Dedrone Employee Spotlight: Dimi Borisov

As Dedrone's Head of Global Quality Assurance, can you tell us a bit more about your day-to-day activities? Does your job involve travel and / or How many aspects of the company do you work with?

At first glance, my role in Quality Assurance might seem quite boring, but it's far from it! The Quality Assurance team operates as part of the Technology team, with the primary objective of ensuring the stability, reliability, and optimal performance of Dedrone products. This spans from component testing to solution-level evaluations.

As the leader of this team, which is distributed across Germany and the US, my responsibilities extend to evaluating new components and collaborating with cross-functional teams, including both software and hardware R&D, UI, support, and essentially every other team at the company. I also oversee the release management of our products, serving as the final checkpoint to ensure thorough testing, accurate test reports, and proper documentation are all in place.

While my role doesn't require extensive travel, I regularly commute between Germany and the Sterling office. This allows for collaboration with my team and sometimes even involves hands-on support of crucial projects. I’ve even traveled to support critical customer installations around the world.

Despite being a behind-the-curtain role, QA has a profound impact – it's something no one notices until it's lacking. My team and I work diligently to ensure that our presence remains behind the scenes. ;)

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You have been with Dedrone quite a while! Can you tell us how things have changed for you?

I've been with Dedrone for almost 7 years. I joined 3 years after its founding, so I've experienced, seen, and shaped a lot. When I started, there was probably only one office in Kassel, Germany (the founding location), and we had around 45 employees (estimated) across all departments. A lot has changed since then. Not only do we now have more than 150 employees across 6 global locations, but what we do and our customer base has also changed significantly.  

Back then, we had to explain to people what drone detection is and why it's essential. Nowadays things have completely switched. Customers come to us and ask what they should do about their drone problem. Our work now also enables good drones to fly (like in DFR programs). As a result, we now have a distributed team across various time zones to create solutions for customers. It requires a high level of discipline, structure, and organization from everyone.  

As our CEO always says, "it takes a village" to accomplish what we're doing, and I completely agree with him! We need the structures and teams in place to juggle multiple things all at once without sacrificing quality. I'm glad that in my role as team lead, I have always had the freedom to shape our workflow to ensure we remain fast, agile, and efficient to meet the rapidly growing market with its rapidly growing demands.

I have also gone from being a team of one working only on software to the leader of a small but great team that quickly had hardware added. My responsibility now extends across all global QA activities. I am grateful for the chance and the trust given to me by Dedrone!

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What do you like best about working at Dedrone?

The people! We have so many bright minds with many clever ideas. It's super fascinating to see the creative solutions people come up with to solve problems. Dedrone provides versatility, the opportunity for self-expression and development, and involvement in cool, new, and groundbreaking technology, all in one package; we’re paving the way in a previously nonexistent market of passive and active airspace security and awareness.  

Sometimes we even team up with a bunch of crazy Dedrone folks and participate in outside-of-work activities together, like the Xletix dirt-run in Innsbruck, Austria last year, or the Austin, Texas half-marathon this year.

Last but not least, I want to mention transparency. Since day one, our leadership has fostered an open communication culture, providing every employee, whether a temporary worker or manager, with insights into all developments and upcoming important projects.

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What do you think is the most important element of airspace security that the organizations you work with don't always understand?

The biggest challenge people might not quite get sometimes is probably the immense complexity of the system. After all, we aim to detect, identify, locate, and distinguish between threatening and friendly airborne objects in the environment using software, hardware, first and third-party sensors, including RF, cameras and radars. while dealing with networks, firewalls and more. Furthermore, we constantly are “taming” physics to manage undesired effects like interference.

Delivering a system that can autonomously differentiate a potentially threatening drone in the airspace from a harmless bird on a screen is anything but trivial — and still our system can operate autonomously.

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Can you share a bit more about what you enjoy in your free time?

I tend to focus my free time on quality-time with my girlfriend and family. Next to this top-most priority, I dedicate a significant amount of time to music.  

I've been playing the guitar since I was 10 years old. I'm a member of the band “Tunesday”, and our debut album came out last year – you can find us on all streaming platforms. I also play with the DedroneDetunes company band from time to time! We used to perform and tour more often than we do nowadays - especially after COVID. But rock music ever was, still is and always will be my passion.

I also try to incorporate some exercise (running) into my routine since I'm not 20 anymore, so staying in shape requires a bit of effort.  

I enjoy reading, mostly science fiction. I love snowboarding, especially pow surfing off-piste in the backcountry. Recently, I discovered surfing (wave riding) as a summer activity for myself. I enjoy mountain biking, kayaking, canyoning, hiking—basically, anything outdoors. While these activities are irregular, when they do happen, I try combining them with a camping trip using my rooftop tent for a little mini escape on some weekends with my girlfriend.

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