Accelerating Digital Evolution with HTEC Group

BERLIN, Germany — Pangea is immensely pleased to introduce HTEC Group, technological innovators born a small medical tech company in Belgrade but now a multinational digital consulting firm based in San Francisco.

One of the largest galaxies in our Pangea universe since 2017, HTEC Group (or, High Tech Engineering Center) is focused on finding innovative solutions to complex engineering problems that would have a positive impact across industries.

Almost 800+ people strong, HTEC Group is growing super-fast and is on the road to becoming a recognized leader in product innovation and engineering delivery. Meet HTEC Group, a company that believes in continuous improvement and quality first!

A Place of Unity and Growth

The impressive story of HTEC Group began in September 2008, when CEO Aleksander Cabrilo pivoted from a successful career as an electrical engineer in the Netherlands to return to Serbia to set up his own company in the city where he’d studied, Belgrade. At the start, HTEC Group was focused on developing various hi-tech products ranging from smart home systems to medical diagnostic devices. Back then, consulting was only a way to finance those other pursuits.

However, management soon realized that this side project was actually the company’s real strength, and once again Aleksandar changed the company’s course—this time focusing fully on the development of digital products.

In the years since, HTEC Group has ballooned from a small team of twelve people based in Belgrade to an almost 800-employee multinational headquartered in San Francisco with regional offices in Minneapolis, London, San Francisco, Stockholm, Gothenburg, Oosterbeek, and Ljubljana—to say nothing of the development centers across the Balkans in Belgrade, Novi Sad, Nis, Subotica, Skopje, and (recently) Banja Luka.

The company’s considerable size is due to a growth-focused “10x mindset” that has seen a consistent trend of 70% year over year organic growth and expansion through the acquisition of other local consultancies like Execom and Konstrukt. Such moves have resulted in HTEC Group being recognized by Deloitte as one of the 10 fastest-growing companies in Central Europe three years running.

Per Aleksandar, the company’s size has enabled them to provide the best service to some of the world’s largest organizations while simultaneously supporting the personal achievement of its employees:

“Our mission is to provide technology consulting and engineering services for our clients to become leaders in their industries and, in doing so, to create a playground for all our employees to become the best versions of themselves.”

With such ambitious goals, we were happy to welcome HTEC Group into the Pangea universe back in 2017 when we awarded the company a Pangea Score of 9.2/10.0 on the strength of the feedback from several of their clients. But even such a stellar score doesn’t quite do justice to all that HTEC Group represents, so read on to find out more about this world-spanning company!

Making an Impact Together

Team building through a company retreat

“People are our biggest asset and our core! HTEC culture is built on transparency, democracy, and equality – as simple as that.”

- Predrag Pivarski, Head of Talent Acquisition & Branch Manager @ HTEC Group, Novi Sad

The first secret to HTEC Groups’ growth is their understanding that their employees are the most important element to the company’s success. This people-first philosophy translates to a culture of fairness and transparency wherein team members are encouraged to self-govern and take leadership and ownership of tasks themselves.

Katarina Urošević, HTEC’s Chief of Staff, describes how this sense of personal empowerment facilitates the company’s growth and instills the team’s work with meaning:

“I am fascinated by HTEC Group’s organizational culture that not only enables the continued growth of all team members but also encourages them to actively participate in its definition and evolution. The company’s overall strategy is multifold growth, but what I am most excited about is the sheer number of people that will be able to partake in this growth, further improve the company culture and infuse it into our work with our clients.”

One way in which the company ensures their people reach their full potential is through the HTEC Group Mentorship program. The foundation of this program is the belief that the mentor-mentee relationship is not a one-way street, but an open and reciprocal partnership that provides value for both parties. Mentors guide new hires in a reciprocal and flexible framework that is tailored to the specific needs of a given mentee. HTEC team members can choose a mentor after spending at least three months in a company. This time frame enables them to get acclimated to their work and environment and gain a strong understanding of HTEC Group’s operating principles.

Jovana Mitic, one of the HTEC Group’s front end developers, is one of the beneficiaries of this program and is full of praise for the practice:

HTEC Mentorship is one of those things that sets HTEC apart. HTEC is very focused on having high-quality engineers and isn’t afraid to invest in juniors and give them an excellent base for outstanding growth.

