Polar Squad – for better results through meaningful tech work
We’ve been asked this a few times; here’s a quick lowdown of what Polar Squad does, why we focus on DevOps and why we think it’s an immensely valuable methodology for any tech organization to adopt.
Tech moves quickly. Software development is becoming more complex while development cycles accelerate. With everything in motion and tools and practices constantly changing, it’s difficult to maintain coordination and cohesion within tech teams.
Polar Squad was founded to address this need. In this quickly-moving, complex world, we strive to simplify: We’re a skilled group of people who help our partners succeed in a demanding environment. Our tools for the job are DevOps methodologies.
With over 50 senior experts across three countries, we’ve helped 130+ clients with over 200 projects. Our work is varied: we might carry out a large-scale assessment of a client's software teams, act as advisors in implementing better ways of working across numerous tech teams in an organisation or implement a crucial tool or cloud architecture setup. The common thread is that through DevOps, we help our clients focus on meaningful work.
Why focus on DevOps?
DevOps is often seen as a niche methodology, mainly concerned with automating parts of the development process. We see DevOps as a wide range of competencies, methodologies and tools that have a significant impact on our clients’ work. DevOps is concerned with culture, collaboration, ways of working, communication and all other aspects that have the potential to supercharge the performance and well-being of tech teams.
DevOps is so essential that it shouldn’t be an afterthought or an add-on. By focusing strictly on DevOps, we can make the maximal positive impact on our clients. At the same time, we can offer our people the opportunity to focus on what they are passionate about – DevOps at a high-performing level.
What is the value of DevOps?
As mentioned, DevOps is an approach, methodology and toolset that improves the lives of people working in tech and software development: it’s much easier to do good work when you can focus on what’s essential instead of struggling with processes, menial tasks or outdated tools.
Focusing on the essential, in turn, has numerous business benefits:
Reduced time to market – with an optimally functioning team, you can go from idea to launched product much faster
Happier customers with better experiences using your product
Happier employees who get to use their talents on impactful things
A better environment for quality and scalability
The ability to pivot quickly and seize upcoming business opportunities
A concrete impact on the bottom line
Within the company, we humorously consider ourselves to be in the ‘good night’s sleep’ business: We make everything functional and reliable so that our clients can focus on their core expertise, free of typical tech worries.
What is Polar Squad like as a company?
Polar Squad was created to respond to the need to do the work differently. To find (or create!) a place where work can be done in a more relaxed, less corporate, people-centered way. First, it was for the founders, but quickly they saw that others saw the appeal, too.
We believe this business is people-driven; we put our people first in everything. By fostering good culture and an enjoyable work experience, our people can focus on what they do best and, in turn, create the best results for our customers. This is the foundational thought upon which everything else is built.
By nature, our work is that of a supporting actor – we enable others to succeed and build environments where others can shine. But within our company, everyone is crucial and celebrated for who they are.
Last but not least, we love to have fun. We like to make jokes in our company video materials, put out quirky, humorous stuff that we enjoy, and do a lot of stuff together, from rock climbing to board games to cooking to book clubs.
The ecosystem
We focus on DevOps. We wouldn’t be able to sustain this focus without being part of larger ecosystems of companies – Fusion and Bravedo.
The benefits are numerous: We have partners that enable us to offer our clients the best specialists for each part of a given project, thanks to this network of companies, each with their unique expertise. Meanwhile, we can exchange information and learn from our partner companies. And finally, we can sustain a dialogue with other ecosystem companies to keep our viewpoint fresh while forecasting where the industry is headed.
So ultimately, for Polar Squad, being part of Fusion means that we can focus on what we know best – and that’s been at the heart of our approach from the beginning.