How a Prague center is sowing seeds for next-generation IT success

The worlds of finance and technology are closely linked together. With banks increasingly resembling technology companies due to their reliance on advanced digital solutions, the nature of the workforce in finance is changing.

Commerzbank’s Digital Technology Center (DTC) in Prague is a case in point. As an international hub for the major German bank’s digital activities, it’s an integral part of a finance industry giant. Commerzbank's Prague DTC employs over 600 people, working in diverse teams comprising over 60 different nationalities and speaking English as their common language.

Like all tech centers, Commerzbank’s DTC depends on a strong pool of local technology talent. Mindful of its reliance on skilled people, the company also focuses on developing the next generation of bright minds, and recently concluded its annual internship program for high school students in Czechia.

Commerzbank’s high school internship consists of two parts. The first, held at the end of May during students’ mandatory work experience at technical high schools, lasts two weeks. A three-week follow-up experience in August offers students a more in-depth taste of life at the DTC. This year, 12 students participated in the program.

“We looked not at participants’ skills, but at their energy, motivation and proactive approach to self-development through school or personal projects,” explains Miroslav Škoula, Vice President, Development Chapter Lead at Commerzbank Czech Republic.

Work experience at Commerzbank’s DTC in Prague focuses on tech development. During their initial two-week experience in May, students were given free rein to work on their own application using infrastructure in Azure Cloud, concluding with a presentation of their project and live demonstration of their application in English.

During the second stage in August, students chose their teams and worked on projects together for three weeks, again giving a presentation and live demo to conclude the experience.

“Students can make use of skills taught at school in the cloud environment, including web application programming, databases, networking, or C# or Java capabilities,” Miroslav says. “As well as developing these hard skills, they learn agile working principles, teamwork, communication and presentation.”

As implied in Miroslav’s description of the valuable soft skills gained during the program, success in the IT world isn’t all about technical skill. Commerzbank aims to develop participants holistically, including by preparing them for the world of work.

“This is an IT internship, so students should expect to learn about IT technologies, as well as what it’s like to work for a big corporate company such as Commerzbank,” Miroslav says. “The main aim is to provide a real Commerzbank employee experience, working on projects in our teams, including all the meetings, presentations, and benefits, including home-office or flexi-hours.”

When applying for the experience, students have to emulate the skills they’d need in a job application, demonstrating in a motivation letter their interest in IT, their drive to succeed and their motivation to work at Commerzbank.

“Students learn about how we work and how we’re organized, including our internal processes and guidelines. We, meanwhile, get to know them from working with them. This can be a great advantage for them in future, especially when it comes to Junior and Student level positions,” Miroslav points out.

While enriching Commerzbank by facilitating connections with talented young minds, the high school program reflects the company’s sense of responsibility to Czech society. Together with a university program in which up to 40 students participate each year, the high school scheme encourages the next generation of tech talent.

“I’m very positively surprised by how advanced these students are when it comes to using IT technologies,” remarks Miroslav.

“We contribute by providing context for such skills and showing the complexity of IT projects beyond what schools are able to cover within the given timeframe. We focus on team collaboration, communication and planning. Our ambition is not to cover the hard skills taught at school, but to provide complementary experiences. This allows all the skills learned in school to be utilized and connected into something tangible,” he adds.

As IT skills become increasingly critical to economies around the globe, Czechia has positioned itself as an international tech hub. As a result, Commerzbank’s Prague DTC is a workplace enabling growth in both technical and managerial roles, across a wide range of departments. Many DTC team leads worked their way up from specialist roles, and no prior knowledge of finance is required to succeed with the company.

Still, development and education are vital throughout the DTC – from senior managers who worked their way up from the bottom, to the latest intake of high school students who gained invaluable work experience. By developing the next generation of tech leaders, Commerzbank aims to safeguard the future success of its own teams, as well as the Czech tech sector as a whole.