Work in Estonia Talk: Q&A session with Dynatrace director of development Gordon Meyer

Dynatrace is a well-known international company that has made its mission to build its new technology lab in Estonia. Gordon Meyer, Dynatrace’s Development Director, shares why Dynatrace decided to build its lab in Estonia, how the international situation has affected the speed of lab development and how Dynatrace can support the talents it recruits.
Estonia is well-known as a digital country with a great social system for companies. So why was Estonia your target market? How would you describe coming into this market?
We started by acquiring a company called SpectX, where we recruited our first six talented employees. The guys have built a key role in our development, and by now, we have already built a lab that is double the size since the acquisition.
We think the skillset we have seen from the SpectX acquisition have been massively successful. So, the quality of the skills we are seeing and the people we have hired already show us that we haven’t made a mistake here. If anything, we are even more positively surprised and hopefully will be surprised in the future.
Tallinn lab plays a core part in the evolution of Dynatrace’s product. It’s not just a side lab; the Tallinn team is involved in development at a high level.
How has the current situation influenced your decision to build a technology lab in Estonia? Are you in any way scared?
We are not scared, we have not changed any growth plans, and we have not changed the speed of our growth plans. On the contrary, in Dynatrace, we feel that we should show even more support. We are committed to Tallinn even from the top levels, and that’s the kind of message we are sharing internally with the teams. Our CEO’s words aligned with mine – meaning no stopping, no scaling back.
Our CEO has put out quite a strong statement supporting Ukraine, and we have made donations to support Ukraine. We have stopped our business in Russia, so I think there is a powerful message in support, and we are aware of the situation. We are very supportive of our teams and will do anything to help our team in Tallinn and other countries.
The job market is really heavy, and it is quite hard to get bright talents. So how will you recruit during the current competition in the job market?
Yes, it is hectic right now, but we have outstanding recruiters and a very well-experienced recruiting team internally in Dynatrace; so far as I say, we have not seen any change and no lack of applications.
In a nutshell, we offer quite a unique combination for engineers and software developers who really want to make an impact: At heart, we live an agile, entrepreneurial culture of autonomy. From a technological point of view, we are the best globally, meaning that we push technological boundaries every day. And on the business side of things, we are the global market leader with a very strong and successful growth rate.
Why do you think Estonia is appealing to expats?
I didn’t know much about Tallinn before I became the international lab lead, but I have been to Estonia several times now.
I think the low taxation is quite attractive. In addition, it is a global city, so it is appealing to internationals as they have large communities of fellow expats over here, and it is one of the most digitally advanced countries in Europe. It’s also easy to get your e-citizenship, and thus, the processes are not too overburdened as they are in many other countries.
People, especially expats, might value the working culture more than other benefits. So how are you supporting your expats who live in Estonia?
We are regularly speaking with our teams. For example, two days ago, we had a “town hall” which means our CEO talks directly with our teams. We can all post a question to him, and he will give unscripted answers in real-time to those questions. In this way, you can get answers straight from the horse’s mouth. Last time, many questions came from Tallinn about how the situation affects the company, has the company changed, or are we now thinking differently? But, as we say – no, we still have the same plans, and there are no changes.
Additionally, we have support channels for mental health, and we are taking an active interest in our community. Dynatrace supports employees from Ukraine by giving them time off from work for as long as they need and thinking about how we can help refugees. We want to share very positive internal messages which we believe do not have to be external. Our primary mission is to take care of our people.