Promwad Expands Its Engineering Office in Daugavpils, Latvia

^{The Promwad office is located in this business centre in Daugavpils. Source: rem.lv}

We are expanding the team in our Latvian office in Daugavpils, where our engineers develop software and design hardware for automotive, industrial automation, and telecom. There will be 30 employees working here on projects for our EU and US clients. 

The history of our office in Latvia started in 2020. The local team consists mainly of embedded software developers who work on software and hardware solutions in the most demanded areas of the automotive industry: edge AI solutions for DMS and face tracking, EV charging and battery management systems, dashboard cameras, and GPS tracking solutions.

We are now inviting new people to join the team — engineers and tech leads, as well as increasing cooperation with local universities and associations.

The Daugavpils office started with a small team of software developers. Still, now it is a full-fledged engineering lab in the city centre — with workplaces equipped with the necessary measuring tools and a separate workspace for assembly and soldering. And the debug kit fleet is growing steadily thanks to access to the European market and well-functioning logistics. 

We are expanding the list of industries to work with in our Daugavpils office and adding two more areas to the automotive industry:

1. Custom solutions for industrial automation: hardware design and software development for industrial automation systems, robots, power engineering, and motor control.
2. Software and hardware design for telecom: cutting-edge solutions for telecommunication providers, enterprises, and startups (OpenWRT, WiFi 6, VoIP, routers, gateways, and much more). 

By hiring specialists with diverse and in-depth expertise, we can attract new clients to Daugavpils and implement challenging and exciting projects for the global market.

Why did we choose Daugavpils as our new R&D centre?

When opening an office in a new location, we considered business conditions and the comfort of our employees who ​​would want to move to Latvia from other countries: we assessed the needs for obtaining residence permits, the availability of health care, and living standards.

^{Promwad founder Roman Pakholkov near the Artillery Arsenal (Daugavpils Fortress)}

Adaptation of new employees in Daugavpils

We help our employees relocate and settle in: we provide advice on the necessary documents, offer the opportunity to rent an apartment below the market price, and assist in applying for the EU Blue Card.

The Blue Card is a great opportunity for talented engineers from outside the European Union to obtain social and legal guarantees on an equal footing with the EU residents. Family members can join the blue card holder and work in the EU without obtaining a separate work permit.

It is possible to work in our team remotely from other cities in Latvia, but Daugavpils has advantages compared to popular Riga.

We talked to our colleagues from the Daugavpils office and collected their feedback on the city's most important aspects of life. Here is what they highlighted as advantages:

• affordable medicine with a residence permit and the possibility to receive a wide range of services, which are paid for by the state (this applies to the whole country); 
• less queues in kindergartens and schools in comparison with Riga;
• a large number of parks and lakes in the city centre, cleaner air;
• relatively low cost of living compared to Riga;
• expat community, which helps with adaptation in the first months of living in a new place;
• active city life: regular entertainment and sporting events, fairs.

Daugavpils is an environmentally sound city for quiet private life, safe and comfortable for walking distances. And due to the short distances between the cities, travelling around Latvia and other European countries is very convenient and affordable.

^{Daugavpils surroundings}

Business environment in Daugavpils

Despite the social factors, Daugavpils has an environment for business development, creating new jobs and attracting investments. The city falls under the Latgale Special Economic Zone, which provides special conditions and tax discounts. LSEZ is 2.5 thousand hectares of production area, where companies can locate.

^{Photo: Protection dam in Daugavpils by Asinka Photography, CC BY 2.0}

The professional community in Daugavpils is formed by local Latvian and international companies. Here are just a few famous names among 65 tech companies:

• Axon Cable, a manufacturer of innovative cables and connections for industry, medicine, aviation, telecommunications, etc.
• Regula, a developer of solutions for advanced identity verification;
• SMD Baltic, an EMS and electronics manufacturing company;
• Scandiweb, an e-commerce service provider;
• TestDevLab, an IT company specialising in software testing and developing custom security testing solutions.

The presence of major industrial players in Daugavpils allows us to establish partnerships and develop our expertise as an embedded systems developer.

^{Photo: Daugavpils University by Robert Inflanty, CC BY-SA 3.0}

Several major universities in the city, including Daugavpils University and Daugavpils Education and Research Centre at Riga Technical University, have departments for training specialists in energy, machinery, IT, engineering, etc. 

It's one of the most important factors for Promwad: we can build cooperation, organise internship programmes and attract young talents to our team.

We hope the city will continue developing by relocating experienced engineers, starting new companies and attracting investors. See you in Latvia!

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