Strength in Numbers

Thursdays have been the highlight of my work week for a while now.

Most weeks, it’s the day we developers and testers all meet up in the office. The perfect time to have those longer design meetings or simply spend a few minutes checking out what everyone else is into.

At lunch time we storm our usual pizza place, because tasty food fosters merry talk. It never fails. Despite the heavy post-lunch-dip, the energy after that bonding hour is amazing and the batteries are fully recharged.

Since a while back, every third Thursday is made even better by our cross-team Tech Syncup. All developers and QA people get together in a room (virtual or physical, doesn’t matter) to discuss and shape a common vision for our tech platform, workflows and processes. An opportunity is opening up for us to contribute to the company in a massive way, all while we get a chance to set our own imprint and vision on how we work and who we are as a tech department. This is the kind of stuff I’m the most passionate about.

On top of this, every now and then comes a Thursday that brings an AWS UG Meetup with it. Organised and attended by amazing people, these forums ALWAYS manage to send me home with new knowledge, refreshing insights and above else, a ton of inspiration. These meetups have recently had a key role in showing me a new aspect of the tech industry that I honestly think many of us underestimate. I know I did until recently.

If you’re in tech or in any other industry for that matter, find a community. Find a group you can belong to. The amount of things I’m learning, the countless people I’ve met that I now admire and strive to emulate, not to mention how much fun and how inspiring it is. I can’t think of many things with a similar ROI.

Find a community you can belong to. Cherish it. Contribute to it. Enjoy it. It’ll make the professional journey so much easier, so much more fun, and so much more powerful.