What does a typical day look like for a Senior Engineer working on the cutting edge of HR tech? Piotr Morek, who has spent nearly half a decade evolving alongside SmartRecruiters, takes us behind the scenes of his daily routine - from morning gratitude journals to "planning mode" in Cursor. Discover how he balances deep work, cross-functional collaboration, and his successful shift from a frontend specialist to an AI-focused full-stack developer.
Role & scope
Could you briefly introduce yourself and explain what you do as a Full‑Stack Engineer/Senior Software Engineer working on AI products at SmartRecruiters?
Piotr: Hi, I'm Piotr, and I've been with SmartRecruiters for almost five years. I began my career here as a junior frontend engineer and recently advanced to a senior, full-stack position. Currently, I am fully dedicated to the Winston Companion product, an AI-based chatbot integrated into the SR system.
Career journey & internal mobility
Over time your work has expanded from more frontend‑focused development into AI‑related projects. What did that transition look like and what helped you make this shift successfully?
Piotr: For the last 3.5 years, I have primarily contributed as a frontend developer, crafting SmartRecruiters' digital products from a user interface perspective. I must admit that I love frontend development, it's the field in IT where I started a long time ago, building my first websites. Here at SR, frontend development is full of adventures, complex projects, and collaboration with the best engineers, from whom I've learned a lot.
As large language models and generative AI started reshaping the industry, we at SmartRecruiters leaned into an AI‑first approach and rethought how our product and engineering teams work - evolving our structure, collaboration, and day‑to‑day practices to build better AI-powered solutions.
Along to this change, there was an opportunity to completely change my focus of work. I asked about this possibility, and the project that interested me most involved AI-based agentic chatbots.
We reached an agreement, and I joined the chat group. Initially, I was architecting and developing the Winston Companion user interface. Later, I transitioned more into backend topics, such as the development of the chatbot engine and its tooling.
Ultimately, I am a product developer. For me, this means the main goal is the end product delivered to customers. Therefore, I am always eager to contribute to any part of the system frontend, backend, or cloud as the primary goal is to deliver value to the product itself.
Typical day
What does a typical workday look like for you - from the first coffee to logging off – and how do you usually structure your time?
Piotr: It differs based on the thing I am working on, but I have a routine that I created over time.
Surprisingly, I do not start the day on the computer, but with my notebooks. I have two of them: the first is more private for daily notes and gratitude, and the second one is for daily work planning.
I start with the first one, trying to set my brain with positive aspects of life. This helps to rewire my brain to focus on good things and brings a positive mindset.
Then I move to the second one and write down the 2 to 3 most important things I need to accomplish during the day.
Sometimes in the morning, I try to catch up with some industry news or important updates. I read a few newsletters to stay updated with what is going on in the super fast-paced IT world.
Then, I usually check Slack and email - the typical stuff - and open my favorite code editor, which is currently Cursor. I often do a mix of discovery and implementation, so I most likely dig deep into how our platform works.
I try to stay focused by using the Pomodoro technique and always structuring my time to have at least two slots of 1-2 hours of deep work during the day.
Along with coding and discovery, I write documentation and have meetings with my team.
During the day, I always aim to finish the most crucial task first-one that will unblock me or other team members and push the project forward. I am also a big fan of having a clear work plan and translating it into Jira to track the work transparently, so you can often find me playing around with Atlassian products.
After all of that, I try to wrap up the day with the goal of feeling satisfaction with what I have achieved.
AI in a daily work
What role does AI – especially LLMs – play in your day‑to‑day work, both when you build features and when you write or refactor code?
Piotr: There are a lot of mixed feelings about AI currently. Some people say that AI will soon replace developers, while others say that AI generates useless slop and it’s dangerous to use.
I always try to be in the middle and treat it as another tool. I see the positive aspects that I try to benefit from and the negative aspects that I try to avoid.
In my work, I always try to use AI tools as leverage to be more productive and capable of delivering across broader areas.
For my work, I first use Glean, an AI-based tool that can search through company documentation and knowledge. It helps me find relevant information about projects and past decisions.
I also use Google Gemini, mostly for brainstorming new ideas. I also love the “learning” mode there, where you can get personalized knowledge for a problem. In my case, it helps me a lot with covering gaps in backend development because I was mainly focused on frontend for years.
