Our Senior Software Engineer Marcel joined Capmo remotely from the sunny island nation of Cyprus, which is located in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea. And we have to say: Of course, we can somewhat understand why he prefers his place of home to our offices in Berlin and Munich! Marcel grew up with the internet and he’s been coding since he was a little boy. He loves cats, memes, and learning more about the human condition. Outside of work he’s a hobbyist landscape photographer, traveler, and explorer. If he’s feeling sporty, long-distance cycling trips are his favorite activity.
Hello Marcel! You joined us as a freelancer some time ago. What made you stick with Capmo’s projects?
Marcel: As a software developer it is usually easy to find a new project, but it is really difficult to find a good company and team that I enjoy working with long term. And that's what I found to be the case with Capmo. My team and the company as a whole were ticking so many boxes for me and I enjoy working with them a lot.
As a freelancer, I've worked with many teams over the last 10+ years and there are multiple things that really stand out for me at Capmo.
First is the excellent team spirit. Everyone in the company is ready to help each other out or challenge ideas directly and in a productive way. There are no egos involved. I love that.
,The positive, direct and light-hearted communication style. Everyone in the company is really easy to talk to and interested in the other person. We see each other's humanity and not just a human resource. Capmo understands the value of a cohesive company culture.
The market and mission of Capmo really resonate with me. Making things easier in one of the largest industries is really exciting and it feels like we can make an enormous impact on so many people's lives.
And lastly, the way Capmo embraces remote work and an international workforce. The company language is English and we use tools that allow work from anywhere for everything we do. Hardly have I ever seen such a diverse range of work locations in a German company. And it shows that talent is worldwide and not just in the city of the company office happens to be. This enables Capmo can access a way bigger talent pool than companies that shy away from remote work.
I really enjoy working remotely, too. How did you make the decision to go to Cyprus?
Marcel: I've been working remotely for many years now, even before it became normality during covid times and I enjoy being able to work from any place that has decent wifi. That means I could be working from my home office, a coworking space, or a beach cafe. Not having to commute to or being confined in an office all day are the biggest benefits of remote work.
I wanted to work from a place that makes me happy and Germany was not making me happy anymore for a multitude of reasons (weather, taxes, mentality to name a few). At the time a new buzzword started popping up: "Digital Nomads" and I was intrigued about what this lifestyle is about. So I started researching and visited a few countries and islands with lots of sun and a nice lifestyle (Bali, Spain, Tenerife etc) and eventually ended up in Cyprus, which was the overall best package for me, although it was never really on my radar before.
You must be a real expert on remote work by now. Are there any challenges, too?
Marcel: Being dependent on good wifi is sometimes a challenge, especially when I work outside my office in a cafe. So if I know that there will be a call or meeting that requires lots of interaction on my part, I'll try to stay in a place where I can trust the wifi to be stable and fast enough. Recently though, the internet connectivity improved a lot here in Cyprus due to a push to fiber, so it's usually not an issue anymore.
Another challenge is that we are such a distributed and newly assembled team, that we don't have the bond that would connect an office-based team. Thankfully we recognized the issue and we now make room for more social interaction. For example, we have a dedicated time slot in which our team will chat about random things or we play some online games like gartic phone or scribble, which I really enjoy.
That’s super cool! Tell us a bit more about what you’re working on currently.
Marcel: High level: Solving interesting problems for a huge market with an amazing team. To be a bit more specific, we are working on some foundational services at the moment that will enable our customers to collaborate more flexibly. One of our challenges is to move data between several systems to enable future functionalities without any user impact. This requires a lot of planning, preparation, and testing since the impact will be huge. The biggest compliment for us would be that the customers did not notice anything during the transition period.
The work our team is doing right now will enable customers to use Capmo in a more flexible way. It will put Capmo in a position to welcome customers that were not able to implement Capmo in their workflow due to some restrictions we had before.
I am sure you’ll do amazing and the customers won’t even notice! Since you’ve got quite some references. How is working as a developer at Capmo different from other companies?
Marcel: I feel seen as a human being, not just an IT resource. Capmo also actively invests in their engineers and has a clear professional development plan in place. So engineers will not be stuck in a position if they want to move their career path further along.
My colleagues are amazing human beings. We help each other out, challenge our ideas in a healthy way and push each other if needed. We see eye to eye as humans are each other's biggest cheerleaders.
That’s the Capmo spirit! Last but not least, maybe you can tell us what your daily life looks like here.
Marcel: I’ll hop on the daily stand-up call with my team and then check if there are pull requests that need a review. After that I will either start working on my task of the day, coordinate with the team if I can assist someone or I'll look for the next story in the backlog to tackle.
A great day is when we ship a feature to our customers that makes their work easier. Ideally, this would be every day, but some things just take time.
And if I can listen in on customer interviews where we introduce some of our customers to upcoming new features and see how they react and use them. It's so enlightening and helpful!
My highlight of the week is the weekly all-hands meeting to learn how the company in general and each department is doing. I really enjoy hearing Flo's weekly customer story, which paints a vivid picture of how much of an impact Capmo is having on our user's daily work. It’s super motivating!
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