International Day of Friendship
Today is the International Day of Friendship — a day to remember the importance of friendship between people, countries and cultures. We have taken this day as an opportunity to honor our international Tech team at Westwing. We are incredibly proud to work in our Technology department in Munich with people from 43 (!!!) different nations. Again and again newcomers from different countries join our team and enrich our community. And it is so nice to see colleagues becoming friends over time.
Our CTO Adam Maschek who himself comes from Hungary is happy to have so much diversity in his team: “I think people from different cultures bring different mindsets and solutions to problems, and it helps us to think outside the box when trying to solve a certain issue at work. Apart from work I think it is also great to learn about other countries and customs and it overall makes us a stronger, healthier team.” The special thing about Westwing is that diversity naturally grows — we hire the best candidates, no matter where they come from: “In the past years we interviewed people from all across the world, from East Timor to Peru and a lot of them actually work for us now.”
Let’s take a look at some of these employees who have become part of our Westwing team!
Oana Ginghina (Product Manager) from Romania is not only one of our powerful working mums, but also one of our “Westwing oldies” (as we call them) as she’s been with us for more than 7 years. During that time, she has left the company for parental leave twice — but she always returned to Westwing. “It’s funny to see how the company evolved over time. Every time, I came back from parental leave, it seemed like we were a bit more grown up and less chaotic. But the most important thing never changed, I always felt home at Westwing.” When asked, why she never left the company, Oana smiles and says: “I love Westwing, that’s why! It feels like I’m a member of the Westwing family and you wouldn’t leave your family, right? I could easily find other companies with similar Technologies — but I could never find such an international team with so many awesome colleagues.”
Tatiana Shevchenko (Senior Software Engineer I) from Ukraine has not only found friendship at Westwing, but even more than that. Today she tells us about her great love story with Raúl Francisco Vilgré La Madrid (Senior Software Engineer I) from Argentina: “Same company, same floor, same Tech team, different rooms in the same corridor. He was working a lot, and it was difficult to notice him, unless he was having coffee with friends at the kitchen. One day we met. It was mid-summer ’17. There was a spark between us.” And that spark has turned into a big love. In November 2018, beautiful Elinn was born and made their happiness complete. We couldn’t be more glad for the little family and wish them all the best for the future!
Whereas Oana and Tatiana have been with us already for a long time, one of our latest joiners is Hamid Parchami (Software Engineer II) from Iran. It took us more than eight months to finally get him to Munich, as the Visa process in Iran was pretty tough. “The HR team from Westwing was super supportive from the very first day onwards and showed an incredible patience. They were supporting me during every single step of the Visa process, even though it took much longer than expected. Still, I felt under pressure — as other companies would probably have given up on me in the meantime.” Back then Hamid responded to an Instagram Post from our CEO Stefan Smalla with a comment about his current situation. Hamid remembers: “I was totally surprised when Stefan actually answered to me and wanted to personally stand up for my case. The CEO of Westwing himself cared that much for me as one single employee — unbelievable!” We were super happy when Hamid was finally able to start working at Westwing one week ago. And all the happier we are now to hear he’s already really comfortable here: “I felt welcome from day one — that’s the place where I want to continue my journey!”
We also have some employees in our Tech team who have moved to Tech from another department. One of them is Sharon Hertel — half German, half Israeli. She used to work at WestwingNow and moved to Tech a year ago as Junior Product Manager. Sharon loves working in this international environment: “You learn so much about other cultures — the atmosphere at Westwing is so relaxed that you can just openly ask each other questions about our cultural background”. Sharon also emphasizes that it doesn’t matter where you come from — everyone is integrated immediately. And she says, at Westwing you notice how small the world is: “Imagine two employees from Lithuania are working in the same team at Westwing, although this country has so few inhabitants! And recently we hired Adi from Israel, she actually comes from the same corner as my family.” We love to discover such coincidences and similarities again and again!
At Westwing we are not worried about investing in talents that might leave the company one day. We know that sometimes people will leave to look for another challenge. But even more we are proud if some people come back to Westwing after moving on to different opportunities. Angelo Gulina (Senior Frontend DevOps Engineer I) from Italy is one of them. He left Westwing in June 2018 — as we were his first fulltime employer and he wanted to gain new experiences. But he decided to come back to us already in November last year: “To be honest, the main reason why I came back was that I missed the people. The relationships that are most important to me are with people from all over the world here at Westwing. Actually, being a part of the Westwing team brought something to me — it kind of shaped who I am right now.” According to Angelo, you sometimes have to go somewhere else to see what really matters: “At Westwing I never got bored — not on a single day in now almost four years altogether. And I really have the feeling that what I am doing has an impact. Westwing is a place where you feel special for who you are — a part of something bigger.”
It is a very special honor for us when employees recommend us to their friends as an employer. Lawrence Agbani (Software Engineer II) was one of the first two Nigerians to join Westwing last September. Since then, Lawrence has successfully referred three of his friends from Nigeria — who are now also part of the Westwing team. When asked why he recommended us to his friends, Lawrence answers: “The working culture at Westwing is simply unique! I really appreciate the flat hierarchy, everyone contributes to the company success, new ideas are encouraged, and you just get integrated right away. That’s why I knew Westwing would be the right place for my friends as well.” Even though he now also has his friends from home working with him, Lawrence appreciates the international environment: “The way in which Westwing promotes the exchange between employees is really great. here are so many opportunities to meet people and interact and eventually even make friends with people from other countries. If you ask me, Westwing is a brand of International Friendship Day.”
When you talk to Westwing employees about what they love about Westwing, they always mention the international environment — and it is precisely this international spirit that we want to preserve. Soon another new nation will join us — we are just about to bring in a newcomer from Mauritius.
