Martin Kratochvíl joins Moravio after 10 years in Czech online giant Seznam.cz

"Working on a system that delivers video content to milions of homes was great, but after 10 years I felt I wanted something new. Now I feel the same vibe when I started as a young programmer at school - every day is fresh and the work is an adventure again!" says Martin Kratochvíl, who is joining Moravio after 10 years in Czech online giant Seznam.cz

27 Apr 2021
3 min read

A couple of months ago Martin Kratochvil joined the Moravio team after more than 10 years spent in Seznam.cz, Czech biggest online player. What made him leave the corporate world, a great job, and a familiar environment? And why Moravio?

After Petr Joachim, Martin Kratochvil is another ex-Seznam developer who, without any second thought, joined Moravio. According to his own words, he needed a change and the timing was just perfect. “I was considering the change for a longer period of time. I was assigned to one project for too long and I felt like not moving forward. And I was a little bit afraid that if I wouldn’t have chosen the change then, it would probably never happen. So I started to explore what was available. Because the nearest Seznam branch office is in Brno and my presence was required at least twice a week, I spent a lot of time traveling. And honestly, what other profession than a developer can work remotely? My options were wide open.”

An experienced backend developer, family man, and for his skill well known IT personality Martin Kratochvil is based in a small village near Zlín. That was also the place where he started to look for a new job opportunity. Not for long, though.

It was a stroke of good luck (based on great past experiences) and the irresistible gravity of the Moravio owner and CEO Lukas Gren's personality with the contribution of Petr Joachim, Moravio's CTO. Why is that? All three of them used to work together before. Martin, as well as Petr, were members of Lukas's development team in Seznam. And thank's to another mutual friend Lukas had the information Martin is ready for out with the old, in with the new. Within a minute, Lukas made a call with a proposal. It wasn't really what to consider. The answer was yes.

Work-wise there is a lot to be proud of. He used his expertise for big projects like horoskopy.cz, novinky.cz, super.cz or sport.cz. But then he started to work on stream.cz and transferred his focus to video. Martin was an important part of the beginning of Seznam's very own content delivery network which was and still is used for all Seznam branches. It is no exaggeration to say that the results of Martin's work have been encountered and are still encountered daily by millions of people throughout the Czech Republic.

Martin's start in Moravio was smooth and he immediately proved himself to be a brilliant developer and very proactive and helpful colleague. The only unfortunate thing is that the Covid-19 situation didn't give us plenty of opportunities to meet. But we all hope that's going to change soon, so far the online world has to be enough.

Martin is a family man and takes a lot of pride in his family. He loves to spend time with his little daughter and also loves to improve his house, which is “geek heaven”. “In our house everything possible is smart. Everything can be operated via smartphone and I love to surprise my wife with new features - like the house starts to talk to her and she doesn't know where from etc. I managed to make our home as geeky as possible.”

What is admirable is definitely Martin's loyalty, reliability, and persistency. Spending over 10 years dedicated to one company is something that we don’t see that often anymore. We already know we can learn a lot from Martin and we will do our best to meet his expectations. All of us in Moravio are honored that we could welcome him into our company.