“At Webbing, every day is a new game”
Nir Zimmerman, Technical Project Manager at Webbing, tells his story of becoming an electronic engineer, gathering experience working for the top cellular operators in the country, joining Webbing and… rejoining Webbing.
My long journey to Webbing
I’m from Petah Tikva, Israel. I grew up not too far from where our Israeli office is today. After finishing school and serving in the Air Force, I went to Ariel University and graduated in 2005 with a degree in electronic engineering.
My first real job was at Partner. I worked there for 7 years in the radio department, testing devices, that’s where I got to know the radio layer of the network better. Then I joined Hot Mobile, they were just getting started and needed people with knowledge. I knew I was coming to a new company with many challenges, many blind spots, and getting a network up and running is not an easy thing to do. However, I felt that it was the right place for me to be. I built a test lab there, became a part of a network optimization group and later moved to the packet core engineering department. I learned many things there I wouldn’t have learned had I stayed at Partner.
After seven years at Hot Mobile, I joined Webbing, and I had the same feeling. It was a small company, only 12 people, just implementing their core network. I knew it was a big challenge, and it felt right. I started at Webbing as a packet core engineer. It was more than I expected in terms of challenges, and it didn’t resemble anything I had encountered before. The work environment was super-fast and overwhelming, you had whatever you needed, but… it was very, very intense. We had a small network at the time, so every abnormal behavior could have a huge impact. There were only two of us dealing with network issues, and we were getting calls every night. After eight months I felt it was too much for me. I left and joined Nokia to work as a support engineer for VoLTE. I gained more knowledge and experience, but I felt that I didn’t want hands-on work with the network elements again, I wanted to start managing projects. So when I saw the opportunity at Webbing, I thought I’d be happy to come back, and here I am again.
Webbing’s evolvement from my perspective
Having been here before, I can see the company’s evolvement. Everything is organized and structured and very task-focused, everybody knows what they need to do. On the other hand, we still sometimes handle things as a startup. It’s flexible, there are no real boundaries. People here really think outside the box and are very creative. And there’s a great thing about the management: they keep pushing forward, but they give you all the tools to live up to your expectations from yourself – before they expect anything from you.
Now that we have a mature network, we’re focused on expanding and developing it, adding new features like voice prepaid and VoLTE and GTP proxy. It’s not about just growing your subscriber base, it’s about understanding what our customers’ needs are and where we can enhance our services based on it.
Webbing is not like any local operator. Things here are much faster and, I think, more customer oriented. For example, roaming calls – for a local operator it’s a nice-to-have service, and very expensive, too. But for Webbing, this is our main activity, we finetune it and give it added value. We’re deploying packet gateways wherever our customer can benefit most from our services – low latency, high speed. We also do it in a very short time, between 1 and 2 months.
I like to try new things
When you work at Webbing, every day is different from the previous one. Of course, you encounter some challenges that you saw in earlier projects, like deploying packet gateways in Singapore and then in Tokyo. But there are also other things, such as the prepaid project that we just launched. For any other operator, it would take between eight and ten months. We did it in four. It keeps you on your toes, and there’s the effort of pulling through, but you know that every day is a new game.
Besides, you really feel that people here have your back. If I need to count on someone, I know I can. We have many great teams and team leads, and they’re always available for discussions, calls and brainstorming. Of course, they’re super busy, yet still they find time to help.
I don’t have a specific hobby, but I like to experiment and try new things. Along with spending time with my kids, traveling, and sports, I played the drums and kite surfed. Now I’m thinking about buying a motorcycle to ride it on weekends.
And the same goes for work, too – I like to try new stuff. Maybe working at Webbing, in an environment that’s so dynamic, with people who are not afraid of trying something new, changes the way you see things. Or maybe it comes from personal life to work or works both ways.
Little things make all the difference
Webbing is a fun place to work at, in a lot of aspects. But most of all, it’s the people – they are warm, and caring, and easygoing. I have a high work ethic, and I like to handle the details. I believe that success is measured by how well you manage the details.
And that’s what I see at Webbing. We have everything here: great food, all the facilities, the ping pong tournaments, air hockey, which is a lot of fun. But it’s also the small things, when you feel that people take care of you, and that the company lets you control your work-life balance, and this friendly environment, these little things make all the difference.
