Are you curious about how things work in our offices and what a typical and also an unusual working day looks like in an IT company? Or maybe what our company culture is like and where do we take our ideas or problems? You can find out all this in the article prepared for you by our project manager Jakub.

My name is Jakub and I am a project manager at Orchitech. The advantage of my job is that I have an overview of everything that’s going on and how everyone is doing. If you are interested in how things work here then read on and experience a normal working day with me. Who knows, you might find out that it doesn’t always end as a typical workday!

Ordinary OrchiDay

7:55, half-finished coffee, all monitors running. Everyone has already clocked in and is sitting at their keyboards. The whip is flying overhead…

It certainly doesn’t look like that here, don’t worry. We’re also in the 21st century – work-life balance and flexible working hours. Everyone can come and go as they need and as they are comfortable. However, the prerequisite for this is mutual trust – everyone has to do their job and not hinder others by their absence. Our performance-oriented company culture and the advantage of a smaller agile team not only supports this regime, but even underlines it. This is despite the existence of two different time zones – České Budějovice and Prague.

In the South Bohemian office, it is a common practice to start earlier, so you will find our colleagues in Budějovice in full work mode around 8am. In the heart of the country, most of us are still on our way to the Žižkov office. But we are not wasting time! Some will check in their first emails and calls on the way, others will read posts from the world of current technologies and share them with others on our Slack channel #techtalk.

10:00, Google Meet, our company-wide Daily Scrum begins. In 15 minutes, we’ll go over and update the day’s plan together. The focus is on what we have done and will do to accomplish the goals and on connecting relevant people when assistance or help is requested. Often, our clients join in so they have a peek behind the curtain to see our progress and added value. Teams are assembled according to project needs regardless of our location. Thus, after the Daily Scrum meeting, a round of calls, screen sharing and peer messaging continues on Slack in smaller groups.

11:00-13:00, Budějovice bistro and Prague kitchen, it’s time for lunch. The Budějovice team prefers to go out for lunch, the Prague team usually has something delivered to the office. We always meet once a week over lunch for a group call (OrchiLunch), where we chat with our colleagues during the meal about everything that is going on in our personal lives or in the world in general.

Afternoon hours, work never sleeps, we concentrate on the tasks we have started and we attend more rounds of meetings and calls if necessary… Afternoons like in any office. 🙂 On certain days, our colleagues Sam and Marko, students working part-time, will also come. This is often an opportunity to discuss one of our products – Time Tracking Rebel. The program helps our team, as the name suggests, to track and report time spent on various activities. With two thirds of the working day behind us, it’s time to recharge and many are looking forward to visiting two favourite destinations – the coffee machine and the fridge regularly restocked with fruits.

16:00-17:00, going home???, the first colleagues, especially those from the south, leave for home or leisure activities. Before leaving, however, everyone first makes sure they have answered all the necessary questions from colleagues and are not blocking anyone from working for the rest of the day. If necessary, it’s always possible to message on Slack at basically any hour of the day or evening, with the understanding that we respect, even encourage, an after-work detox. Here again, the advantage of a smaller team comes into play. We know our work habits and know who to contact, when and how.

17:30-20:30, Czechitas, on autumn Mondays we regularly run an online DevOps course in cooperation with Czechitas. Each week, we coordinate who has the time and interest to coach the upcoming topic to help out our main lecturer, Robert.

(Extra)Ordinary OrchiEvents

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. And that’s why we get together outside of work every now and then. The two biggest events of the year are the OrchiConference and the Christmas party. The OrchiConference lasts two days – the first day is traditionally dedicated to learning and experience sharing. This takes place mainly in the form of presentations and discussion panels. The second day is dedicated to team building events and sports. During the Christmas party we usually meet in a restaurant or a brewery. We feast, we play (or at least cheer) Magic, and we drink. During the evening, it’s also time to get our OrchiMerch presents.

Other events include OrchiBeer, OrchiBreakfast, running relay with our Orchitech.run() team, and other cultural events such as a visit to the Jára Cimrman Theatre. Colleagues from České Budějovice were actively involved in the “Bike to work” event. A year has only 52 weekends and each of us has our own personal life. However, even this can sometimes overlap with work. One example for all, our colleague and our colleagues enjoyed getting together so much that we had the opportunity to wish them all the best for their life together and to welcome an OrchiBaby.

Orchitech Solutions

Our organizational structure is basically flat and we are not divided into departments. We separate to teams to deal with a particular project and when someone is working on multiple projects they are, therefore, in multiple teams. Everyone does what they can do and sometimes we learn something new to contribute to the running of the company. There isn’t even a department to write a complaint to. If we don’t like a process, the boss is not far away. We can come up with our own suggestions for improvement and help change the situation. The management regularly asks for the opinions of part-timers, students, juniors and seniors. And when we are not sure about something, we ask everyone and together we agree on the best solution.

The authors of the article: Jakub, Jana, Lucie N., Zora and Lucie S.