Author: Viliana Staneva

The leading Bulgarian IT company SiteGround won the award in the SEE CSR Initiative of the Year category from the INNOVATION, TECHNOLOGY AND SOURCING AWARDS. 48 projects of different companies from the country and the region competed in 10 categories. The organizers of the Association for Innovation, Business Services and Technologies (AIBEST) and the Bulgarian Startup Association (BESCO) rewarded SiteGround’s efforts in the field of social responsibility. The company supports long-term projects and initiatives that help society in the field of health, sports and education.

For the last two years SiteGround and its owners have invested in hospitals, non-governmental organizations and other institutions of public importance in the country. Thanks to its large-scale commitment and investment, for 2020 and 2021 SiteGround has won over 20 awards as an employer and socially responsible company in Bulgaria.

“I thank the organizers for this recognition. As a leader in the IT field, social responsibility is of special importance to us. For years we have been investing sustainably in support of projects and causes related to medicine, education and sports, thus aiming to improve the quality of life and to influence the development of the whole society. I take this opportunity to congratulate all the other companies from the ecosystem that are here. I believe that our joint efforts take us in the right direction of development”, said Victor Fachev, Human Resources Director at SiteGround.

In order to scale its efforts in support of the society, the management team of SiteGround – Ivo Tzenov and Tenko Nikolov, are about to create their own foundation. Its main mission will be to seek and implement social projects in the field of health, education and sports.

The Association for Innovation, Business Services and Technologies (AIBEST) and the Bulgarian Startup Association (BESCO) are conducting the awards for innovation, technology and sourcing for the sixth consecutive year. Within 10 different categories, the Innovation, Technology and Sourcing 2022 Awards aim to recognize and encourage the efforts of companies in the sector in Southeast Europe, investors and local authorities for good practices, business achievements and creating a favorable business environment for supply growth and the technology industry. 

With the weather getting nicer and nicer and being able to finally attend in-person events after a two-year break, May has been a great month for team buildings and conferences across Europe. Here’s what happened at SiteGround:

• A favorite SiteGround tradition is the 3.00 PM employee celebrations in the office. One of our May-borns brought the party to our Headquarters in Sofia with strawberry chocolate fountains and (a little) prosecco.
• We were so happy to host the PHP User Group MeetUp in our office for beers, wurst, and some best practice sharing on Front-end & back-end symbiosis.
• For World Bee Day we visited our adopted SiteGround beehive.
• Our SiteGround football team showed some great skills in a tournament organized for the Plovdiv business.
• We visited high schools in Stara Zagora to explain what it is to work in IT and motivate students to pursue degrees and careers in this exciting field.
• Once again we supported women in tech by sponsoring and speaking at Rails Girls Sofia.
• As open-source contributors, we sponsored and attended the PlodivConf.
• We had a big delegation to one of the biggest Linux events KubeCon + CloudNativeCon in Valencia, Spain where they learned great new things and shared them with the team.
• We started our traditional mini-teambuilding events: each team at SiteGround gets a solid budget for bonding and collaboration events.
• We organized forestation in Vitosha mountain and planted 170 saplings.
• We had a new group start in our Customer Care team – it was great to staрt the journey for 14 SiteGround Newbies.
• Our AI team attended the Meeting of the Association of Computational Linguistics in Dublin, Ireland.
• Knowing how important it is to support great local events, we supported Plovdiv Dance Week.

Can’t wait to see what the summer months bring in! In the meantime, if you are interested in joining our team, check out our open positions.

The management team of the leading Bulgarian IT company – Ivo Tzenov and Tenko Nikolov, are establishing a foundation. Its main goal and mission will be the implementation of social projects in health, educational and sports 

The management team of the leading Bulgarian IT company and world leader in web hosting technologies SiteGround – Ivo Tzenov and Tenko Nikolov, are establishing  their own foundation. The main mission of the entity will be to seek and implement social projects in the field of health, education and sports.

