In this week’s Meet the Developer we are meeting with Paulo Roberto Rosa, a full-stack developer from Florianópolis, Brazil. 

How long have you been working at Flexiana? 

I am working at Flexiana since June of 2021, so I am 10 months old in the company, and it feels like it was yesterday because time flies when working in such a good place.

What do you like most about your job?

What I like the most actually and always liked in the past, about my job, is to have the freedom to create something new and different. For example, as a developer, you can create new things or reinvent things that are already created. But you’re free to use your creativity, you’re free to do whatever you want to achieve your goal. People have different ways to achieve their goals but in the end, we do share the same objective. 

The good thing about it is knowing that there are different ways to achieve the goal and you can exercise creativity by creating code in many different ways. Also, in a way, you end up changing other people’s lives by coding. That way you can have a valid reason why to code, not just because it’s your job. You have a real valuable reason to wake up every day to sit on your chair and code. And you are not just coding, you’re participating in the creation of something that can change other people’s lives. Softwares are present in the day-to-day lives of people, so when you’re writing software you are in some way interacting directly with the other people that are using it. That’s why I like to be a developer, because I can make some impact in other lives, in a positive way (i hope) haha.

What was your thought the first time you heard about Flexiana?

The first time I heard from Flexiana was through Katerina (HR) on Linkedin. I didn’t know about the company before so I was just meeting with Flexiana for the first time then. But I felt like something was different when I was talking to her. I got some proposals and was reading them and I saw that the approach Flexiana has is different from other companies. They do believe in you and you can feel it. Now that I am here I know that my feeling was right. 

The first time that I did talk with the CEO (Jiri Knesl), he showed me his passion and love for the company without needing to say it directly. The goals that the company aims for are not small things, it’s huge things. And the company thinks in a way to achieve a better world with better people. It’s not just about creating software, it’s about changing the world for the better. It was pretty much like that what I was thinking about Flexiana after talking with him. 

And also the hierarchy model that is being used is different. There’s not a strong hierarchy in Flexiana, everyone can do something. You’re not just an employee with a boss or leader and you’re just following what people are doing or accomplishing your job. You have the freedom to do what you want that will contribute to something at Flexiana. It is a Flat Hierarchy company. Everyone is a leader. Actions like Open source team are incentivized. It’s something very cool. I can say now that you really have the power to change the world inside Flexiana and the company helps you to.

What does your day normally look like?

My average day at Flexiana is tranquil and smooth. I can also be dynamic sometimes, I can adjust my day properly as needed. If you have different time zones, it’s not a problem, you just have to attend the daily meeting for 15~20 minutes usually. The recurrent meetings are the only things that are fixed. But the greater part of your working day, the time to code, it’s up to you to decide when do you want to do it. If you want to work at night instead of morning you can, and at the end of the day if you have your work done, that’s ok, and even if you cannot work that day you can compensate on another day. That equals freedom and boosts your productivity. You know when you’re more productive and when you need rest and then go back to work to make sure that your work has the quality needed. 

And also teammates are very collaborative and you can get help whenever you want to get help. Everyone is capable of doing things and everyone can contribute. You have horizontal teams where you can construct products, you can solve your problems, and do pair programming when needed. We are very dynamic and I do like that a lot. Team communication and teamwork are very nice to me. It’s a good life and I really love that.

What current project are you involved in?

I am currently inside a team for a sports client with uses JavaScript language mainly on the projects as well.

What are your learnings from the project?

I learn every day more about the javascript language and also about software development in general with the guys because everyone on the team is highly skilled and there are several different experiences so far, so for my weaknesses, I can count on the support of other members of the team who have the knowledge necessary to help. We also learn how to manage ourselves and aim for a better version of our team every day by proposing improvements.

What are your goals for the project?

My main goal on the project is to become a better developer by working in an environment that allows me to learn fast and learn every day with experienced developers, then I can focus on my weaknesses, get help, and learn more about them. And at the same time, also contribute with my strengths to the team. I have also other goals, like, for example, I want to contribute in a positive way to the client becoming more successful every day using the tools that we make and improve and see it happening.

