365 days of web development - summary of 2017

The short answer to those questions? Yes, 2017 was good for us. Thank you, that would be all for this summary! But if you're still reading (thank you for that!), here are some things that made 2017 awesome:

First thing first - let's talk about people

As you may know, this year our group has grown quite a bit - there are 67 people (and counting) working at Merixstudio! With this growing number came the new office (about which I will talk later in the article) and plenty of new friendships in our company. Our projects got even more interesting, office parties more adventurous, and office more fun.

And let me tell you - it's not an employer branding mumbo jumbo when I say friendship - we really do like each other and want to spend time together. Sometimes after hours, sometimes when someone is working, but you simply HAVE TO have a chit-chat with them. ;) Here's to the next year and hiring another group of great people that love web development as much as we do!

Are those the first seven people from #30under30? Not yet, but who knows! Their look however is not a mere coincidence - it's colleagues supporting their friend in his style makeover. As you can see on the chart, they are prepared for success! Their first accomplished? Landing this weeks #GeekShirtFriday! #businesscasual #suitup #handsome #lads #friendssupportfriends #friends #happy #silly #officelife #office #friday #friyay #stylish #webdevelopment #softwarehouse #poznan #merixstudio

Post udostępniony przez MERIXSTUDIO (@merixstudio) Lis 17, 2017 o 4:39 PST

Global Leaders in Web & Software Development of 2017

It's fair to say that during the last twelve months our Clutch profile grew bigger, what fills us with an enormous pride. After all is there anything better than receiving a recommendation straight from your clients? At the moment there are 31 reviews that describe our work, which helped us in getting recognised as one of the Global Leaders in Web & Software Development of 2017! But don't think that that's all you're going to hear from us about Clutch - 2018, here we come!

New office

Moving to the bigger, brighter office was one of the biggest changes we've made this year. But even if we loved our old headquarters with its many quirks, we simply needed more space since Maciek is unstoppable when it comes to hiring new people!

With time came more and more additions to our new place, such as grass carpet in our conference room, which now is one of the "it places" for a majority of us, an arcade game, as well as more and more murals and drawing on blackboard walls. What can I say, creativity can't be stopped in our software house! Even when you think that we can't make this place any better, someone comes up with the idea for improvement. Let's just wait another year to see what new things we will add - my money is on some Google-like slides in the middle of the office! ;)

What are you doing this beautiful afternoon? Because we are working, obviously! 💻💻💻The stuff we usually post is a bit more crazy, but what you see here is our day-to-day life, when we're focused on projects and scattered all around the office. Well, to be honest, there are some people that are playing Fifa, but let's give them some space for once;) #daytoday #officelife #truth #office #workinghard #working #atwork #business #killingthegame #focused #lovemyjob #webdeveloper #webdesign #softwarehouse #poznan #poland #merixstudio

Post udostępniony przez MERIXSTUDIO (@merixstudio) Paź 25, 2017 o 5:42 PDT

Working hard pays off

We couldn't achieve anything on Clutch without working on some great projects. Yes, we may seem on our Instagram that all we do is play Fifa and joke around, but it's all because of the great time management;) Here are some projects that landed in our portfolio during this year:

  • A calendar and Recital Management System for the Juilliard School - as you may know, Juilliard is a famous New York-based performing arts conservatory that gathers the best of the best. The Django-based projects we did for them, therefore, also needed to be top notch. Here's what the chief technology officer of the school has said about the calendar's post-launch results:"Since implementing the new calendar, we experienced a 25 percent increase in ticket sales and a 10 percent growth in traffic on our website."
  • Codewise - this Polish marketing technology company needed us to build a website that reflects their culture, positioning, and offerings. Apart from working on the design and UX, we also made a workable, scalable CMS that was easy when it comes to adding different forms of content. We think that our efforts paid off - check out the portfolio and find out for yourself!
  • StudyBee - during this year we were also able to work on a powerful Chrome extension that supercharges Google Classroom app allowing teachers to fully assess students. Since it's our favourite, we obviously worked with Django, as well as with Angular and HTML5. Wanna know what we've created? Well, all the secrets are in the portfolio ;)
  • Star Sailors League - SSL is an initiative started by the world’s best sailors. Polish people may even recognize someone when they check out the portfolio! The project we did for them included a complete redesign, coding, RWD, and a creation of an intuitive administration panel based on Symfony2 and Sonata Project. A lot of work, but the final result was more than worth it!