For the last two years the leading Bulgarian technology company and its owners have invested millions in hospitals, non-governmental organizations and other institutions of public importance in the country. Thanks to its large-scale commitment and investment, for 2020 and 2021 SiteGround has won over 20 awards as an employer and socially responsible company in Bulgaria.

“SiteGround is a leader in its business field and this makes our public engagement a mission for us. For years we have been investing purposefully in support of projects and causes, in the field of medicine, education and sports, and this investment in society has a great impact on improving the quality of life, thanks to technology and the development of potential through educational innovations. The establishment of the foundation upgrades and brings them to a qualitatively new level, which gives potential to our projects for global response and contribution”, commented Tenko Nikolov, SiteGround CEO.

“Hiring an Executive Director of the Foundation will bring a lot of our ideas to the stage of realization and will help us channel the resources and projects we want to work on. Our main mission is to make human life longer and of better quality. We will rely on innovations and technological solutions that will allow us to realize our ambitious plans in this direction. We have a lot of work to do, but I feel confident in the success, because I know that behind us is the whole SiteGround team, which is involved in all social projects we have so far”, said Ivo Tzenov, co-founder of SiteGround.

The leading Bulgarian IT company gives scholarships to students and mentors from the “Ready for Success” program to enjoy the guest show “This is a dance!”

SiteGround is the official partner of the ONE DANCE WEEK contemporary dance festival. The leading Bulgarian IT company gives an opportunity to mentors and fellows – disadvantaged young people, to enjoy the show “This is a dance!”, which will take place on May 22 and 23 in Plovdiv. The fellows are some of the young people that SiteGround has already supported through the BCause Foundation’s “Ready for Success” program to continue and complete their education.

The show “This is a dance!” is the latest production of the Brazilian company Balé da Cidade de São Paulo and is a lavish demonstration of the infectiously captivating, casual and beautiful nature of Passinho – a dance style born in the explosive favelas of Rio de Janeiro.

“For the team of SiteGround Plovdiv brings special sentiment, because it is the first city outside Sofia, where in 2007 we decided to open our office and we were one of the first IT companies determined to expand the field of technology outside the capital. Later we added Stara Zagora, because we believe that talent in any field can be discovered and developed everywhere – the wider your horizons, the better for the environment as a whole.

Our support for events such as One Dance Week, which traditionally give the general public the opportunity to see some of the most innovative achievements in contemporary dance, expresses precisely our corporate value – to take care of improving the environment as a whole – work, community and cultural”, said Dima Peteva, Brand Marketing Director of SiteGround.

SiteGround is a leading Bulgarian technology company that has been supporting initiatives and projects in various public spheres for over 18 years, having a significant contribution to the development of the technology sector and IT communities in Bulgaria. ONE DANCE WEEK is a partner in the New European Bauhaus initiative, which aims to combine technology, art and culture to create a better living environment through inclusion, sustainability and aesthetics.

There is so much going on at SiteGround, that we decided to make a video diary for the month to give a recap of the great stuff that we organized.

April was a great month:

• We started with April Fool’s when each employee received a “good luck” note with their delicious office coffee.
• We boosted our new employee welcome gift and each new joiner gets now also an awesome water bottle with their onboarding package.
• Caring for the environment, we adopted a beehive and they already started sending us honey (yummy!).
• We sent employees to see a live football match in London.
• With more than $ 6 mln. for the next 5 years, SiteGround became the biggest sponsor of the Institute for Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence and Technology, and our CEO, Tenko Nikolov, was part of the launch event.
• For National Pet Day, our beloved hairy pals received SiteGround customized swag that also supported Ador Barador and Dare2CareAnimals – the foundations that produced them.
• We celebrated Earth Day by taking part in forestations near Sofia, Plovdiv, Stara Zagora and Madrid. Together, we planted more than 1300 trees!
• After a great winter season in Bulgaria, we wrapped our ski/snowboarding activities, with 15 SiteGrounders ski-touring/split-boarding to Cherni Vrah (2300 m) and riding down the fresh powder snow.
• 2022 has been a great year so far for internal career development at SiteGround and we have had in April alone 10 career moves. Their onboarding from our client support teams to Development has also been great fun!
• We received the Forbes Bulgaria Award for 2022 best IT company and our CEOs Tenko Nikolov and Nikolay Todorov made it to Top 100 IT professionals list (again).
• We kicked off our annual GetFit Challenge and the sport motivation is rocking (also the names of 36 teams like “Maradöner Kebab”, “Ketchup if you can”, and “Train with Pain”).
• After Easter, we had an epic egg battle in each office.

