Łukasz Wiśniewski

Mathematics permeates the imagination and makes everyday life easier. Łukasz Wiśniewski, a graduate in Applied Mathematics at the Faculty of Technical Physics, Information Technology and Applied Mathematics, Senior RPA Developer at Nordea Bank Abp, talks about what it is like to work at Scandinavia's largest financial institution. 

Applied Mathematics is a field of study that teaches you to use mathematics in solutions from a variety of industries. What skills do students in this field acquire? 

I will reply with the words I heard from a professor during one of my first classes at university: 'Maths teaches you to think'. Indeed, studying applied mathematics allows you to acquire a number of very important competences. Students in this course acquire analytical, problem-solving and logical thinking skills that are useful in virtually any career path. There are a few other people working here with me who also graduated from this field of study and I can say that Applied Mathematics graduates reach the level of an experienced Developer in a short period of time. This means that they are able to adapt rapidly to the conditions and requirements of the work they do.

You work at Nordea Bank Abp, a company owned by Scandinavia's largest financial institution. What do you do as a Senior RPA Developer? 

I work in the Operations Centre in Łódź, Poland, and my duties involve robotisation and automation of internal business processes. In other words, we aim at improving the algorithm that maps the activities performed by an employee. Let us take, for example, the process that involves opening a deposit in our client's bank account. The bank employee has to perform a whole series of activities, such as verifying whether a particular customer can be provided with a deposit by the bank, entering the necessary data into the company's systems, etc. Our robot performs exactly the same actions, operating virtually on a 1:1 scale, but in a much shorter time. 

Such improvements appear to be useful in many areas of the bank's operations. What other projects do you coordinate? 

I make similar improvements in other areas of customer-bank contact. For example, a customer uses a mobile app to send a request to open an account, the robot performs all the necessary actions in the banking systems, and then sends feedback to the customer about the completion of the operation. The whole procedure takes just 15 minutes! I also create maps for various company applications, which means I literally teach the robot how to use all the functions available in the application it supports. As a Senior RPA Developer, I also have a support role for other Developers, coordinating projects and working to improve the quality of our algorithms. 

In your position, you need knowledge of more than just mathematics. What other areas of expertise do you use in your work? 

Image

Creating complex logical sentences is my bread and butter. They symbolise the decisions that the robot makes when doing its job. One mistake can have disastrous consequences, such as opening a banking product to another customer. Programming skills at a basic level are, of course, very useful when creating an algorithm. The Applied Mathematics course also provides knowledge in this area - it teaches coding in Maple. It helped me a lot at the start and had a significant impact on my career. When I see the robot doing what I asked it to do and the bank's customers and colleagues from other departments feeling supported in their daily tasks, it makes me smile. 

In your spare time, you are into automotive. Is this a different form of robotics for you? 

Yes, you could say that robotics permeates my life. At work, my creations are only visible on the computer screen, whereas in automotive, the effect of the engineers' work is more tangible, visible to all. For me, it's a break from the virtual world. I have another passion- it's kick boxing, which I've been training for many years. The workout is characterised by a significant performance effort, which translates into our health, fitness and well-being. Another advantage is greater confidence in everyday situations as well as in dangerous ones that can happen to any of us. This sport inspires me to introduce bold solutions that make a difference to the everyday lives of Nordea staff and customers. 

Image

Nordea in Poland is part of the Nordea Group, the largest Nordic financial institution, with almost 30,000 employees worldwide and 4,700 in Poland. Nordea experts work on complex solutions for the development of IT platforms and systems, as well as providing advanced financial services.