“It could go really well or really wrong. The result was up to me. ”
The idea seemed simple: to expand the R&D department and create scalability in the north of Portugal. This is the untold story behind OutSystems Braga office…
I got on the train back to Braga. I didn’t know what to expect. On one hand, I was excited; I was thrilled. I had a huge challenge in front of me where I could make my mark from the beginning. On the other hand, there was nothing to go back to.
The plan had been to stay in Lisbon for a few weeks, to meet the people, the company, the technology I was going to be working on, and then return to Braga. I was supposed to join a colleague there and help him launch the new office in the north of Portugal. But he had just gotten married and was about to go on his honeymoon for three weeks. In addition, the new office was completely empty. Literally. My colleague had signed the lease agreement just a few days before. But I knew it was time to go back.
The first days were typical days in the life of a software engineer, spent at IKEA buying furniture with my manager David (for those who are not software engineers, please note the sarcasm). I knew that I was taking a risk when I said yes. I just didn’t know how big it was. I was so attracted to the challenge, the responsibility, the complexity of the product — a platform for developing web and mobile apps with a minimum of hand-coding? One can only imagine how complex its back-end must be! — that I didn’t see the uncertainty.
Truth be told — and I didn’t know it back then — Braga was an experiment that could go really well or really wrong. The results were up to me and my colleague. In those days, all alone in the office without much professional experience at OutSystems, I had doubts… Can you blame me? But with time, I gained confidence in what I was doing and those doubts started to vanish.
Today, a year and a half after I joined, life is good. The team has grown, and there are now 22 engineers in Braga. We have a new and incredible office, right in the center of the city, and I’m a team captain. Our efforts were worth it. OutSystems is growing in the north and we were the pioneers that started it all.
