi there.
Since day one Skype has posted vacancies somewhere on our site. And added a little something about the company. For some time we have felt this is not enough and many people who have applied for jobs have felt the same. So welcome to the new Jobs at Skype site!
The softer side of Skype
By
Riina Einberg on March 2, 2006.
Skills and work experience are important when we hire people, but the softer side needs to be covered as well. We want applicants to share the same values with those that already work at Skype. This way everyone will feel better.
Why is Skype hiring
By
Riina Einberg on March 2, 2006.
Every now and then someone wonders why Skype needs to hire so many people. According to them Skype is “ready” - the product is out there, we’re ahead of competition and - we’ve been bought by eBay. Yes, the basic functionality of Skype is ready - you can talk and chat for free across the world, but there is still so much more to do. We’re constantly working on the call quality, making Skype work across all platforms from Windows to cell phones, being better at customer support, making Skype available in more languages, helping our partners develop sleeker Skype-hardware and of course cooking new features (like video calls or SkypeWeb) at our Secret Labs. Throw in the fact that Skype has been downloaded more than 250 million times, and ticking, and you’ll see why we need to grow from 270 people in 2005 to about 500 people at the end of 2006.