- Jovana Mitic, Delivery Lead @ HTEC Group, Niš

To go along with this robust mentoring, the HTEC Group also provides all the amenities one expects from a modern-day tech company along with team-building activities like employee retreats and ugly sweater competitions.

According to HTEC Group’s annual internal survey, these events have paid off: 81% of employees feel like the company is a great place to work, a full 88% percent felt they were proud to work there, and 87% feel they can count on their coworkers. Indeed, David Schoch, COO @ HTEC emphasizes how this trust translates to a “culture of excellence” throughout the company:

“We’ve got engineering capability that is world-class, which is evidenced by our client base and the types of work we are entrusted with. [...] The culture of excellence and our approach to customers that have been a big part of our success is something that I haven’t seen in peer companies.”

- David Schoch, COO @ HTEC Group

Innovation Enabler Helping Businesses Transform & Lead

HTEC has built well over one hundred projects for tech giants Intel, Ocado, and Qualcomm, scientific/governmental research organizations like DARPA, and MedTech enterprises like Humeds, and Aloe Care Health.

The company’s expertise crosses an exhaustive range of industries that include: medicine, transportation, real estate, retail, energy, FinTech and banking, LabTech, and robotics. From developing maritime intelligence solutions to engineering a wearable AI-powered telehealth device to help mothers monitor their baby’s health, HTEC Group has been developing disruptive digital products across industries and providing seamless digital experiences to businesses worldwide.

But beyond providing excellent software development and industrial design, HTEC Group is a full-service consultant that prides itself in analyzing business processes and offering strategies for optimization. It should then come as no surprise that the clients we spoke to rated the company a fantastic 9.5/10.0 in the Client Insight Score for both Technical Expertise and Project Management, followed closely by Customer Journey, Documentation Level, and Business and Process Maturity, which all ranked above 90%.

According to the words of some of their clients, HTEC Groups delivers services at the highest level:

“We decided to use HTEC to take over our project platform from the ground up to a successful application. Using their team of rock star software architects and their ability to match clients schedules, they launched a product with a solid foundation that has grown to partner with venues and sports organisations over the world.”

- Founder @ Series B++ Startups

“HTEC worked with us to scale our business. HTEC used their fantastic understanding of the project requirements and business to not only scale the product but to also own the project development.”

- Paul Wolcott, Partner/VP @ Great Place to Work

”HTEC worked with our company to build our application and recover from two terrible tech team experiences. HTEC displayed exemplary communicative abilities on all interactions, they were able to respond quickly to our requests, accurately provide a strong bond of trust and delivering a great product.”

- Elmo Lovano, Founder/CEO @ JammCard

Their engineering department has your back!

Innovation in HTEC Group’s DNA

“Our core advantage lies in our experience working with the latest of the science and technology, methodologies, ideas and concepts.”

- Aleksander Cabrilo, CEO & Co-founder @ HTEC

Technological excellence is at the heart of everything HTEC Group does, so it comes as no surprise that their tech stack shows a deep knowledge of both back-end and front-end development languages, data visualization and cloud computing, and blockchain. Moreover, the company has experts in many fields of cutting-edge technologies like automation, Artificial Intelligence, and the Internet of Things.

Coding-wise, the languages and frameworks the company has mastered run the gamut from Apache (Hadoop, Spark, Cassandra, and Kafka) through Angular, Flutter, Java, JavaScript, the Reacts (JS & Native), Python, PHP, and trusty old .NET.

To learn more about their tech expertise and why innovation is at the core of what they do, visit their tech blog where you can dive into a wide range of topics from Natural Language Processing to Custom Data Bindings.

HTEC Group is the Art of Possible. Through a range of engagement models, their tech expertise combined with a unique approach and the power of technology will help you build your digital DNA.

Reach out to us and we will put you in touch with the visionaries at HTEC Group. Their experts are at your side ready to help you create seamless digital experiences that will reinvent your business.

We close (as we so often do) by examining the core values of our Pangea partner, the things that make us so happy to have them part of our universe. So here’s Aleksander again, summing up what just what HTEC stands for:

“Our values are: Continuous Learning, Transparency, Integrity, Empathy and Support.”

Don’t wait! Talk to HTEC Group today!