IT.mk is a Macedonian online media platform that informs about the latest IT news and trends from the local and international IT scene. This article is a part of IT.mk series, which aims to promote local companies that are present in the IT Index service. It offers a review of our company and the IT services that we provide.
The original article in Macedonian is available here.
Cosmic Development – a Canadian software and IT services company that develops and innovates software and mobile solutions
1. The date when you officially started work:
Cosmic Development’s office in Skopje, Macedonia began to operate in February 2011.
2. Who founded the company?
Cosmic Development is a global, privately owned IT company that was founded by Ryan Milnes and Chris Pavlovski.
3. The first product or service you offered and successfully sold was:
We started as an IT support services provider and web development company.
4. How many people were in Cosmic’s original team?
We started with a team of only eight people in Skopje, in an office space which was smaller than 90m² but with the hope that we will contribute to increasing employability. Our ambition hasn’t been changed to this day, but fortunately, our office has – we now enjoy a large office with over 350m² of space at the top of Manhattan Business Center in Skopje and 3 more offices in Toronto (Canada), Belgrade (Serbia), and Bitola (Macedonia).
5. How many employees does Cosmic Development have now?
Together with the other offices in Canada, Serbia, and Macedonia, we have 200+ employees.
6. What services or products does your business offer? What are you specialized in?
We are specialized in web and mobile applications, software development, social media, outsourcing, consulting services, and new product development.
Our teams of experts and software developers are proficient in Java, PHP, C, SQL, Python, JavaScript, WordPress, Android, iOS, and always eager to experiment with the newest technology.
We develop dynamic web and mobile applications, e-commerce solutions, portal applications, applications with CMS. Our people carefully plan and analyze each step of the software development process to provide superior results. In addition to these services, we offer digital marketing, sales, and virtual help.
7. What differs you from your competition?
People, organizational culture, working atmosphere, and friendship. There are no typical employee-manager relations in Cosmic Development. We are all at the same level, and we are all equal and treated equally. We all share the same goal, and that is to offer the highest-quality services and products – from strategy level to implementation and maintenance.
We have flexible working hours, autonomy, and many other benefits that can rarely be found in other companies (in the region). We allow our people the freedom to choose when they work, support their personal growth, and ensure a quality work-life balance.
We offer excellent opportunities for professional development and career advancement. We are proud that our people regularly attend the most relevant technical conferences and training, both as participants and speakers, year after year. We love hackathons and innovation challenges, but most of all, we love witnessing our employees’ growth. For instance, our CTO has started as an intern.
We care for our people and their families. We celebrate happy moments together. Our employees who become parents receive a baby package and are allowed to work from home for as long as they need.
We love food, and we have our own office kitchen. We have even created a food ordering application, and we are happy that each of our employees gets healthy food every day.
We love hanging around together. We have a very cool 50m² big gaming room (yes, it’s almost as big as an entire apartment!) and a huge cinema room. We often organize different sports activities like running or hiking off-trail, basketball, volleyball, and football tournaments, and even swimming “competitions.” We love our Happy Fridays with popcorn and beer, and from time to time we do open networking events where we work remotely close to a swimming pool, a river or at our premises with amazing cocktails. Still, nothing compares to our team buildings. They are simply legendary!
8. Who are your main clients?
We’re proud to say that 90% of our clients come as a referral from our other clients. We’ve been working with many worldwide and fast-growing tech companies, from America’s Funniest Home Videos and Rumble.com, to Bookmark, Some Spider, LittleThings, Fantasy Draft, and many more.
9. What would you change about the current Macedonian IT scene if you had unlimited resources?
Cosmic Development is dedicated to helping our IT community and startups. We’d love to see new innovative and successful Macedonian startup companies, and if we had unlimited resources, we’d invest in a well equipped scientific technology park where every startups’ enthusiast could come, consult with mentors and develop their product from scratch.
In our new premises in Skopje, we actually offer rent-free space and support to startups which want to come and work with their team to develop their ideas into products.
As before, we plan to continue to support and participate in the organization of various IT events, training, and student practices. We have hosted DIGIT, a positive social change event organized by SP Fini. We also hold lectures and master classes pretty regularly and gladly accept invitations to attend student events at the technical faculties in Skopje and Bitola. We’ll keep sharing our knowledge, skills, and expertise as mentors and coaches, hackathons’ judges, and speakers wherever we can contribute to the development of future young leaders and, of course, our IT community.
10. What will Cosmic Development do in 2023?
We’ll conquer Mars!
11. Share one “fun fact” about your company.
There are so many, but let’s name a few most interesting ones:
Our guys enjoy their work so much that the office feels like home. In fact, some of them even wear slippers at work.
When the weather gets too hot, we don’t hesitate to take a #remoteworkday and go to work together by a pool.
We are true nature lovers! Each and every plant in our office had its names and is considered a part of our Cosmic family.
We love sports too. We sponsored ZFK Top Gol, a female youth football team in Bitola, and we hope they will become national players one day.
We are proud supporters of Macedonia2025. We’ve recently received a special thank you award. One of our founders, Chris Pavlovski, is Macedonia2025 board member and he’s been helping startups and other IT companies since the start of the Macedonian IT scene.
Everyone who visits our office is encouraged to express their own creativity on our unique wall.