Eggcited 🙂 ? Find out more about SiteGround at careers.siteground.com and enjoy May.

Giving back to the community has always been a big part of our values at SiteGround. Charity initiatives are traditionally included in our End-of-Year activities, but not only. We strive to be active all-year round, as we believe that consistency in giving is important, and even a little contribution, but regularly, can make a big difference. That’s why, to wrap up the year in Giving at SiteGround, we wanted to find a way to include a variety of causes that our employees can choose to support, according to what they feel closer to heart. 

We also had to find a trusted partner who can help us vet the causes and handle all donations online for our distributed team. Overall, they had to meet the following expectations: 

• Propose causes that align with our values
• Make it smooth, easy and safe to donate online
• Validate the foundations and add new potential ones to the list
• Be transparent on funds collected by SiteGrounders and Company

This is how we chose to launch our own company donation page at platformata.bg, who are one of the first and most well-established online donation platforms in Bulgaria. From then on it was a matter of days to set it all up. We launched our page with a shortlist of 5 causes and goals for each of the campaigns. We chose them to be aligned with our desire to have a positive, long-lasting mark in the wider community and we believe each of them does that in their own way:

• “For our children” helps families who struggle to stay together because of financial and other difficulties. Every year they prevent the abandonment of hundreds of babies and kids, not only with funds, but also with professional consultation in various areas and education on conscious parenting. Apart from ongoing support of this organization, SiteGround also hosts their website through our internal Host a Cause program, where our employees adopt a non-profit initiative or foundation of their choice and support them with free website hosting for life.
• “Green Balkans” is the only veterinary hospital in Bulgaria specializing  in rehabilitation of wounded wild animals, who are released back into nature after treatment. This campaign continues SiteGround’s support for their activity, as their cause was also adopted in our internal Host a Cause program, and for Earth Day in 2021 we also ran a campaign to help them raise the funds for the preservation of the largest bird of prey in Europe, Cinereous Vulture, which was until very recently extinct in Bulgaria.
• “Get ready to succeed” is fueled by the power of paying it forward by giving back. They provide scholarships and support to medical university students, kids and young people who have lost their families.
• “Fund for the kids of heroes” aids children who lost their parents due to being first-line during the Covid19 pandemic. These are physicians, teachers and essential personnel who fight everyday for the health and safety of all of us.
• “St. Nikolas” Orphanage provides shelter, freshly-cooked food, and clothing to children and their families. They aim to create a true home environment and raise confident, knowledgeable young people who know how to make a livelihood.

We shared the page through our internal and external SiteGround employee channels and we were humbled and amazed by how fast and smooth it all happened. In only two weeks we surpassed all of our goals! As per our tradition, SiteGround doubles all funds collected by employees towards the end of the campaign, so the total we collected equals 20 530 BGN, which is even higher than previous internal holiday campaigns. 

In addition to our employee-driven charity initiatives, ever since the foundation of our company we regularly support a variety of projects and organizations within several main areas, which we have identified as key for our society: entrepreneurship, education, health, environment & nature, and culture. The overall amount we donated on a company level for 2021 in these key areas is 160 080 BGN, spread among 10 main initiatives that fall within one or several of the main categories above. For 2022, we are confident that we can do more to help. Here is to a successful, and filled with good deeds, year!

This year’s Earth Day, April 22 comes with a green team initiative in support of Green Balkans, the leading organization in the conservation of rare species in Bulgaria. As part of our environmentally-friendly efforts and culture, we’ve also been involved with the cause of Green Balkans for over 3 years when the organization was referred by a teammate for our internal Host a Cause program. The idea of this program is simple – it encourages team members to help the online presence of NGOs they care about. Every SiteGrounder can choose a non-profit initiative, project, or foundation to support by giving them a free website hosting account for life. Why? Because we care about our employees and the things that matter to them. This is how we started supporting Green Balkans 3 years ago, and continue our efforts now.

