Making the move from London to Italy

Nicoletta Donadio tells us about working at Geckoboard during the pandemic, and her move back to Italy.

Hi Nico, what’s your role at Geckoboard?

I’ve been at Geckoboard for four years now. I’m a product designer, which means I focus on two areas. The first is UX design — making sure the product user experience is the best it can be. The second is UI design — which is all about designing the product interface.

What’s it like being a designer at Geckoboard?

As a designer, I enjoy the fact that I’m part of a team — it’s not just me. I work closely with developers and people in different roles to come up with new ideas and solutions. It’s sociable — it means that work is never boring.

One of the great things about being a designer at Geckoboard is how much you can speak with the users of the product. We’re constantly jumping on calls with users to get feedback — and not just in design, in other teams too. At previous companies, it could be quite difficult to get feedback from customers, but here, our customers are always very happy to talk to us, or take part in user testing.

Because Geckoboard is a reasonably small company, you end up having a lot of ownership and responsibility for the things you produce. If I was at a large company, like Facebook, all the different aspects of my work would be split between different designers. You might see this as a pro or a con, depending on your point of view. For me it’s definitely a pro. It means that I’ve grown and developed in lots of different areas.

Tell us about how life at Geckoboard has changed over the past few years?

Before the pandemic, the default was that we worked in the office, with some remote working as an option. Now it’s the other way around — the default is that we work remotely, and use the office when we need to.

At the start of the pandemic, I was living in London, but I was hearing about Covid from my parents, who live in Italy. I think Geckoboard was one of the companies who reacted early and told everyone it’s better to work from home. I remember my flatmate’s company made her continue going into the office until it was impossible to go in anymore. It was a scary time, so it was definitely good to start working from home right away.

What really helped me through the first lockdown was a project our team was working on. We’d decided to completely revamp our spreadsheets integration. It felt good to have a job that I was proud of doing. With the lockdown, there wasn’t much else going on that you felt proud of, or happy about.

Because we were all locked inside, it was good to have a team you could talk to — even just casual chats about everything that was going on in the world. The company organized a lot of activities and online social events to keep everyone in touch — things like book club, meditation, cookery club, zoom lunches.

I then spent the second lockdown in Italy with my parents — I ended up staying here for about five months, because it wasn’t possible to fly back to the UK.

At first, it felt a little bit like being a teenager again, but then I started thinking about my family and my friends in Italy, who’ve been there for me my entire life. I started to think “life flows quite well here”. If I can work remotely, I’d like to give it a go — to move back to Italy full-time.

At first I was nervous about asking if I could work from Italy, because nobody else is based here, but my manager was super supportive and Geckoboard has been very supportive with everything involved in the move.

What’s it like working from rural Italy? (…without making us too jealous!)

When I worked in London, everything was hectic. I’m not a morning person so I would wake up as late as possible. Then, because you’re sharing a flat, getting ready in the morning was hectic. Then getting the tube was hectic. Then you might stay out after work in the evening, and not get back home until late.

Moving back to Italy has been a complete change of pace. I wake up at 7.30am (which is 6.30am in the UK). That means I have time to go for a walk or go shopping before I start working. At lunchtime, I might walk up into the mountains or go visit a friend in the next village.

Depending on how I’m feeling, and if I don’t have any meetings, some days I might just take a couple of hours to myself. That’s possible because Geckoboard has a strong culture based on trust. Everyone trusts each other to make the right judgment, and make the best decision for your health and your mental wellbeing.

I do miss some things about the office — like having lunch with your teammates. I think when I move into my new place, I might start going to a co-working space where I can meet more people.

But otherwise, working from Italy really works for me.

Interested in joining Geckoboard? Learn more at www.geckoboard.com/careers