Last week, we wrote history: the company officially held its first retreat, with a variety of events and programs spread across five(ish) days. With this said, we thought we’d share some of our best memories from the retreat with you, and let you in on what team building looks like at Bitrise.
Monday: arrivals, codesigning, and a huge party
On the first day of our retreat, we welcomed our lovely colleagues from San Francisco and London. Having the new, bigger Bitrise family together for the first time was an amazing experience that we’ll never forget (same goes for all the candy they brought us).
In the afternoon, we headed out to Ankert, a famous ruin bar and restaurant to attend HWSW’s mobile development meetup, where our very own Ákos Birmacher talked about iOS codesigning and CI solutions. About 250 developers came to the event and based on their reactions, it’s safe to say Ákos’s talk was a huge success — so much so, that we took the celebration to another nearby venue, Nappali. And the rest… well, let’s just say we had a really good time.
Tuesday: Girls’ Day, and reminiscing about the early days of Bitrise
The next day, we took part in a cross-country educational initiative called Girls’ Day — a program that aims to popularize the STEM fields amongst high school girls and to tackle stereotypes by showcasing the many career paths that exist in today’s job market but often not even considered by women. In total, we had 16 visitors, for whom we prepared games and short programming tasks, through which they had a chance to get a better view of the magic that is happening at Bitrise, as well as the nuances, background, and everyday life of a tech company.
Later during the day, we also had an ad-hoc all-hands, during which the three founders of Bitrise revisited some of the funniest old stories about the formation of the company, as well as some significant milestones that we’ve reached along the way. Of course, we also discussed some of our — top-secret — plans for the coming months and years.
Wednesday: Labor Day, hiking in the woods
Wednesday was a public holiday in Hungary, but that didn’t stop us from keeping the party going. A good number of us got together and went for a hike at Normafa, a spot frequented and praised for its beauty by many in Budapest. Yes, we got lost more than we would like to admit, but getting lost with good company in a gorgeous forest isn’t the worst thing in the world, is it? Don’t worry, though — each and every one of us made it back, safe and sound.
Thursday: Hackathon
On Thursday, we held our much anticipated semi-annual Hackathon, thanks to the amazing organizers, Gergely Hangyás, Simon Márton, and Gábor Takács. We arrived in the morning, quickly got into groups and started working on our ideas. We had some pretty crazy outcomes by the end of the day: an attendance register manager, a Flappy Bird clone game with Purr Request, and even some meme-filled video storyboards for future projects. With delicious pastries and pizza for lunch and dinner and drinks later in the night, Thursday turned out to be not only a productive day but a pretty fun and memorable one as well.
Friday: back to work
All good things must come to an end, and so it was with the retreat: as much as we enjoyed it, we had to say goodbye once Friday came. Our colleagues from abroad began their journey home, and the rest of us recuperated during a nice and laid-back workday.