Contribute to Bulgarian Nature

To celebrate this year’s Earth Day on April 22nd, we decided to go further and contribute to the cause of Green Balkans as a team and as a company.  We encouraged our teammates to help adopt a special kind of bird called “Cinereous Vulture”. Cinereous Vulture is known as the largest bird of prey in Europe and an extinct species in Bulgaria. Green Balkans have been striving to bring it back for nearly 30 years because it plays an essential role in our nature and biodiversity. It seems that their constant efforts to achieve recovery of the species to our country have recently proved worth it. The first two Black Vulture couples have settled in Bulgaria for the first time after so many years just a few weeks ago. However, to achieve long-term success, Green Balkans need further support for the full recovery of the extinct species to our country.

That is why we’ve started a donation campaign for our team – every SiteGrounder can donate a sum of their choice, and SiteGround will double it to support the cause. As adopters, we will have the privilege to name one of the special birds and also once it starts living freely and safely in our regions, to receive signals of its location due to a special tracking system Green Balkans use. Of course, to include every team member in the process, we opened an internal poll for the name of the bird, and will later on have a team vote on the most favoured name suggestion by popular choice inside our team.

You’re very welcome to support Green Balkans, too. Feel free to contribute to the good cause on a personal level by donating an amount of your choice to Green Balkans and the Bulgarian biodiversity, following their user-friendly donation methods here.

Every action is important as the future of the world we live in depends on each and every one of us and the actions we choose to take or not on a daily basis. Be part of the change you want to see in the world and a good example to yourself. And if you love technology and nature as much as we do, make sure to check our SiteGround jobs and current openings here.

Update:  We’re happy to announce that together with our team we donated a total of 3700 BGN to a cause of Green Balkans. Big thanks to our teammates and all of you who joined the campaign in support of Green Balkans and by doing this helped for the preservation of an extinct bird species called “Black Vulture”, which are nesting in Bulgaria for the first time in 30 years. The good news is that the couple now has a baby bird! We’re also excited to announce the name of our newly adopted bird for which the majority of our team voted. We chose Avalon – named after one of our internal server systems.

Even as winter is already towards its end here, going to the mountains will never be out of season. That’s why we’re excited to share one more initiative that we recently supported in addition to our help for the Bulgarian Mountain Rescue Service.

A few months ago we were approached by The Bulgarian Observable Huts Organization (BOHO) – looking for a partner for one of their latest projects. The Bulgarian Observable Huts Organization is a donation based non-profit entity. Their goal is to equip as many huts and lodges in Bulgaria as possible with Internet, online meteorological stations, and web cameras. Thanks to their efforts travellers can easily check the meteorological situation and actual weather forecast in a particular hut from BOHO’s network in order to better prepare for trips in advance.

We know how important the right preparation and equipment are. What’s more, BOHO contacted us at the same time while we were working on our Mountain Safety Checklist and Mountain Phone Wallpapers, as part of our support for the Mountain Rescue Service – the Bulgarian Red Cross. Since in our team we have many avid hikers, bikers, peak and mountain lovers, we thought there couldn’t be a better moment to support one more organization who develops safe and sustainable tourism for everyone in Bulgaria.

So, a few months later, thanks to our donation, the team of BOHO managed to equip one more new mountain hut with Internet and live web cameras. That’s how everyone can at all times check the view from the new Balkanity hut, situated in Vitosha mountain Park, and plan their next mountain trip there, or just enjoy the scenery from their couch or office desk. 

Check huts.bg if you wish to have a look at the current weather conditions at some of the other 13+ mountain huts in Bulgaria that BOHO equipped. It’s good to know that the website is yet only in Bulgarian, but BOHO are in the process of developing a new one with more languages and functionalities, giving advantages to even more people. If you have plans to stay in a mountain hut in Bulgaria soon, you might also be interested in the online huts map that BOHO uploaded here. 

