Why Engineering at Celonis?

Celonis Engineering is constantly shaping what’s next for our customers and our platform. That’s why we set out to meet the people behind the code, to understand what drives them and to share the stories powering our technology.

We expected to hear about architecture, systems, and data pipelines. What we didn’t expect were the stories of belonging, connection, and pride that make Celonis Engineering feel different.

As Celonis builds the future of the AI enterprise, our engineers are the ones turning vision into value, creating the systems that help customers save billions, run sustainably, and rethink how business works.

So we spoke with engineers across offices, time zones, and continents to understand what really shapes engineering at Celonis. Here’s what we found.

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Why Celonis?

One of the first stories that stayed with us came from Endi Zhupani, a Senior Software Engineer in Munich. When we asked how he first heard about Celonis, he told us about one of our content pieces.

Someone from his home country, Albania, had posted a “day in the life” as a Celonis engineer. Endi reached out, they connected, and after a few weeks later he became his colleague.

It wasn’t a one-off. As we spoke to more engineers, we noticed the same pattern. People found Celonis through people. Through conversations. Through community.

Ankit Ankit’s, Staff Frontend Engineer in Bangalore, story took that feeling even further. He’s the first engineering hire in our India hub, but the journey started long before the hub existed.

He told us: “My friend Santosh… he always used to say good things about Celonis, the people, the technology, the engineering culture. I told him I was interested in joining. But we had no engineering team in India… I told him: “whenever Celonis starts an office in India, inform me”. I am happy to say that I am the first engineer to be hired in India.”

Then he added, with a smile: “This story looks like a fairy tale but that is the fact, I have been chasing Celonis for almost two years.”

Hearing these stories, it became clear: belonging often starts before someone even walks through the door.

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The Product We’re Building

Across conversations, one theme kept coming up: impact. What we build. Why it matters.

Endi shared how Celonis transforms customers from reactive to proactive:

“Our product acts as the central repository for all of a company's process documentation. When we integrate this knowledge into the Process Intelligence Graph… it gives customers the power to solve issues before they even appear.”

Jorge Ferrer Zarzuela, SVP Engineering & Madrid Site Leader, described the ambition behind the work:

“We are working on new process intelligence tools. We are working on new APIs that are expanding our ecosystem, and we are working on new AI capabilities that actually take AI for real to the enterprise.”

He added: “From an engineering perspective there is so much we can do… the potential, I think we are really scratching the surface.”

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Kalyani, Senior Platform Engineer in Munich, talked about scale through the eyes of infrastructure:

“I have worked in devops/infrastructure for more than a decade… but here we have more than 150 Kubernetes clusters, and I have to look at all of them. It broadens my knowledge.”

For her, impact is personal:

“When an engineer wants to join, they generally have this goal: I want to make an impact. I write a piece of code, and some user uses it. That feeling of satisfaction is huge.”

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The Way We Work

What stands out at Celonis, both in the engineering team and across the organization, is the people. Ankit said it clearly:

“The people are very helpful. Since India is a new center we are getting support from Germany and the US… onboarding guides, documentation… everyone is supporting us.”

Even when challenges came up, like too much documentation, or not knowing who to ask, he said:

“We are building it. The people who will join after six months will not go through the same pain. We call ourselves founding engineers… We want to set the standard.”

Endi noticed the same culture from the very beginning:

“The company is full of energetic, motivated, and smart people who push each other to new heights… even people I reached out to on LinkedIn, they were always happy to help.”

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Seshanth Kannappan, Engineering Manager from New York described it in contrast to other companies: tech:

“Everyone is friendly, everyone is nice, everyone has time. Very different from all the other companies I have worked for. My work-life balance has vastly improved here… we still have that startup mentality but we are working at enterprise scale.”

He added something we heard from multiple engineers:

“I’ve heard so many things about how people can just message the CTO or a VP and they would respond. That’s not a thing at most companies.”

And from Spain, Guillermo Cano, Quality Engineering Manager, shared what culture looks like in practice:

“We are the customer’s advocate inside Engineering. We build trust. Because we have an end-to-end vision of the product, we protect the overall customer experience.”

He told us that what makes him most proud is not a project, but his people:

“Three people in my team have been promoted to senior quality engineers. Being able to help them achieve this makes me really proud.”

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The Challenges

As Celonis grows, the scale behind the platform grows with it. The numbers get bigger, and the challenges get sharper. Seshanth broke it down for us:

“In a month we have over 95 terabytes of data coming into the platform. In a single day we have 285 million requests. Next year it could double.”

This is what excites him:

“The most attractive problem is the scale, how do we architect to make sure we are ready as we expand globally?”

And Endi reminded us that complexity is also an opportunity:

“It’s a very dynamic environment… you learn to take ownership of your work. You learn to be proactive, take on challenges, and be the one to find solutions.”

This is the engineering reality at Celonis:
high trust, high expectations, high scale, and high impact.

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Innovation at Every Level

Innovation happens in every corner of the engineering organization. Engineers don’t just build features, they explore new ways to improve systems, processes, and workflows.

As Kalyani, Senior Platform Engineer in Munich, puts it: "We’re encouraged to experiment, to try approaches that might not exist yet. It’s not just coding, it’s about thinking differently and making things better."

Seshanth Kannappan, Engineering Manager in New York, added: "Even small improvements can have massive impact at our scale. If you see a better way to do something, you take ownership and make it happen."

This mindset ensures curiosity drives impact. Every engineer has the chance to influence the platform, shape processes, and help the organization operate more efficiently, at scale.

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Mimi Fraser-Andrews

Mimi is an Employer Brand Specialist at Celonis. Based in London, she brings a passion for authentic storytelling and building meaningful connections. Mimi focuses on showcasing the people, culture, and values that make Celonis unique. She works closely with teams across the company to highlight employee experiences, attract top talent, and strengthen the Celonis employer brand.

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Mimi Fraser-Andrews