{"id":5563,"date":"2022-03-23T21:44:24","date_gmt":"2022-03-23T20:44:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.getsmart.cz\/en\/?p=5563"},"modified":"2026-03-30T10:45:50","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T08:45:50","slug":"one-week-in-prague-is-fine-but-a-whole-year-in-pilsen-is-better","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.getsmart.cz\/en\/one-week-in-prague-is-fine-but-a-whole-year-in-pilsen-is-better\/","title":{"rendered":"One week in Prague is fine, but a whole year in Pilsen is better"},"content":{"rendered":"

You\u00b4ve been working in Pilsen for seven years. Could you say you already know it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I would say so in the meantime. When I arrived, it was quite a new city for me. Now, some colleagues say to me: \u201cYou know more about Pilsen than me\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u00a0What places in Pilsen do you love?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A lot of places! Definitely, I love the area where I live, between Velk\u00e9 divadlo and Techmania. I like opera, so I frequently go to Velk\u00e9 divadlo. And also I like the New Theatre. It\u00b4s a very modern building from 2014. It\u00b4s great equipment here, stage technologies and others. And I love the nature around Pilsen too. Pilsen is a relatively compact city: if you sit on the bike for a few minutes you are in the green. There is one place I definitely normally try to go when friends or family visit me: Radyn\u011b. That\u00b4s a nice walk from \u010cernice up to the ruin. And when you walk back you have to have a nice dinner in Purkmistr\u00a0restaurant.<\/p>\n

Why did you decide to leave Germany just for Pilsen?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Due to the job offer, I got from ZF, the company I work for now for more than 25 years.I became the\u00a0Managing\u00a0director of the Plzen Tech center and was given the opportunity to develop a research and development facility, which was a very attractive challenge for me.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

How did you adjust to life with the Czechs? Germans are very organized, while Czechs are known for their ability to improvise.<\/strong>
\nWe approach problems differently, but it\u2019s possible to combine the two perfectly. I try to understand Czech culture and make the most of the Czech mindset. One of my first decisions was to start learning Czech right in the second week after I moved to Pilsen. I felt I needed to learn at least a little so I could talk to people in everyday life. And I\u2019m getting great feedback.<\/p>\n

Czech has a lot of words that come from German. Some of them must be pretty funny to you, right?<\/strong>
\nYes, some are funny. For example, \u201cjarmark\u201d\u2014in German, it\u2019s spelled \u201cJahrmarkt.\u201d<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s pretty formal.<\/strong>
\nBut you use it! For example, I went to a \u201cjarmark\u201d in \u0160t\u011bnovice.<\/p>\n

What do you think Pilsen offers people who come here for work and a new chapter in their lives?<\/strong>
\nIt\u2019s really a great place to live. I say a week in Prague is nice, but a whole year in Pilsen is better.<\/p>\n

Really?<\/strong>
\nYes. Because Pilsen has everything you need for life: culture, sports, nature. Pilsen has an opera house, a hockey stadium, a swimming pool, good transportation links, and it doesn\u2019t have the downsides of a very large city. For example, you won\u2019t experience traffic gridlock here, and it\u2019s comfortable to live in. Living here is easier than in Germany. I feel very at home here.<\/p>\n

In what ways do you think the Pilsen Region has a promising future?<\/strong>
\nThere are cities here with a rich history that also have ambitions for a promising future. For example, we\u2019re working on electromobility. And that stems from the past: \u0160koda and its electric locomotives.
\nI also like the connections between people from different organizations, between the city of Pilsen and the university, and so on. That\u2019s on a much higher level than in Germany. And the location in the heart of Europe, close to Prague and close to Germany\u2014that\u2019s an ideal starting point.<\/p>\n

What, on the other hand, do you miss in Pilsen or the Pilsen Region? What would you change or improve here?<\/strong>
\nDefinitely nothing in my personal life. Foreigners from the academic world, however, would welcome international kindergartens and schools here. Pilsen also has excellent transport connections to Prague, but the train connection to Bavaria could use some improvement. It\u2019s slow to Munich and quite complicated to Nuremberg.
\nBy the way, I really enjoy taking the train to Prague. I like how Smetana\u2019s \u201cThe Moldau\u201d starts playing on the Supercity trains as we arrive in Prague. We don\u2019t have anything like that on German trains.<\/p>\n

Your company is part of a large automotive family and needs qualified experts in electrical engineering and mechanical engineering. Can you find enough of them in Pilsen?<\/strong>
\nWe\u2019re constantly growing, so we\u2019re always offering opportunities not only to experts but also to graduates, students, and interns. This mix of people is interesting and inspiring. Although our main field is engineering\u2014with a focus on software development, design, simulation, and vehicle calibration for various products, primarily in the e-mobility sector\u2014we\u2019re also looking for IT specialists and people in non-technical professions.
\nIn my top management team, I have two women and seven men. That\u2019s far more women than is typical in Germany, but it\u2019s still not enough. We have twelve or fourteen nationalities in our company. We build on a strong culture focused on people and diversity.<\/p>\n

Where do you see ZF Engineering in the context of the entire region, say, in five or ten years?<\/strong>
\nWe have received the Pilsen Region Employer of the Year award three years in a row, so I hope we will continue to be perceived as a good employer throughout the region.<\/p>\n

What is your collaboration with the University of West Bohemia like? Do you have any specific projects?<\/strong>
\nWe are working on a research project on electromobility and are a strategic partner of the university. We collaborate most closely with the Faculty of Applied Sciences and the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, but we are also a member of the International Industrial Council of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering. We regularly support events for students; for example, our experts give lectures on software development in the automotive industry, and we sponsor new equipment for the university. We are also the main partner of the \u201cFormula Student\u201d racing team at the University of West Bohemia.<\/p>\n

What other schools do you collaborate with or would like to collaborate with?<\/strong>
\nWe support middle and elementary schools to foster children\u2019s interest in science, technology, or engineering. And we also support German language instruction.<\/p>\n

Is there any school you don\u2019t yet collaborate with but would like to?<\/strong>
\nI can imagine us working closely with the Vocational School of Electrical Engineering in Plze\u0148-Skvr\u0148any. Because we don\u2019t just need engineers or graduates of technical high schools, but also people with vocational certificates.<\/p>\n

What does cooperation between companies, universities, and municipalities look like in Germany?<\/strong>
\nI\u2019d say it\u2019s similar to here, but German universities are more involved in joint projects with industrial companies. And in Germany, regional governments also support large companies like ours quite well, because they are significant employers.<\/p>\n

If one of your friends from Germany asked you: I have an offer to work or study in Pilsen. Should I accept it? What would you tell them?<\/strong>
\nDefinitely yes! Simply yes. I feel at home here; it\u2019s a great place for everything.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr. Mathias Eickhoff is the director of ZF Engineering Plze\u0148. He\u00b4s lived and worked here for seven years and during that time he\u00b4s already become a citizen of Pilsen. And he also speaks Czech pretty well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":5567,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"rank_math_lock_modified_date":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,31],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getsmart.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5563"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getsmart.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getsmart.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getsmart.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getsmart.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.getsmart.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5563\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getsmart.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getsmart.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getsmart.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getsmart.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}