Work as usual in unusual circumstances - summary of April

As you know, we treat the atmosphere in our office quite seriously. It may be about having fun with each other and being friends, but it’s not something that just comes without putting an effort - we know that we need to tend to it if we want to maintain its quality. That’s why we were able to preserve it while transitioning from being a team of 40 to a group of almost 140 people! But I will talk more about it in my upcoming article (stay tuned!), now let’s get to the summary of April. ;)

How to stay at home and stay friends with your team

For some people, remote working is quite easy - commuting from bedroom and desk rather than office saves time and you can focus better without people next to you. For others, it’s not as peachy. However, it’s quite fair to admit that we're not working from home, we're working during a crisis and it can get a bit challenging when you have no choice but to stay home. We know that and wanted to support each other - be it when working together on projects or after hours. We did plenty of small activities that had the same goal - to help each other not get crazy. One of the means to do that was to create a common list of sharing recommendations for after-hour activities, such as what movies/TV shows to watch, books to read, podcasts to listen, and more. Seeing that our list was a hit among ourselves, we decided to share it with everyone else. After all, when we can find time to do all those things rather than now?

Remote podcasting going strong!

With the wonders of technology (and, after all, we know technology quite well), we can maintain our work as it was before. That also includes Piątki po Deployu, our podcast! Miłosz and Mateusz were unable to meet in Okrąglak, our podcasting room equipped with special microphones and decorated with a branded mural, but they still could have a chat and record with the help of our Content Specialist Karol! They even used a green screen in one of the episodes published this month! But that’s not as important as the things they talked about - in April they covered the topic of seniority in development and what can you do after becoming a senior, Chill Driven Development, work-life balance, and more. So sit comfortably and gave them a listen if you haven’t already - they not only are smart but also quite fun to listen to! ;)

What’s more, Piątki po Deployu is getting on a higher level - the next episode will feature a GUEST! Who got the exclusive invitation from Mateusz and Miłosz? Well, you’ll have to wait until Friday to find out, so follow our podcast on Facebook, Spotify, Apple podcasts, SoundCloud, or Youtube!

Sharing our knowledge of scalability

During April we also shared knowledge by publishing an ebook about building scalable web apps. It was an effect of collaboration between quite a lot of people - Wojtek, its author, worked with tech and content teams both consisting of four people each! But if you want to give people the best, you gotta get your heads together and share expertise with everyone. So, what will you find in their finished work? It’s divided into separate chapters that cover:

• what is scalability and why should you care;
• architecture;
• Test Driven Development;
• CI/CD;
• Performance;
• Monolith and Microservices.

Sound interesting? Well, because it is! So check it out and get your knowledge on!

Celebrating our differences

If you follow us on Instagram or Facebook, you know that each Monday we introduce people from our team in our #MeetMerix series. In it, we show what they do, what are their hobbies, and, most importantly, in what way they influence us. Be it by teaching us about the importance of good coffee (Adam, shown above), a balance before-workout meals (Julita), or how to best pose for photos (Marcin). We know that everyone is unique and we want to celebrate that each and every one of us is making Merixstudio great, in both big and the smallest of ways!

Creativity is the best friend of boredom

Did I mention that we are working from home? Well, I lied. Ok, I did not lie, that was an exaggeration to create a little bit of drama (am I slowly losing my mind at home?) but one person needs to pop by the office from time to time. That person is Krzysiek, our IT Administrator, and the reason why we run everything so smoothly. Krzysiek, being quite a people person, had a little bit of trouble when left alone in our spacious office and decided to create his own coworkers. They all look a bit familiar, as we’ve already seen them… Krzysiek also created his own small vlogs, where he showed everyone how the office is holding up. Did he print down our pictures and recreated some conversations? Well, that’s Merixstudio-exclusive material, so I won’t tell… But you can commence to the next point in my summary if you want to see it!

Join us!

Seeing Krzysieks vlogs is not the only perk of joining our team - we work on plenty of interesting, holistic projects, have a great atmosphere, a training budget, internal training, code reviews done by dedicated Team Leaders, and much more! And, most importantly, right now we’re looking for Python Developers! So if you want to work on modern REST API and GraphQL applications using Python3, you’re in luck - check out our job offer and #MeetMerix!

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