If you have a passion for technology and want to do more than simply follow a process, you might be the perfect fit for Liberty IT.
Liberty IT arrived in Dublin three years ago, but it has been on the island of Ireland a lot longer than that.
“Liberty IT was set up 20 years ago in Belfast as a wholly owned subsidiary of Liberty Mutual in the US,” said Felim O’Donnell, company head of operations in Dublin. “Liberty Mutual is a Fortune 100 company in the US.”
Liberty IT develops software products for Liberty Mutual. While the company has a security operations centre and IT help desk, as well as hosting facilities, it is primarily a java house.
“We have 540 people in Liberty IT between the Belfast and Dublin office, and I’d say about 80pc of those are software developers,” said O’Donnell.
He said that since he joined the company in January 2016, there has been a lot of rapid growth. “When I took on this role, we had 45 people – we’re now at 80 people. By the end of this year, we’ll have over 100 people.”
He said that for those with a passion for technology, Liberty IT is a great place to work as it focuses on learning and improving all the time.
“I talk about technology a bit like medicine. It’s not like you just get your degree and then it’s done,” he said. “We’re trying to create a culture here in Liberty IT where people want to share, they want to challenge themselves and kind of better themselves.”
When it comes to the work at Liberty IT, the aim is to integrate with the Belfast office to deliver quality products to Liberty Mutual in the US. That means that employees are constantly looking for better ways to do things, generating new ideas about how to deliver the best products they can.
O’Donnell said that when it comes to sourcing a candidate, he’s looking for someone who is trying to improve all the time. “I’m really looking at somebody who doesn’t just follow a process, but they actually ask why they’re doing the things that they’re doing and they’re constantly trying to learn and improve, not just for themselves, but for the people around them,” he said.
Liberty IT deals with a lot of java development projects but its integration layer for the insurance platforms is in the US.
According to O’Donnell, Belfast was one of the few places that was hiring graduates straight out university for about 10 years. Through this, they managed to get the cream of the crop.
O’Donnell said that Liberty IT is looking for people who have a passion for technology. “We’ve a heavy focus on agile ways of working as well, so we’re really about empowering our teams to challenge their environment,” he said. “If you have an interest in that, I think Liberty IT is a great place to work.”
