The tech leader who got into software by copying his sister

A career that started with a copy-and-paste decision

Marius’s start in tech was simple, and honestly, quite relatable: his older sister chose IT, and when it was his turn to pick a direction, he followed.

“My sister, who is seven years older than me, started studying information technology at university,” he says. “When it was my time to choose a more specific path at school, I didn’t know what kind of studies I should choose, so I just did the same as she did.”

He’s quick to say he never “always knew” he wanted tech. But there’s something telling about how he describes his earliest paid project: “The first project that I got money for was an e-shop for car tyres.” It’s not a flashy origin story. It’s a practical one. Someone needed a thing, he built the thing, the thing worked, and that was enough to keep going.

It also hints at what he still values now: usefulness. Not perfect demos. Not theoretical elegance. Software that makes someone’s day easier.

Fourteen years later, he’s Group Engineering Manager within Signicat’s Sign tribe, responsible for teams working on signing solutions in the digital identity space. He’s still motivated by the same thing that’s been there from the beginning: building something real, used by real customers, and making it better than it was yesterday.

“On paper, this is still my first job”

If you’re looking for a neat CV story with lots of company logos, Marius won’t give you one. He’s built his career through a long arc in the same place, watching it evolve around him.

“On paper, this is still my first job,” he says. “I started working at a company called Estina 14 years ago.” At the start, it was client projects. Then it shifted into product: “After a few years, we started creating Dokobit and the company was renamed accordingly.”

Dokobit was eventually acquired by Signicat, which is how Marius joined. His answer to “why Signicat?” is refreshingly blunt: “There was no choice, we got acquired.” The smile comes through even in the wording.

It also says something useful to candidates. What kept him here isn’t a carefully crafted recruitment narrative. It’s the work, the people, and the scale of problems that come with building signing products inside a larger digital identity company.

What he does now: Keeping signing stable while everything moves

Marius describes his role in straightforward terms. He’s a group engineering manager in the Sign tribe, responsible for teams working with signing solutions.

“In short, it’s about coordinating all these teams from a tech point of view, improving the quality of the solutions, and making sure that the tribe achieves all its goals.”

A lot of his current focus is on migration work. “The most important ones are migration projects across all teams,” he says. In practice, it means moving multiple products and teams onto a unified platform, safely, without breaking trust along the way.

His days include the usual leadership mix: interviews, security questions, customer-related puzzles, and, occasionally, still getting his hands dirty in code. It’s not a “step away from engineering” role. It’s a “stay close enough to improve it” role.

If you ask what he dreams of building next, he doesn’t name a specific product. He goes back to that usefulness instinct. “Any solution that is used by many customers and makes their lives easier is something I like working on.”

Trust, in his world, is stability and learning from mistakes

Digital identity has a lot of big words attached to it. Trust. Security. Compliance. Regulation. Marius isn’t allergic to any of that, but he grounds it in daily responsibility.

“One of my goals is to keep our solutions stable and secure,” he says, “so I make sure we keep improving the tech stack and, most importantly, learning from the challenges we’ve faced.”

That last part matters. It’s not “we never hit problems”. It’s “we take problems seriously enough to learn, adjust, and not repeat them”.

In signing, where requirements differ across markets and regulation is part of the landscape, the work is rarely simple. As Marius puts it, the teams are “handling a lot of complex requirements from customers in a lot of different markets, with different specifics, in areas which are highly regulated.”

It also explains why he thinks people outside the space underestimate it. “Usually people don’t understand what’s so much about signing, and why the solution we are working on needs such a big team,” he says. On the surface, a signature can look like a button. Underneath, it’s standards, edge cases, operational pressure, and a lot of responsibility.

His leadership fuel: making things better

If you want the simplest description of what drives Marius, it’s this: improvement.

“What fuels you more?” he repeats, then answers: “Making things better. It doesn’t matter what it is. It could be the tech stack, it could be the office environment, it could be people. I just want to take opportunities to make something better than it is now.”

That mindset shows up in how he talks about teams too. He likes working with people who are smart enough to challenge each other without making it painful. “Those people are smart, it’s easy to work together, and I can still learn a lot from them,” he says.

He also points to something candidates often hope is true, but rarely hear stated plainly: you can ask for help. “One thing is the smart people in the company, and the ability to work with them,” he says, “because you can get help from anyone in the company if needed.”

And because Signicat is built across countries, he sees the cultural variety as a positive pressure as well. International teams “come with their own challenges,” he says, “but it allows us to get out of our small circle, which I believe makes us better and smarter people.”

How he works: coffee, mornings, and very deep focus

Marius’s “typical day” sounds familiar to anyone leading teams: “Coffee, an overview of the last day and remaining questions, meetings, lunch, more meetings, and some time where I can focus on the things I need to work on myself or do some development.”

But his favourite part of the day is more specific. “Morning,” he says. “I tend to rethink a lot before sleep, so usually I have some fresh ideas in the morning that I just need to execute with a fresh mind.”

When he’s deep in work mode, coffee helps, but his real trick is… disappearance. “When I’m doing something important, there’s no need for anything,” he says. “I can disconnect from the outside world and focus on important stuff. Be aware that I am in the room, but I won’t be listening at that time.”

It’s funny, but it’s also honest. Focus is a leadership skill, especially when your calendar is full of other people’s problems.

What’s next, and why candidates might like it here

Marius sees the signing area changing rapidly, and the tech industry changing with it. That pace is part of what drives him. “There are a lot of things I need to keep up with,” he says.

These days, he’s less excited by a specific framework and more excited by what helps teams ship reliably. “Now it’s more about the technology that makes the team work more effectively, or the solutions more stable and secure,” he says.

And his advice to someone thinking about joining Signicat’s tech organisation is direct: “Just do it. We have good people here, a good tech stack, and we are working on something meaningful.”

He doesn’t spell out the subtext, but it’s there across everything he says. If you like making things better, you’ll have plenty to do.