Pier: I Have a Lot to Look Forward to
When Pier became a little disheartened by his industrial engineering life in Italy, he decided a change of scenery was in order. And where better to seek new adventures than Europe’s startup hub, Berlin? When he arrived, he worked on his own projects, applying to companies that interested him whenever a likely looking position popped up. Blinkist was so fortunate to pick up his application and take a chance on this young and ambitious engineer. Here he is, five years later, giving me the inside scoop on his journey and how he grew with Blinkist.
What changes have you noticed since you started working here?
The first month I was here [at Blinkist], Holacracy was introduced. It was very interesting for me as an engineer to be able to contribute to its creation. We held various workshops and feedback sessions to figure out and conceptualize our company values and how we wanted to use them as guiding lights for our organization. In my opinion, things have only gotten better from from there. I think we have done a great job developing our own version of Holacracy, which is a lot less bureaucratic, and also managed to grow a healthy tribe of 10 people to almost 70.
How would you describe the atmosphere in the engineering team?
I thought I had some bad luck in Italy before I moved, but probably it turned out to be good luck because it landed me at Blinkist. When we were a smaller team, there were, of course, more late nights involved and an ‘all hands on deck’ way of working, but when I moved from Italy to come here, I didn’t mind it. I was actually very happy working like that. It was exciting back then but now my daughter is about the same age as Blinkist and my schedule is quite flexible, which I really value. I love to be able to spend time with her, especially in the mornings when I walk her to the kita without having to hurry to work to ‘clock in’. However, we try to not be completely flexible and respect the 8-hour working span because it’s nice to be at the office together as a team. That said, nobody expects you to stay late just for the sake of staying late.
What are your biggest professional challenges?
We could focus more time on the planning stage of projects. Sometimes, they are started too fast which can lead to situations where we have to make adjustments afterwards, where thinking ahead might have avoided that. This doesn’t happen often but when it does we look at things retrospectively and learn from it.
How important is it for you to stay up-to-date on latest technologies?
There are so many new things coming out so fast and we try to be realistic and to use technologies only if we really need them, and not just because it’s trendy. For example, we have used MongoDB, a non-relational database, because it was the most popular when we were building the systems. But it’s not so relevant for us anymore. So, I personally learned that some of those technologies are fun to play with but it doesn’t mean that you should always adopt them.
Do you think that other engineers at Blinkist share your viewpoint on this?
I think I might be the least enthusiastic when it comes to new technologies, but we do share the mindset of trying to be the best in what we do and not to have superficial knowledge of everything. This might be an issue when you want to attract new talented engineers because some of them might expect to have a continuous change of technologies. But we are also open to change, if someone wants to use a different technology that they are way more comfortable with and it will be more efficient, I’m pretty sure nobody will strongly object to that. At Blinkist, we are given the trust to be free within the scopes of our roles to work like we think is best.
What is your biggest achievement to date — personal or professional?
I think I have done a lot of things here and not only limited to engineering. I’ve for example been involved with the product, customer support, and facilitated many meetings. I have grown so much with the guidance of people at Blinkist and because of the transparency between different teams, I learn a lot by observing all the brilliant people that work here. I guess this is something that one might miss in bigger companies. And now that we have our new learning and development academy, my professional development will not stagnate. If my future with Blinkist will be half as good as my past here, I have a lot to look forward to.
Did you enjoy reading about Pier’s experience? You can learn more about the team and working here at Blinkist from Anatoli, Head of Growth Engineering; Tomek, Backend Engineer; and Alex, our iOS Working Student.