Dev College, but make it Combo

2017 was the year of going big! In the previous years you were able to attend our Dev College workshops, during which we share our knowledge on various aspects of web and game development. This year we decided to go a step further and add to it Dev College Combo - a whole-day event filled to the brim with presentations and workshops.

We're happy to say that it was met with a warm welcome - plenty of you showed up to learn! But let's not make this summary longer than it should be - check out the article Anita wrote about our event and wait for the announcement of the second edition!

Last Saturday we woke up early and went to the office.😴 Sounds awful, right? Wrong! It was the first edition of the new twist on our Dev College event - #DevCollegeCombo! 🎉This time it lasted a whole day and contained 12 presentations and workshops. Obviously, in the true Merixstudio fashion, it ended with beer and pizza.🍻🍕🍻 We couldn't be happier with how it went - hope to see you again on #DevCollegeCombo2! #devcollege #conference #workshop #presentation #webdevelopment #saturday #learning #knowledge #frontend #backend #projectmanager #ux #scrum #excited #programmer #levelup #networking #afterhours #ITindustry #happy #softwarehouse #poznan #merixstudio

Post udostępniony przez MERIXSTUDIO (@merixstudio) Lis 28, 2017 o 3:08 PST

Django Hotspot - a community around Django development

Thought that's all I have to say about events organized by Merixstudio? Well, think again! We've also continued our quest to gather the Django/Python community and created meetups for developers by organizing Django Hotspot. This year we were able to make them even more interesting thanks to speakers from a variety of different companies (and cities!) and are happy to see that there are more of you attending it with each new edition. And that's what Django Hotspot is all about - creating a community around Django development!

Were you with us yesterday during the fourth edition of #DjangoHotspot? If you were, then good for you - it was a good one! 👍Big thanks to speakers for their great presentations and to you for asking questions and networking after hours. To the next time, Django people! #django #djangodevelopment #webdevelopment #event #learning #knowledge #fun #happy #afterhours #networking #softwarehouse #poznan #poland #merixstudio

Post udostępniony przez MERIXSTUDIO (@merixstudio) Paź 26, 2017 o 5:48 PDT

Time to be a vlogger!

If you follow us on social media, then you know that this year we've become not only web developers, but also vloggers! Our star and interviewer, Michał, sits down in our unconventional conference room to talk with people about everything related to the work of a software house. So far you were able to watch conversations with Rory and Maciek, but don't think that's all - expect many more interesting videos in the future!

As you can see, the there are two approaches to the newfound fame - excitement and being fed up with constant paparazzi.📸📸📸 However, Michał and Rory are still keen to record the second episode of their new video series! While waiting, check out their first masterpiece on our YouTube channel➡ https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QN-2mTBRe2I #newproject #interview #exciting #camera #news #itindustry #poland #polishstartup #polish #office #officelife #itindustry #webdevelopment #webdesign #softwarehouse #poznan #merixstudio

Post udostępniony przez MERIXSTUDIO (@merixstudio) Paź 12, 2017 o 6:09 PDT

But wait, there's more!

But, since we're talking about vlogs, have you seen our summary of the year in the video form? If not, check it out - it includes even more things that happened in 2017 that didn't make the cut in this article. After all, a year is a long time!

However, before we start to slowly start the preparation for the big day on Sunday I would like to thank you on behalf of Merixstudio for sticking with us. We couldn't be happier with the clients we have and the people we work with - thanks to your creativity and willingness to cooperate and talk together we can take the web development world by storm. Let's just hope that the next year is going to be even better - Happy New year and see you on Tuesday!

Navigate the changing IT landscape

Some highlighted content that we want to draw attention to to link to our other resources. It usually contains a link .