Alumni Newsletter
Hello, friends of Melon, and Happy New Year!
May 2022 find you and your close ones in good health and good spirits!
We come around with the 3rd edition of the Melon Alumni Newsletter. We're happy that from now on, Melon's Macedonian Alumni are also in the updates loop. Добредојде! 😊
What's New?

We’re excited to share that Melon took another big step towards expanding in the SEE region, making a strategic investment in the Kosovo-based software development company Frakton. With Frakton’s splendid local and international reputation, admirable expertise and natural fit to Melon’s values and vision, joining forces comes as a natural step. With 300+ strong developers across our offices in Sofia, Veliko Tarnovo, Skopje and Pristina, we feel confident stepping in 2022 with even more ambitious goals. Follow this link to learn more.

In 2021, we won not one, but two Clutch awards! First, the leading B2B ratings and reviews platform presented us with Clutch’s Leaders Award, landing on 1st place in their rating of 120 software development companies in Bulgaria. Better yet, we also got listed in Clutch's Top B2B Companies in the World ranking, where we landed on the 23rd place among the Top 1000 other companies worldwide (out of 32K+). As our CEO Krum Hadjigeorgiev put it: “Globally, we are Michael Jordan of the service companies!”. And as Alumni, we’d like to thank you for your contribution in shaping Melon throughout the years and making it a winner!

Melon is distinguished as one of the 10 top mobile app development companies separately in Bulgaria and in North Macedonia. In both countries, we scored the remarkable 97 out of 100 points. Since app development has become a necessity and means of survival for many businesses, we delighted to be singled out as some of the best technological partners in both states.

Turnpike Microsoft Award
We’re happy to share that our client Turnpike got the award for “Swedish Start-Up of The Year” by Microsoft. Turnpike are producing smartwatches for retail workers that enable discrete, real-time communication between staff and management, and enhances customer service and engagement. We banded with Turnpike Group in 2017 as a technological partner and developed the Android, iOS, and Apple Watch applications the company uses for its devices up to this day.

Corporate Social Responsibility
In 2021 we stayed true to our corporate social responsibility goals in supporting some amazing organizations that work towards a better future for children (like The Kid’s Mathematics Olympic Team in North Macedonia, Telerik School Academy in Veliko Tarnovo, Health Activity and Technologies Institute, Technokrati, Our Premature Children, ParaKids, Rusalya), equality (Bulgarian Fund For Women, Bulgarian Helsinki Committee) and environmental protection (Bike & Run for Chepan and Gorata.bg). And we’ll continue to do so in 2022, you can count on that!

FMI Branding
One of our most ambitious projects in 2021 was our joint initiative with Sofia University’s Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics (FMI). We sponsored the renovation of the faculty’s top floor corridor and brightened it up with Melon’s colorful designs, which are there to stay for the next 10 years at least. The feedback from students and staff is overwhelmingly positive, and we couldn’t be happier with the result and the reactions. You can take a short video tour and see how we did here.

Conferences & Talks
We took part in some leading industry events, too. Petar Svarc (Head of People and Culture in Melon) delivered an insightful talk during Dev.bg All in One Conf. on the importance of mental health, the dangers of the stigmas surrounding it, and why it’s so important that those should be tackled.
Hristina Biserinska (Data Scientist at Melon) led a workshop at HackConf, aimed to ensure clean, potable water to communities in Tanzania through Machine Learning.
Miroslav Georgiev, Open Source Team Lead at Melon, won the Mothership Missions Bonus Prize in Hackathon for Good's Challenge: Remote sensing for water salinity monitoring. His team of 4 developers provided managers with a better understanding and monitoring of salt water intrusion.
In 2022, we plan to be even more present in various local and international events, so stay tuned.

Melon Birthday
Last but not least, 2021 is the year that Melon turned 18! To mark this happy milestone, we gathered together for a first live party since the pandemic hit. As you can imagine – it was extensively emotional and joyful. As always, we were thrilled so many of our alumni attended! Hopefully, in 2022, we’ll have more occasions to get together and the right conditions to celebrate them safely.
Referral Program
Our Referral program remains valid for you – our alumni. History has shown that the candidates we receive via referrals are more successful and more likely to remain as long-term employees, compared to any other channel.
If you have friends or acquaintances who you think would be a good fit for Melon's production team, you can send their CVs and contacts to hr@melontech.com. We'll get in touch with them and if they join Melon and pass the trial period, as a symbolic token of gratitude we'll offer you:
500 EUR for Junior colleagues
1250 EUR for Mid-level colleagues
2000 EUR for Senior colleagues
Also, if you personally would like to once again become part of our growing team in these exciting times for Melon, we'll be more than happy to have you. 😊
You can find a list of all open positions here.
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Have a fulfilling 2022! We’ll keep in touch! 😊
The Melon Team