The Office

Some of the Santiago engineering team.

After two years of working remotely during the pandemic, what are the reasons for a development team to head back to the office? Online tools have facilitated the tasks developers do like pair programming, standups, and retrospectives.

In our experience, going to the office serves a different purpose that can be hard to achieve with online tools. To build and grow a strong team relationship. Building trust between engineers, product, designers, and management is an easier task when you are in the same room, having lunch together, or playing a board game.

The team playing a board game after work.

After meeting at the office our team has improved their foundation to work together remotely, help each other and collaborate. It’s different helping a colleague you have never seen before, then a colleague you shared lunch with last week.

It’s not impossible to build a good team working remotely, but I think it’s much easier if you go to the office with a certain periodicity. Engaging developers not only with their work but also with their teams and the people they work with is more attainable if we know each other beyond the webcam.