The first All Hands event of 2024 took place on 7 and 8 March and it exceeded all our expectations.
It was a pleasure to attend the training sessions given by the employees themselves, both from WATA Factory and from q.beyond ibérica. We were able to discover the master in each of us and also the fact that there is a lot of talent in our employees.
To start the day off right, our two Hungarian colleagues prepared an authentic traditional Hungarian breakfast. It all tasted wonderful, but the real winner of the morning was the téliszalámi – Hungarian for “winter salami” – a Hungarian salami made from Mangalica pork and spices: white pepper, allspice and others – a delight!!
Then we started with the first training session. Our colleague Eva led the presentation “Introduction to accessibility, implementation and testing in a real project”, followed by Victor who joined her to guide us through the more practical part. This training gave us a very comprehensive overview of how to approach accessibility in real-life project development, focussing on effective implementation, testing and the importance of creating accessible experiences for all users.
After a coffee break, it was Antonio’s turn to present his workshop “Monitoring your systems with Datadog”, in which strategies and best practices for optimising system performance and reliability with Datadog were discussed.
We interrupted the training flow and went together to a nearby restaurant where we savoured the best of Jerez gastronomy. Once again, we took the opportunity to get to know each other better and find out who our colleagues are outside the office. This atmosphere provided the perfect setting to share the ideas and knowledge acquired in the morning in a relaxed way among all colleagues.
Upon our return, it was our designer Raquel’s turn to open her workshop “Decoding Figma: guide for non-designers”. She offered a practical introduction to Figma with a focus on how to use the platform to collaborate effectively on design projects, even without previous design experience.
As is usual for all All Hands, we use the end of the traianings to start our departmental meetings. As part of the hybrid model, we hold these meetings online when we are working from home. However, there is nothing better than putting the screens aside from time to time and meeting in person. This dynamic is very enriching.
We ended the day informally by sitting together, having a drink and chatting quietly. These moments together are not only fun, but also strengthen us as a team, which is essential for good cooperation.
The next day, after a breakfast full of Andalusian flavours that gave us energy to get started, it was time for the first training session of the morning: “Introduction to Cypress”, held by Mario. In this presentation, we learnt about test automation in web application development. Mario emphasised how to set it up, how to write effective tests and how to integrate it with other development processes. It was a very interesting and useful talk that made us all want to put what we learnt into practice.
We then attended the workshop “Code analysers for the winners” led by Carlos. Our PHP Tech Lead guided us through various code analysis tools and techniques that can help improve code quality, efficiency and maintainability in software development projects.
The afternoon ended with a well-deserved lunch at our facilities, where we shared our impressions and reflections on what we had learnt as a team. Without a doubt, this was the perfect end to the day and we said goodbye until the next All Hands.
We would like to thank all the speakers for making this event possible and sharing their incredible talent and experience with the rest of our colleagues. We are so grateful for the time and energy they invested to help us learn and grow together as a team.
We are already looking forward to the next All Hands event in June! After this All Hands event, the bar is set very high.
