Honest review — Three months as developers in Elaway
We were hired as consultants to re-write Elaways company homepage to React with NextJS. In addition, we were challenged to write an honest review of how it is to work in Elaway.
And yes, as you might think — we are, of course, super biased. We were on this company’s payslip, and they were treating us really nicely. So it’s hard to point to anything other than things we liked.
But hold on. Even though we like these guys, we still found some areas of improvement. In addition, a review is subjective. So something we think is nice might not be something you appreciate.
Let’s go!
Disclaimer: We were both consultants during the pandemic, and this is a short impression from a fluid organization growing fast.
Quick about Elaway
Elaway is a company making solutions for scaling charging facilities in Europe. Through their platform, they have built infrastructure and charging facilities to over 40 000 parking spots in Norway. Now they’re working on a platform to make those next 1 000 000 parking spots blitz up all over Europe.
First impressions.
We were located in Oslo. So we were assigned to Elaway’s Oslo office in Skøyen (as we are writing this, they have offices now in Bergen, Stockholm, and Münich as well).
The Oslo office is an expensive-looking, semi-cooperate giant building, central in Oslo. Everything in the main office looked modern and slick. You know that look, where you have wireless mobile chargers on every desk and a water fountain in the reception. We got the vibe that this would be a friendly office to work out of, and it was.
As we had seen in other companies, we expected a long, drawn-out onboarding period. You know, like a week or two, where we waste time waiting for essentials like internet access, company terms, system access, etc.
However, on the first day, we quickly noticed this was not the case with Elaway. We got about 1 hour to get the basics set up and were thrown into a meeting room with the people responsible for onboarding us. After this initial meeting, it was time to meet the team we would work with. Things went fast, and to our surprise, we found ourselves already working on our project after half a day. Wasting time was not an option.
Note: As we are writing this, Elaway has just got recruited a ‘Head of people and culture.’ She has ambitions to create a mind-blowing onboarding process, so we guess the onboarding we described will change very soon. Though we had to admit, it was still charming.
Pros (according to us)
- You get responsibility fast, and the company culture reflects that they trust you 100% until you mess up. We think that’s pretty nice for achievers like us. We felt that management encouraged creative thinking in every individual by giving them free space, trust, and responsibility.
- We were encouraged to assist in deciding frameworks, technologies, and how the project should be completed early on.
- Modern framework: Scrum, Kanban, sprints (1-week sprints), daily standups, GitHub reviews, etc. Always cool to be in a company that tries to facilitate an optimal working environment.
- A friendly environment for constructive criticism.
- As consultants, we were treated like any other employees.
- During our contract, we enjoyed social gatherings like Christmas parties, paycheck-beer, and other fun social events. Funny people, easy-going vibes.
Cons (what could be done better)
- Scoping of tasks. Especially in the project after the web project
- Too much context-switching. But hey, what else to expect when you’re a startup with a small development team.
- A bit too posh offices for a ‘cool’ startup.
Cool quote about the Elaway vibe coming up:
Working for this company feels like we are a part of a fast-moving, highly dynamic, flexible “organism” that adapts to and overcomes every challenge thrown at it.
Summary with the highly anticipated dice roll
The website project took three months, and we made it on time. We had some hiccups in the project, but overall, the experience at Elaway was more than pleasant.
Dice roll: Drumdrumdrumdrum DRAMDRUM dramdruuuuuum (← drumroll): 5
That’s right. We give you a five. Great work, Elaway. Thanks for the trust and all the fun.
You can read more about Elaway’s perks and benefits as consultants and employed on their career pages.
