Introduction

I moved to Berlin to join GetYourGuide 6 years ago as a Software Engineer. The company was quite small and just starting to gain traction. On February 1, 2013, I walked into the office for the first time. The Engineering team in Berlin was made up of only 4 engineers, all from outside Germany, and three of whom were also starting that day.

All the startup buzzwords applied — we had a flat hierarchy, an open-plan office, agile development processes, strong relationships between team members, and lots of cross-department communication. …