“Be sure to go to the mountains always fully prepared and do not overvalue your capabilities”, is the go-to advice from Boyan Georgiev, the founder and the main driving force of BOHO. 

With the online map of BOHO, a smartphone, and our Mountain Safety Checklist, everyone is all set to go on a happy (and safe) mountain trip! And if you love technology and mountains as much as we do, check out our SiteGround careers opportunities here.

Update: In April, 2021 we continued our support for BOHO with a new donation for the equipment of one more cosy place – September hut – in Vitosha mountain, very close to the capital Sofia. Thanks to our efforts, the hut will be equipped very soon with Internet access, and live web cameras, so you can work remotely from there and check the conditions anytime. It’s a very popular and chill spot, especially among younger people, so we encourage everyone to pay it a visit.

At SiteGround, we love our work, but we also love to recharge outdoors whenever we can. Even though we spend most of our workdays on our desks, we have lots of avid hikers, bikers, snowboarders, skiers, mountain and peak lovers on our team. Unfortunately, every year, and especially in Winter, we all hear news about mountain accidents with regular or experienced tourists and athletes alike. That’s why when last September one of our teammates shared that the Mountain Rescue Service – Bulgarian Red Cross (MRS-BRC) were looking for donations to rent avalanche rescue gear, we decided to support them on a company level. 

At the time, the MRS-BRC were gathering funds to rent the first RECCO detectors in the country – an essential tool that helps teams locate and rescue people who are buried in the snow after an avalanche. Even though they are well-known for their benefits and commonly used in countries all over the world, Bulgaria was one of the only countries in Europe without a single RECCO detector, and the MRS-BRC were hoping to raise funds to get one.

So, imagine the surprise of the Mountain Rescue Service director Emil Neshev, when we reached out to them, and after a couple of talks committed to donating the funds to get not one, but three of the avalanche rescue tools. We ensured the MRS-BRC rescuers will be able to use them for the period of 5 years, since the RECCO distribution model is rent-only. The plan for the three new RECCO detectors is to be placed in the regions of Rila – rescue base Borovets, Rila – rescue post by Rila lakes hut, Vitosha – rescue base Aleko, where avalanches frequently occur, but the good thing is that RECCO are compact and portable, which allows the professional mountain rescuers to easily use them wherever they need to. After SiteGround funded the rent of the first 3 RECCO detectors, the MRS-BRC received even extra donations from other companies and individuals for additional expenses and RECCO equipment.

SiteGround + MRS-BRC Mountain Safety Checklist (+ Phone Wallpaper)

Getting in touch with the Mountain Rescue Service – Bulgarian Red Cross and learning more about the RECCO detectors gave us an even better perspective of how important the right preparation and equipment are. RECCO detectors help mountain rescuers find buried avalanche victims by reflecting the special RECCO reflectors that are already integrated into many mountain equipments. Reflectors can also be bought separately in certain sports shops or online. To help more people have a safe and happy mountain time, we asked the Director of MRS-BRC, Emil Neshev to prioritize three important things we need to know before heading for the mountains:

“To prepare in advance and carefully plan your routes and activities is of great importance for your safety. The good technical, physical and mental preparation of all participants in your group, as well as the appropriate mountain equipment are also essential. Make sure to approach the mountain with respect, do not underestimate it and do not overestimate your own capabilities.”

Following his advice, we decided to create a downloadable Mountain Safety Checklist based on MRS-BRC information, to help everyone, not just our team members, stay safe and enjoy their time in the mountains. It collects mountain essentials for safety and comfort: what items to bring on your trip and the MRS-BRC phone number in case of an emergency you or someone else experiences. In addition to the digital version, we’ll also be printing a Mountain Safety Checklist book to be distributed for free in MRS-BRC rescue bases and Bulgarian mountain huts. You can also download our Mountain Phone Wallpapers keeping not only the good mountain vibes, but also most important emergency contacts, which we hope you never need, but are good to have in handy.

Happy and (safe) Winter!

