Honestly, I completely did not know what to expect. After all we just throw an invitation at a few places: on Twitter and Facebook obviously, a few posters at local universities, a few mentions at local conferences and users groups ... and a full-fledged bill-board at one of the most crowded street-crossings in Gdańsk.
I did not know who and how many people would sign up. The results far exceeded my dreams. Nearly 90 people signed up, vast majority of them showed up at the event. We hoped to attract 30 - 50 guests, so I dare say it exceed our expectations by far :)
Actually I had to close the registration due to too big interest (I really did not know if we can fit so many people in our 300 m2) more than 2 days before the event and on the quickly opened waiting list we quickly got almost 10 people wanting to join us.
All in all everything went quite smooth. So many people managed to squeeze in our office. Actually we could fit probably 30 - 40 more (in terms of raw floor space), but our air-conditioning barely handled those who showed up (it was really too hot when most of the people were in a single room when I was doing the presentation).
I was afraid that random people would come - e.g. those just interested in having a free drink or a fist fighting ;). Fortunately they were no such guests. It looks like all people were genuinely interested in our company (both Spartez and Atlassian), wanted to share something, learn something (we hosted a few young startupers) or were interested in one of the jobs we are offering.
After initial mingling I presented a few things: a short history of Atlassian with the emphasis of its values and how the attracted us to, a short history of Spartez (including revealing the mystery of how our company was founded and why such name was picked) and then I very quickly presented those several positions for which we are looking for people:
- Team Leader
- Front-end developers
- Java developers (all levels, including our highly wanted principal)
- UX engineer
- Product manager
- QA engineer
BTW, we are still looking (I mentioned we are _very_ picky), so feel free to drop us an e-mail at jobs@spartez.com.
Then there was a time for a lot of questions and honestly I was completely swamped for next hour or so by a lot of people who pinned me down and wanted to know much more. Great conversations. It turned out that there are several people really interested in invigorating our Tricity geek scene. JUGs, JS meetups, Scala meetups, Agile parties, hackathons - we don't have them too often in Gdansk and area. I got a few very good connections and I hope to co-host some interesting meetups in the near future. Stay tuned.
After several more chats, I felt so much tired, that I sneaked out to our fussball table to witness the finals (we did organize the fussball championships - big kudos to Orzech for that) - unfortunately we were not very hospitable here and two Spartez pairs made it to the final.
Then I landed in our poker room where Filip Rogaczewski wascheating winning with other players (of course no gambling, just free chips) in Texas Hold'em. He won also my pool, but finally there was a draw between two last players - they bet with "all in" and both had exactly the same full house. And they gave up further play. Perfect solution.
Then I landed in our poker room where Filip Rogaczewski was
All in all that was a very pleasant evening. After 10 PM we started heading home.
There were no damages, no beer spilled (but at poker table, which is like a rule), no one got sick. Food was decent, chats were great and the guests were awesome.
Thank you for joining us. I hope you enjoyed it and I hope to celebrate with you in the future too.
Special thanks for Spartez crew for organizing and taking care of this event! I owe you guys beer! Help yourself from our fridge. :)
And special kudos to my awesome sister and brother-in-law for taking these wonderful pictures.
