A year of change - what our software house was up to in 2019

Let’s start with the most important part of every company - people. We said goodbye to 2018 as a group of 78 people. A year later, our number grew to 122! And we’re planning to welcome 2021 as a team of at least 200 professionals, so there’s plenty of work cut out for our HR Department. ;) Writing this on the fifth anniversary of my employment in Merixstudio, I’m quite amazed (and proud) by how much we’ve changed and grown! Here's what led us to such a goal:

A year of changes

With the increasing number of people in our office came changes in the company’s structure. At the moment we have 24 Team Leaders that help our CEO, COO, and six Heads of Department in managing our growing bunch. But that doesn’t mean that we transformed from a small and tight-knitted group to a big company that is focused only on work. During the whole year, we put focus on integration, a value that’s very important for everyone at Merixstudio. But I will talk more about it further in this summary. ;) 

With all those changes, we obviously also needed to find workspace for our new colleagues. And since having some elbow room is quite important for us, we didn’t cram them in our existing space but transformed our 1174m2 headquarters into a 2071m2 one. How did we do this? Well, unfortunately not by magic, but by adding an additional floor. With plenty of room to spare, we’re well prepared to achieve our HR goal! 

An office fit for a fast-growing company

This change also allowed us to implement some fun additions to our space. Wanting to accommodate the diverse crowd, we wanted to go beyond a chill room with Playstation and foosball (which, for us, is a given in an office). We wanted to give something to those of us wanting to relax in a more traditional way. With that goal in mind, we transformed one of our conference rooms into a zen space, where you can spread on the recliners or even treat yourself to a massage on a massage chair! And for those wanting to go for a ride but hating traffic jams, we created a gaming room with racing simulators - easy, simple, and 100% safe! ;) 

But we didn’t forget that a workspace is also for working! ;) That’s why, in collaboration with our talented Product Design team, we also implemented two workshop rooms. Equipped with interactive whiteboards and projectors, they are perfect for welcoming our clients and working together on their projects during workshops. One of the rooms, called Malta, has even an additional neat feature - it can transform into a conference space for the events organized in our office! And if my description left you needing more, you can check out the article on our blog, where Ola described the whole process of designing our office! 

Opening our doors to visitors

You don't have to, of course, only see our new and improved office on videos or wait for the next event organized in our headquarters. You can also pop by to have a chat! In 2019 we introduced informal meetings - a way of you meeting us without the stress sometimes attributed to the recruitment process. This way you can simply check out who we are and find out for yourself if I'm lying when writing in my monthly summaries about the great atmosphere we have in the office. ;) By arranging informal meetings we want to be recruited by you - it's you that can ask us questions, no strings attached! So if you want to chat, contact Kasia, Natalia, or Wanessa. 

The basis of everything happening in a software house - great digital products

Before I tell you more about the events, let’s talk about the most important aspect of our year that made all the things I’m describing possible - our work! After all, great projects are what we’re most passionate about! In 2019 we’ve worked on around 50 new projects for clients from USA, Great Britain, Germany, Switzerland, and more - add the ongoing ones to it and you’ll see that we certainly had our hands full! 

Apart from the much-needed influx of new people, the amount of our work was also seen on our Clutch profile. At the end of 2019, we were listed among Top B2B Companies of 2019, Top Financial Services Software Developers of 2019, and Top Polish Developers of 2019. All of that was possible thanks to the great review that we received from our clients, many of which gave of five out of five stars. 

In 2019 we also intensified the work with plenty of interesting industries, the result of which can be seen in our portfolio. Here are some of the projects we're especially proud of: 

• Moneyfarm (FinTech),
• Journey Travel (Hospitality),
• Logo Creator (Machine Learning),
• Millward (InsurTech).

As you may know, our work was not only about coding! In Merixstudio we’re big opponents of workshopping the ideas before they are turned into projects. I’m happy to say that our clients think the same way - in 2019 plenty of them came to our office and together we worked towards making their products as great as possible. After all, our Product Design team grew quite significantly during the year so we’ve had plenty of people on deck to enable that! 

Development plans for 2020

Prepare for plenty of new things in our portfolio! First of all, in 2019 we started to work on Node.js backend projects (for instance Netvico and Archlet), which we plan to continue. In addition to that, this year our goal is to put an emphasis on DevOps and mobile (with emphasis on Flutter) projects - we’ve already assembled a DevOps team, so you know that we’re more than ready to start! 

Traveling around the world to teach, learn, and meet all of you 

Apart from working hard on software development, we were also quite the teachers during 2019! If my calculations are correct, last year we organized: 

• Dev College (5 events),
• Py_tej (4 events), 
• front.radar (4 events).

We also ventured into new territory by organizing PUMEX, an event dedicated to UI, UX designers, and Product, Project Managers. We also co-organized events with Poznań Flutter Developer Group and Girls Who Test, which was held in our office. As you can see, we’ve had our hands full! During all those events, our goal was to create a space for the IT industry to meet, learn something new, exchange experiences, and simply spend some time with like-minded people. And with each of them being a success both when it comes to both attendance and the quality of presentations, I think we did a good job!

Apart from the events organized in Poznań, we also ventured outside of our city. We went to Leszno (where we organized a special edition of Dev College). We even traveled to Berlin, where we held a User Experience workshop for founders and professionals! 

In addition to all that, we also had the chance to attend (as speakers, sponsors, or exhibitors) a plethora of interesting events, among which were: 

• TOA Berlin,
• PyCon,
• Meet.js Summit,
• Tech Day London. 

And what are our plans for 2020 when it comes to events? Well, to at least repeat everything happening last year! ;) We want to continue creating a space for people working in a variety of fields - backend and frontend development, QA, product design, project management, and everything in between. We’re also planning to sponsor, speak at, or simply attend plenty of great events, both in Poland and abroad. So prepare World, Merixstudio is coming your way! 

Every day, not-so-boring life at a software house

As I mentioned, integration is a big part of who we are as a company. Regardless of our size, we want to maintain the atmosphere of collaboration that's based on genuine friendship. To ensure that every new coworker feels at home, during 2019 we’ve organized plenty of opportunities to get everyone to know each other. 

There were the usual parties with billiard and games, Halloween dress-up parties with plus-ones, and bonfires in a rope park. But we know that chatting with everyone at a big party can be a bit challenging so during the year we not only watched movies together, but also played board games, organized regular volleyball matches during the summer, or went on bike rides. In smaller, everchanging groups we were able to learn more about each other and share our hobbies. 

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Merixstudio (@merixstudio) on Jan 23, 2019 at 3:07am PST

As you might’ve figured out, our office is also quite integration-friendly. Between Fifa competitions and foosball matches, we also had plenty of small parties during work. In addition to that, we also treat charitable opportunities as something that brings us closer as a group. Due to that, last year we also spent some quality time together building houses for homeless cats, prepared packages for kids in need, and much more.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Merixstudio (@merixstudio) on Feb 20, 2019 at 3:57am PST

Overall, 2019 was a great year for our software house! It was certainly busy, filled with new endeavors and a plethora of tasks, but we wouldn’t trade it for the world. As you can see, it was also a year of change - it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that we overwent quite a transformation since the last January. But there’s still plenty ahead of us - with all our plans for this year, I can only dream what my next yearly summary will include. Here’s to 2020! 

Want to be a part of our changes in 2020? See our job offers, apply and join Merixstudio!