Finally, at the center of all the AI tools I use is Cursor, a code editor that helps me with development. Surprisingly, I don't use it only for code generation - it also removes code very well!
I use Cursor to ask questions about the codebase in “ask” mode, especially about projects and domains I don't know very well. Then, before generating anything, I often go into “plan” mode, where we create a plan for the implementation or a possible solution to the problem.
What I especially love about Cursor is the access to different MCP servers that provide useful information about libraries and technology. This means I don't need to search the internet as much to find relevant information, it’s all within the code editor itself.
Of course, it’s super important to keep development skills sharp, so sometimes I deliberately do not use the “agent” mode to write some code myself and maintain better control over the result. This is especially important in high-risk projects, where every line change could have a major impact on the product.
Collaboration & teamwork
Who do you collaborate with most often (developers, data scientists, product managers, designers, etc.) and how does that collaboration usually look in practice?
Piotr: I collaborate with all of these people, though it depends on the exact project. If the project is more technical, for example, developing internal tooling for AI products, I collaborate more with developers. If it's a product feature, I talk more with Product Managers and designers.
My personal mindset is simple: the main goal is to deliver useful software for our users, and collaboration is the core foundation for achieving this, as we are all working together to deliver it.
Knowledge sharing & feedback culture
On LinkedIn, you write about the value of good feedback and mentoring. How do you and your team share knowledge and support each other in everyday work?
Piotr: I must say that knowledge sharing and support are the secret ingredients for creating successful products and work environments. I was very lucky to meet many great people I could learn from, and most importantly, I was able to put that knowledge into practice.
In our team, we have periodic knowledge-sharing sessions where developers can present and discuss different ideas and perspectives. We also have company-wide meetings to share projects or ideas we've been working on.
When it comes to daily support, the most valuable things to me are the willingness to help, the ability to listen to understand the problem, and the openness to work together to solve it. I'm a big fan of using asynchronous communication and tools, but short synchronous meetings are also a core part of successful collaboration - that's why I like Slack Huddles so much.
Company culture & offsites
How would you describe the culture in your team and what role do offsites and informal conversations play for you?
Piotr: My team is full of passionate and hardworking people who are always open to new ideas and help each other. We work remotely, spread across the world, but we are very connected and ready to solve the biggest challenges ahead.
I am a true lover of remote work and I’m grateful that our company is remote-first. On the other hand, meeting people from time to time to strengthen our bonds is very precious.
All of that is the reason why SmartRecruiters kick-off meetings are so valuable. They allow me to travel to another country, change my work environment, meet the people I work with, and have a little computer detox for a couple of days. It’s always a dynamic time with a lot of experiences, which can be tiring, but it never disappoints.
Informal conversations are the cherry on top for me. I see them as a very valuable tool for stepping outside work topics to really get to know a particular person. It allows me to work better because when I learn a person's nature, I can better understand their point of view, and the overall collaboration is just more smooth.
In the end, work is all about relationships. They must be healthy to be able to work together on a daily basis and have successful outcomes.
Learning & growth
Over your time at SmartRecruiters, in which areas have you grown the most, and what has been particularly important for your development?
Piotr: First and foremost, I developed my technical skills significantly. I started here almost 5 years ago as a junior developer, knowing the basics. Since then, I've learned a ton of new technologies, patterns, and best practices.
Most importantly, I've learned how to design, implement, and deliver fully functional products. Ultimately, it’s not about the amount of lines of code or the used libraries, but about the value delivered to customers.
Apart from technical craftsmanship, I developed a plenty of soft skills, including leadership, planning, work coordination, and communication. These are very useful not only in a work environment but also in private life.
Advice for candidates
What advice would you give to someone who is thinking about joining SmartRecruiters in an AI / engineering role?
Piotr: If you want to join us in the journey of building AI products, the most important thing is to stay curious and open to the constantly changing IT landscape, with new AI tools and technologies appearing every day.
There is a lot of hype over agentic products, but the key is to truly dive deep and use those technologies in practice to actually build something out of it, which is always a challenge.
Also keep in mind that, after all, one of the most important factors is personality and a "can-do" attitude, with a readiness to experiment, learn, and pivot while still delivering high-quality solutions.
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