What excites you most about working at Flexiana?

The things that I get excited about the most about working at Flexiana are: the flexibility, dynamicity, and the different culture of people there. You have different teammates on different sides of the world. So you can see the different cultures and what it does change at the end of the day. It’s not a small difference, it’s quite huge sometimes.

 In Brazil people are warmer, more close, so we have more human contact. So we like to talk even if it’s off-topic. To be close to the teammates and things like that. Other people from other parts of the world are not always like that. They are more direct, and to the point, which is also good, but different. It’s not bad or good, it is just different. You can see that we build as a team, that we built something with every piece of culture. This is important. If you for example have a full team of Brazilians who share the same culture, you’ll probably end up talking too much about off-topic things and not focusing on the main matter in meetings. So the balance is very important. You can see that some people are more direct to the point and some people want to talk more, and that’s OK. And this is not just about talking, it’s also related to how the culture affects the way people code, and also the reviews, and many other things. 

So in the end we have a team that is flexible, a team that has a little piece of everything. That builts a really great team. And we have a lot of different opinions and suggestions which make us discuss improving ourselves every day and that is something really good. I can see that Developers usually, here in Brazil, have different conduct for coding, and you can feel it. In other countries other people code differently, they all have a different culture of code. So that is also good. You have some skill to code in one way and that other guy has other skills to code in a different way and you combine that and you learn from them and you give him your knowledge. 

I learned a lot since I joined Flexiana and I keep learning because everyone has a different way of doing things and I can feel that it is very exciting. And also the company is doing something different. Always improving, looking to the employees, looking to the team to see what we can improve and see what we can do to be a better company and have better teams.

In other companies, I always feel after some time in the company I am just another guy working and nothing happens and I just start to be bored. You start to wonder “Why am I here?” and you lose motivation. This doesn’t happen here. In certain moments everything is calm but then you get news, you get something different, something changing, growing, transforming and this motivates you and also makes you feel valuable to the company which is very important to me, and that’s why I like to be here.

What are your favorite memories from Flexiana?

Some days ago we had a large meeting with the entire company present, in which we talked about what the company did so far and what are we planning to do in the future, which were all great things, and also we got to know a little bit more of other projects on the company, and it was possible to see a lot of faces of other folks of the company, and for me, it was really very exciting and I hope to have more meetings like these on the future.

How would you describe working at Flexiana in a word?

If I would choose only one word to describe my working experience here, I would choose the word Growth. Because we are always growing, always learning new things. So, I feel like, being here and being a part of the team makes me learn every day. 

Finally, would you recommend people working at Flexiana?

Yes. I really do recommend people to join Flexiana. I can say that for obvious reasons, for example, to have a great and tranquil place to work and at the same time have contact with different cultures inside the company and learn with it.

 The experience of working here is exciting. You always learn something new. You can grow professionally, you can be a better developer, and you can code better. People say something you can never imagine because their context is different, so the experience is also different. It’s not like meeting developers of different companies, it’s like meeting different cultures of code. Cultures of people. I cannot explain but when you are in a place like that you will understand that it’s really different and exciting and make people grow even faster. 

And also another thing is about Value. You can feel valuable to the company here. In the past other companies I joined before, I didn’t feel like that. It was like… time passes by and you do the job the best you can but in the end, nobody cares. Everything was the same and did stay the same. You saw other things happening but nothing happened to you. Then you have to complain and ask someone if you want something different or maybe even a raise or something like that because that’s how things worked in my previous companies. But I can see that it’s not like that here at Flexiana, with only a few months as a developer here I had raise already together with my team, and I did not expect this to come, it was natural and surprisingly great. 

You can see that people here are worried about their employee’s quality of life and work and how they are going. I can see that the company haves great humanity and really cares about the employees it has, and it’s not a common thing in every company. I can assure you that being a developer at Flexiana, it’s like being in a Family. You will have your work valued and your feelings and worries will be always considered.