It hasn’t passed too much since I’ve begun working at Plataformatec, but I’ve learned a lot already! I work with great professionals which are gathered not only by common goals but also by an awesome culture. I’ll list a few points that I think are being great so far.

Be pragmatic and agile

Plataformatec is a very pragmatic company that is in a constant learning process. We are always alert for possible knowledge acquirement. Empirical knowledge is analyzed with care, we try to document everything for further usage. A good experience is always a candidate for a practice and when it’s not, it becomes useful for future projects or similar situations.

Our practices are continuously being re-evaluated to assure that they still fulfill their purpose. We’re not afraid of deprecating them when it’s needed, but we always collect data from them for continuous improvement.

Teams should share without being afraid

Sharing what you’ve learned is great for helping people and get feedback from them. In the other hand, sharing doubts isn’t easy as it seems. People tend to ask for help in a private context so fewer people know about it. I always remember my teachers saying in the class: “Don’t be ashamed of asking any doubts”. But that happened anyway, because being mocked was never good.

Our team is composed of really nice and helpful people. We enjoy helping people and we share with each other pretty much everything we think it’s interesting. It’s very common to hear someone here saying “a doubt from one person could be the same from another person” or “I may have a right answer for you, but it’s quite possible that someone has a better way to do this”. Doubts can be a great source of feedback and knowledge when they are public. That’s why we don’t usually use private communication tools unless it is something personal.

Open source culture

Like many people, I got to know Plataformatec for its contributions to the open source community. But when I joined the company, I noticed that the open source ideas go even deeper here. I’d say that Plataformatec’s soul is open source not only because of its software contributions but also because of its way to approach everything else.

I’m sure that I have learned a lot about code review and documentation, but the contribution practices here goes beyond that. Lots of things we do are made with the help of the whole team: from pull requests to blog posts, to ceremonies and company decisions. We are very communicative! Take a look at this blog post to know more about our communication processes.

These were the points that I think are the most interesting to share so far. I hope I can contribute more and more to this team and to share what I learn with you along this journey.