Mindera is a software development company with Offices in Porto (PT), Leicester (UK) and San Diego (US). Created in September 2014 it has now around 150 people working in a multitude of projects for clients in UK, US and Portugal with products in such diverse areas such as: retail, fast food, financial services, betting; ranging Web and back office Applications for Desktop and native mobile.
We visited their Porto Office for a glimpse of their work spaces, and to understand the interaction of these spaces in the way they work.
Office file
Company: Mindera
Location: Porto, Portugal
Total area: 1500 m2 (5 separated work spaces organised in 3 floors) +400 m2
Year: 2015
Capacity: 142 people (Porto location)
Industry: Technology
Culture Overview
The purpose of Mindera is captured in a sentence that we also find in their website: “At Mindera we use technology to build products we are proud of, with people we love”.
The culture reflects their lean approach to work and self-management attitude. The environment encourages everyone to take risks, make their own decisions and talk with everyone, to make communications efficient and swift. Everyone embraces ownership of their work, their team and of everything that happens in the day to day of the projects and of the organisation.
Opinions and discussions are essential to overcome challenges in a collaborative and creative way, and they wanted to create a culture where people can be themselves and bring their wholeness to the organisation.
Mindera believes that, through this environment of autonomy, accountability and sense of purpose, people deliver their best work.
The Office
Mindera’s office spaces are distributed in 3 floors of the Mapfre building: they have created independent offices, each with a kitchen, desk spaces and meeting rooms. Each office is different although they all have similarities and are organised in open plan.
The kitchen [404]
This is one of the most relevant spaces for people to get together: for a meal, a snack, a casual conversation or even a meeting. This is also the main entrance of the 404 office, where the visitor is welcomed by whoever gets the door straight into this space.
Terrace [404]
The kitchen opens up to a terrace with an amazing view of the Oporto city. The terrace has several wooden outside tables used for meals, meetings and work, specially on sunny days. there is also a grill that is used in gatherings.
Work Area [404]
This is the main work area where people work for most of the day: there are rows of desks and chairs, and although most of the times it is quiet, it can also be a bit noisy as it can accommodate 50 people.
The natural light invades the space making the use of artificial light mostly redundant.
Meeting Rooms [404]
There are 3 meeting rooms that can hold meeting of 2 to 8 people, that can also be used as a work area and interviews. Most walls are coated with a white board sticker used as a regular white board. One of the meeting spaces is being used to play foosball.
Office [407]
This office is the smallest in the group of independent offices at Mindera, there is a small kitchen space, work area with tables and chair and a relaxing space with sofas and TV, where people play Playstation to include breaks in their days.
Office [116]
The entrance of the office space is an area shared with the kitchen and a table that doubles its purpose for meals or meetings.
There is a meeting room in the middle of the space, surrounded by glass, and area with TV and sofa used mostly for playing X-Box and an open space work area that can hold 20 people.
Office [106]
Located on the 1st floor this is one of the most recently opened work spaces at Mindera. The entrance connects directly to a relaxing sofa area and kitchen. The work area is organized in open space and there are also 2 meeting spaces: one of those is smaller and used by one to two people at a time. There is another relaxing sofa area with music instruments and some people are known for improvising and improving their guitar skills.
Office [311]
This is the latest office created for Mindera where the space is shared by an open office work area, an open meeting nook and a kitchen area as well.
Plans
Office Talk
“I enjoy the comfort the offices offers, which is similar to what I would have at home: I can often seat in a sofa or enjoy the views over Porto city in the terrace.” — Ricardo Rodrigues
“All offices have a kitchen, which is a great advantage that enables me to get up and grab a yogurt, and come back to continue to focus on my work.”— Catarina Rebelo
All photos by André Henriques | www.ahphoto.pt/
