It's the end of the 90s. Tony Blair is the poster boy to set the
agenda for international politics, people everywhere still look
forward to the new Star Wars trilogy and the Swedish Minister of
Communications has dismissed the Internet as a passing trend.
Somewhere in Malmö Thomas Dagsberg gets dressed for work at one of
the major consulting companies. As he picks up his laptop on the
way out and walks to the bus stop he thinks to himself "Is this how
the world should be? I always thought I should take pride in my
work but the way we do it now is not good for me and it's not good
for the people I'm trying to help. Our management talks about our
customers needs but they don't care, and they don't care about the
people who work here; all they care about is money. I love what I
do but I see my future at a company where I get a chance to get
into new technology and have fun with dedicated people. I have to
quit."
The birth of Jayway and the hunt for the social nerd
Said and done, at the start of the new millennium Thomas founded
Jayway, a company specialized in Java. The idea was that it was
going to be all the things that his former employer wasn't. They
would operate in small scale, there was going to be a real focus on
competence and they would work within a clear cut niche so that the
customers would easily know their expertise.
Priority number one was to assemble the right people; everyone
should have an entrepreneurial spirit. Thomas was tired of
consultants who just sat around reading the newspaper or surfing at
Lunarstorm as soon as they weren't given direction. He wanted to
work with people who were motivated and took their own initiatives.
He was looking for something he called "the social nerd"; nerd
meaning people who strongly identified with the technology and
therefore would be at the edge of the development which would
guarantee professionalism, and social in the sense that they were
easy to work with and fun to be around. There wasn't going to be a
boss telling everyone what to do but rather a group working
together within the same area, getting input from different sources
and evolving in the same direction.
The new siblings and the complete unity
And the concept appealed to both customers and developers. In
2000 5 people worked at Jayway and three years later the social
nerd-herd had grown to about 30. At this time Thomas had met Mats
Weidmar who convinced him that there were other technologies that
would benefit from being explored and exploited with the same
model. They started Dotway which was based on the same principles
as Jayway with the only difference that their passion was .NET. In
the years that followed Testway, specialized in testing, Leadway,
specialized in project management and Realway, specialized in
embedded systems, were added to the Way Group family.
Although they all gained a reputation as experts within their area
there was something missing. The companies all shared the same
office and worked closely together but in the public eye they were
often regarded as islands in the stream. It wasn't easy to connect
the dots to see what the Way group could do on a grander scale.
That is why we decided to unite all of our 170 passionate experts
under one banner. Since 2010 we simply call ourselves Jayway.
Smaller teams lead the way to the trophy
Our pathos is still the same, we still have teams of social
nerds working small scale with a strong focus on competence and
expertise, but now it's also more apparent that we can deliver full
scale cutting edge solutions. After the merger our teams have
become smaller so that they can delve even deeper into their niche
of expertise. This way our competence has a unique depth. And since
our teams are more numerous we also have a broader variety of
skills that complement each other.
If our staff were soccer players we could put together a squad
with a shot at winning the Champions League every year. And at the
day of the final, the path to success is inherent in Jayway's
philosophy; good training, skilled players and the ability to relax
and enjoy the situation so that you can perform when it really
counts.