At SiteGround, we often get questions about the career opportunities within the company. The truth is, that each path is different, and you make your own way. All we can do is provide support, help, and guidance along, but ultimately, it’s your own motivation and willingness to explore that takes you where you want to be. Sometimes even sooner that you would have expected. Like the (un)likely story of Stoyan, our latest addition to our WordPress Dev team, which started out with quite a different plot.

Stoyan joined SiteGround in the beginning of May, 2020 as a team member of our Customer Care Team – the largest department of SiteGround, supporting thousands of clients all over the world 24/7/365. He was one of our newest teammates who joined the team in this quite unusual year. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, for the safety of our team and their families, our whole team switched to remote work since early March, so Stoyan was one of our first team members who were onboarded entirely remotely.

Things Don’t Happen To You – They Happen Because Of You

Knowing just a few of his colleagues and learning new ways to master his skills, a month after he started his initial training, Stoyan decided that there was no better way to get to know some new team members by asking for some help. Even though he had always been keen on coding and developing websites, his university major was in the field of finance, so programming was something he was doing in his free time. He had been working on a personal blog which he was developing with a friend. He was trying to migrate his website from Joomla to WordPress, and had been experiencing some issues with the scripts that he was trying to implement on his own. He posted a question in one of our office channels on Slack – our internal team tool for communication and collaboration.

Our teammates were quick to respond. Among them was Hristo Pandjarov, our Manager of WordPress Initiatives, who also got in touch in order to help Stoyan with his personal project. While discussing the migration of his blog, the scripts and the issues he had, Hristo saw potential in Stoyan’s questions and the way he was trying to execute the migration of his personal website. Coincidentally, at this time it had already been over a year since Hristo was looking for a new team member to add to his WordPress Dev Team. There were a couple of more WordPress-specific questions and details that followed, which convinced Hristo to ask Stoyan if he was willing to complete a job application and some trial development tasks for an opportunity to join SiteGround’s WordPress Dev Team.

Stay Curious and Ask Questions

By that time, Stoyan didn’t really know that he was communicating with the head of our WordPress Dev Team at all. He was quite new to the company and did not expect for an upper manager to jump in to help in response to a casual question about his personal site. But admittedly, Stoyan really wanted to join our Dev team from the moment he learned about SiteGround – he simply believed he needed to go through the entry-level steps first, and gain some good experience. He had applied for our Customer Care Team, knowing that would be the best strategy for him to join SiteGround.

So, naturally, he was both surprised and enthusiastic to get an unexpected dev job offer, after his first month at the company. He went through the application process for a WordPress Dev Position. Working hard and completing the Dev tasks was enough to show his general PHP expertise and deep WordPress knowledge. He was promoted as a General Developer at SiteGround at the end of June, 2020. The day he received the good news about his approval for a Dev position, he got home and started spreading the word to his closest friends and family members – even now, as he tells his story, you can still feel his excitement.

Currently, Stoyan is working as a developer on all of our WordPress plugins, including the SiteGround Optimizer and Мigrator. He also spends some of his working hours contributing to the WordPress core team on behalf of SiteGround. His piece of advice on how to get your dream job?

”Be motivated and do your best on a daily basis because at the end of the day it’s worth it!’

Know that everything you do during your workday, the way you do it, even the minor acts of kindness are recognized and appreciated by your main lead, mentor or manager. There are moments when we’re feeling down, such as when my scripts to migrate my blog weren’t working, but all of that led me where I’m now – a WordPress Developer at SiteGround.”

When asked about his current role, Stoyan shares:  “I love the dynamic which means that I have to think about each challenge I’m facing. I have to find a solution. If I manage to do that – things just happen the right way.” In the end, surely we asked Stoyan what led him to join SiteGround in the first place – “Because I don’t know if there’s any other Bulgarian company that takes care of its teammates in such a worthy way! And I’m happy I can tell it from my own experience now.”

If you’re driven by curiosity, purpose and willingness to make an impact and you’re looking for an awesome team that cares about each other and grows together, we have a place for you to unfold your talent. Check here to learn more about our open positions.