A month of love for development, helping others, and the IT community

All those events, celebrations, and every other additional endeavor happened, of course, while working hard on our projects (which, after all, are our main focus) and starting new initiatives. So since you know how short February is, it's no wonder we're constantly on the lookout for new colleagues! So either before or after you read my summary, check out our career page, maybe you'll find something for yourself and will star in my next article? ;) But enough introductions - here's what we were up to this month! In the convenient form of a list, of course.

Let’s talk about development!

Let’s start this summary with Merixstudio’s newest endeavor - our own PODCAST! If you know Miłosz and Mateusz, hosts of Piatki po deployu, then you also know that they are fluent in both development talks and joking around. In February they covered such topics as Python, trends that will rule in development in the upcoming months, whether the line between frontend and backend is getting blurry, and much more. And if you’re in the group dedicated to the podcast, you know that they even covered the topic of Valentine’s Day. ;) 

Since the second episode, you can not only listen to Piątki po deployu on Spotify, Apple podcasts, and Soundcloud but also watch them talk on YouTube! Stay tuned for the next episode - I know those guys for more than five years and can assure you that they are worth the listen. ;)

In pizza we trust!

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A post shared by Merixstudio (@merixstudio) on Feb 10, 2020 at 6:23am PST

But enough about the new things - let’s talk about something that we all know and love. And by that, of course, I mean celebrating made-up holidays by stuffing our faces with pizza. Once again we jumped on the bandwagon of International Pizza Day and ordered literal towers of pizzas to the office. Was it necessary? Well, obviously not. Was it a delicious and fun way to have a break from work? YES! 

And, since we celebrated on Monday, it was yet another reason to follow this holiday - starting a week with a mixture of delicious dough and cheese is a foolproof way of ensuring that the rest of the week will go smoothly. Those are the rules, we’re simply following them. ;) 

Creative technologists or… event organizers?

In February we’ve organized not one, not two, but three of our own events! And that’s in addition to sponsoring and giving presentations at other meetups! So let’s approach talking about them all in chronological order, shall we? 

1. We started the month with Front.radar, our meetup for the frontend community. During the sixth edition of this event, we talked about two important topics: the accessibility of projects (covered by Mikołaj Wolicki from Setget) and how to work with Angular (explained by our own Oskar Strasburger). As is the case in every event we organize, the attendees were able to learn something and have some fun - after all, when in a pub, you can let loose a little! As long as you don’t interrupt the speakers, of course, but when their presentations are as good as they were, it obviously was not a problem. ;)  
2. Next on the agenda was py_tej, our Python initiative for the backend community. On this occasion, the attendees learned about Python 3.8 Release Manager (described in English by Łukasz Langa) and AWS Cognito with Python (which was covered by Marek Stereńczak from our team). And since the place and organizer were the same as with Front.radar, I don’t have to repeat myself when talking about everything else surrounding the event - it was, as usual, fun and casual. ;) 
3. The third event we organized was Dev College, which, per tradition, was held in our office. As always during Dev College, it’s only us who do the teaching - this time we decided to hold a workshop for Flutter enthusiasts. After all, you do have to be enthusiastic about something to come and learn about it on Saturday! During the workshop, Paweł Ławiński and Andrzej Kaczyński introduced talked about both Google’s SDK and Dart, the language that powers it. After a couple of hours of hard work, everyone relaxed at the networking afterparty - with pizza, beverages, and conversation (not only about Flutter;)). 
4. In addition to our own events, we also were part of two other events in February. First was SysOps/DeveOps Meetup, which we not only sponsored but also joined as one of the presenters. Mateusz Kamycki and Paweł Jankowiak from our DevOps team talked about their experience of working auto-scalable CI/CD infrastructure built on Kubernetes and Gitlab. During the other event, we helped GDG Poznań to organize their Android Meetup. As event patrons, we welcomed hungry for knowledge (and pizza) attendees in our office so they could learn about Android and meet likeminded people from the community. As always, it was a pleasure! ;) 

All you need is LOVE. And we have plenty of it to share!

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A post shared by Merixstudio (@merixstudio) on Feb 14, 2020 at 7:10am PST

Let’s end the summary with the iconic February holiday - Valentine’s Day! This day is more than a corporate, candy-filled celebration. For us, it’s an opportunity to do something good for others. Every year, during this love-themed day we help those who love the hardest - animals. Once again, we teamed up with Animalia Foundation, a non-profit organization that helps to find great homes for cats and dogs. As you can see in the picture above, their pupils approved our cooperation! ;) 

However, this year we decided to deviate from the tradition and dedicate part of our funds to helping Anna, about whom we learned from one of our Dev College Leszno coorganizers. So if you want to join us in helping Anna win her fight for health, check out her Facebook group and spread some even after Valentine’s day! 

Helping others is not, however, the only Valentine’s tradition in our office! Every year we also organize internal Valentine’s mail service, during which we send each other cards! After all, it’s quite nice to either write or receive words of encouragement! Luckily, we all like each other, so there were plenty of cards in the box - otherwise it would be quite awkward. ;)