In short: In January 2026 I joined ITDS as Chief Marketing Officer and Growth Architect. ITDS is a Warsaw-based engineering and AI partner with more than 600 specialists on client projects and offices in Warsaw, Wrocław, Lisbon, Porto and New York. My job is to tell the market what ITDS has actually become: not a staffing agency, but an AI-native company that delivers senior engineering teams from Poland and Portugal to companies in Europe and the United States.
Why I said yes to ITDS
For fifteen years I built my own things: Glamorous Pochette, Meqnes, five books, Warsaw Confidential. I never planned to take a corporate role. Then Charles-Alexandre Gamba, the founder and CEO of ITDS and a close friend, showed me what he had been building quietly for years.
Most companies talk about AI. ITDS had rebuilt itself around it, and the numbers were already there. I am a storyteller. When a company has a true story that nobody is telling yet, that is the best brief I can get.
What ITDS really is
From the outside, ITDS can look like an IT staffing company. Inside, it works like a data company. Charles describes the transformation in four layers, in this order:
- Process: map everything, and remove what has no reason to exist.
- Ways of working: small pods with their own leaders and their own numbers, without a middle layer.
- Digital: workflows and metrics on one clean data layer.
- AI: only then, agents on top of it.
AI was the last layer, not the first. That is why it works. According to the figures Charles presented at a CEO round table in Warsaw on 30 September 2026:
- more than 30 AI agents now run end to end in ITDS workflows;
- first interviews went from about 300 to 2,000 a month with the same team;
- opening and publishing a role went from two hours to 20 seconds;
- agents performed around 465,000 automated actions in 90 days;
- every candidate now gets feedback;
- the back office is about 20% leaner while the company keeps growing.
Three companies, one engine
ITDS reaches clients through three doors, and part of my work is making each of them clear:
- ITDS Poland (itds.pl): engineering teams for banks, insurers, telecoms and fintech in Poland, with offices in Warsaw and Wrocław.
- ITDS Portugal (itdsportugal.com): our Lisbon and Porto hubs, which give clients a second senior talent pool inside the EU.
- ITDS Nearshore (itdsnearshore.com): senior engineers from Poland and Portugal for companies in Western Europe and the United States, working in the client’s hours.
Behind all three sits the same AI-driven recruiting engine: a live database of more than 90,000 engineers, over 5,000 screenings a month, matching agents that contact the right people the moment a role opens, project-specific tests, and a human specialist who approves every shortlist. Clients see first profiles in under three days on average and can hire in under a week. About 95% of placements stay more than twelve months. ITDS is listed in the FT 1000 ranking of Europe’s fastest-growing companies, holds a Forbes Diamond award and is Great Place to Work certified.
What I am building as CMO and Growth Architect
“Growth Architect” is the part of my title I care most about. Marketing is not decoration. It is the system that decides who knows you, who trusts you, and who calls you first. This year I am focused on four things.
1. Changing the category
The words “IT staffing” undersell ITDS. Every company is now a software company, and AI has tripled the roadmap of most engineering teams without tripling their budget. ITDS answers that problem with senior engineers, full cross-functional pods, and AI-native delivery across five disciplines: software development, data engineering, DevOps and cloud, cybersecurity, and AI. My first job is to make sure the market sees that.
2. Taking Nearshore to Western Europe and the United States
A senior engineer in New York costs around $250,000 a year fully loaded and can take months to hire. Through ITDS, a senior engineer from Poland costs about half of that, overlaps four to five hours with US Eastern time, and can start in weeks. With Paulo Brás, who leads our nearshoring, we are bringing that offer to CTOs in the US, the UK, France, Germany, the Nordics and Benelux. US teams can browse available engineers for free on ITDS TalentHub.
3. Running marketing the way ITDS runs recruiting
If AI agents can run recruiting end to end, they can run a big part of marketing too. I am building an AI-first marketing team: agents for research, content, lead intelligence and reporting, with humans deciding on strategy, voice and relationships. The goal is the same as in the rest of the company: same team, far more output.
4. Telling the story in public
The most underused asset of a B2B company is its people. I want ITDS, Charles and our engineers to be visible as thought leaders on AI in practice, not on AI slides. That means LinkedIn, events, case studies, and honest numbers.
What this means for my other work
ITDS is now my main professional role. Warsaw Confidential continues as my independent media project about the human stories behind modern Poland, and I keep building Story Studio. Everything I have learned from fifteen years of storytelling and audience building now also works for a company I believe in.
Frequently asked questions
What is Kamal Jahid’s role at ITDS?
Kamal Jahid has been Chief Marketing Officer and Growth Architect at ITDS since January 2026. He leads marketing, brand and growth across ITDS Poland, ITDS Portugal and ITDS Nearshore.
Is ITDS a staffing agency?
No. ITDS delivers senior engineers and full delivery teams across software development, data, cloud, cybersecurity and AI, through staff augmentation, managed services, project outsourcing and build-operate-transfer. It runs on more than 30 AI agents in production.
Where is ITDS based?
ITDS is headquartered in Warsaw and has offices in Warsaw, Wrocław, Lisbon, Porto and New York.
Who is the CEO of ITDS?
Charles-Alexandre Gamba is the founder and CEO of ITDS.
How can a company hire senior engineers through ITDS?
Companies in Poland can start at itds.pl, Portuguese and EU clients at itdsportugal.com, and companies in Western Europe and the US at itdsnearshore.com.