First Ascent Switzerland: A Glimpse Inside Bending Spoons

Recently, I had the opportunity to participate in First Ascent Switzerland, an event hosted by Bending Spoons that brings together 20 students from Swiss universities for an inside look at their company culture, offices, and even some coding challenges. While my usual blog will focus on technology, this experience offered unique insights into a fascinating company and the kind of environment that fosters innovation, something I believe many readers will find interesting.

Bending Spoons has garnered a reputation as a desirable workplace, known for its dynamic culture populated by young, ambitious individuals. You've likely heard their name, but perhaps, like me before this event, you weren't entirely clear on what they do. Their business model is fundamentally about acquiring and scaling technology companies, driving growth in revenue and profit. Their portfolio includes well-known names like Evernote and Wetransfer.

Bending Spoons

Despite their significant size and established history, Bending Spoons maintains a competitive, ownership-driven, and high-achieving culture. Employees are constantly engaged in new acquisition projects, essentially rebuilding these companies as if they were their own startups. A key to their success, beyond their intense and motivating work environment, is their ability to leverage their diverse portfolio of companies to automate common challenges. For instance, a robust authentication system developed for one acquisition can often be adapted for another, enhancing scalability and streamlining the integration of new companies.

One aspect of their culture that particularly resonated with me is the concept of "T-shaped engineers." This model emphasizes deep expertise in a specific area—the vertical stroke of the "T," such as backend development—coupled with a broad understanding and adaptability across other technologies and domains—the horizontal bar. This aligns strongly with my experiences at Invopop, where, as a backend engineer, I've found myself involved in frontend UI development, product specification discussions, database management, and even navigating Kubernetes for application hosting. I believe this versatile approach is crucial for modern engineers, and it's a personal goal of mine to continually expand my skillset, a process made even more accessible with the rise of AI. Maybe one day I get to be a rectangle-shaped engineer ;).

T-shaped engineer

In essence, Bending Spoons appears to be an ideal environment for individuals seeking a fast-paced, intellectually stimulating workplace surrounded by talented peers, where the focus is on continuous rebuilding and innovation. While I am currently very happy at Invopop, contributing to the growth of an exciting product, this event provided a valuable glimpse into another remarkable company and its people.

The First Ascent Experience

The event itself was really well organized. We were treated exceptionally well, including amazing meals and comfortable accommodation in Milan. The three days were truly memorable. But what exactly did we do?

The first afternoon we arrived we had a tour of their impressive offices, complete with recreational amenities like ping pong, PlayStation, and even a beer dispenser.

Bending Spoons offices

The following morning included technical talks that shed light on the challenges Bending Spoons faces when acquiring and integrating diverse technology companies. I found it particularly interesting how they navigate the complexities of disparate tech stacks. Unlike building a product from scratch with a unified technology approach, Bending Spoons often inherits companies built on entirely different foundations, be it Java, Node.js, or a multitude of other front-end, back-end, database, and AI technologies.

We also learned about compelling case studies, such as the intricate migration of Evernote's architecture from a monolith to microservices, the hurdles encountered, and the resulting improvements in stability and manageability. Another fascinating topic was "surfing the wave," illustrated by the unexpected surge in popularity of their Remini app due to its adoption on TikTok.

The discussions around security at Bending Spoons were also insightful, highlighting the complexities of managing permissions across numerous projects and diverse access needs. Furthermore, with a vast array of products comes a massive amount of data, requiring a dedicated and skilled team for analysis and handling, a significant undertaking in itself.

Evernote x Bending Spoons

That afternoon we had the first coding challenge of the weekend. We were divided into teams of five, and my team consisted of Angelo, Mariia, Nils, and Srahinja. The task involved developing an algorithm. I initially proposed a solution that I wasn't entirely confident would cover all edge cases, but it served as a starting point. As I presented my algorithm, Nils, who had been concurrently working on implementing other features, immediately identified a flaw with a counter-example. I wasn't discouraged; rather, I was impressed by his sharp thinking. Surprisingly, after a brief attempt to find an exact algorithm, Nils suggested a brute-force approach. It turned out to be an NP-hard problem, requiring approximations rather than a precise solution. We implemented it, and it worked well, although we didn't manage to complete all the required features. It's worth noting that we had only one computer for the entire team of five and could only access the Python documentation and regex resources online. Ironically, our regex implementation wasn't entirely correct due to a missed edge case—a testament to how reliant many of us have become on AI for such tasks (myself included). Thank God that we had Angelo and Nils in our team, who were the regex experts.

That evening, we enjoyed a pasta-making class at Miscusi, an amazing pasta restaurant in Milan. The lady who taught us had more than 30 years of experience making pasta! We learned to create various pasta shapes like girasoli, tortellini, and ravioli—a truly authentic and delicious experience.

Pasta making class

Saturday morning brought the second coding challenge, which involved building upon the application we had developed the previous day. This time, I had a more humbling experience. I conceived the implementation for several features, but as I hadn't written much of the initial code, my progress was slower. I also realized that my keyboard coding speed has decreased since relying more on mouse, keyboard shortcuts, and AI. This was a valuable reminder to hone those fundamental skills. Recognizing that others on my team could code faster, I decided to take on more of a project management role, guiding the coder with my ideas. While a bit frustrating, it was a good lesson in recognizing team strengths and optimizing collaboration, especially with limited resources (again, only one computer).

Saturday afternoon, following a fantastic pizza lunch, we participated in an exciting treasure hunt across Milan. It was a fun way to explore the city, solving riddles, finding specific items, and taking creative photos. Despite our best efforts and what we believed were the winning submissions, the judge (unfairly!) declared us not the winners :(.

To conclude the weekend, we had a memorable dinner with stunning views of the Duomo. Afterwards, I managed to convince a group to go clubbing. Unfortunately, our large group size prevented us from entering the first venue. We ended up at a bar, where we had a great time chatting and laughing.

Views from the dinner location

Final Thoughts

Bending Spoons stands out as a dynamic company filled with bright minds working on a diverse range of interesting products. I would highly recommend considering a career there or at least participating in one of their events. While I am incredibly fulfilled at Invopop, contributing to an amazing team, taking on significant responsibility, and building a fantastic product with ambitious goals, if I weren't in such a compelling startup environment, Bending Spoons would certainly be a top consideration.

For me, the First Ascent event lived up to its expectations as an opportunity to connect with remarkable and intelligent individuals. The activities, challenges, and overall organization were excellent, and I truly appreciate the effort Bending Spoons put into creating this experience. However, the most valuable aspect for me was the people I met and the conversations we shared. I particularly enjoyed engaging discussions with Nils, who is developing an innovative hardware product for CPU parallelization (keep an eye on his work!), Angelo, Mariia, Strahinja, and Kirill among others.

Ultimately, encountering such driven, intelligent, and ambitious individuals is always inspiring. It fosters a sense of humility and a desire for continuous learning and improvement. Meeting such people and learning from their perspectives is an invaluable experience.

Thanks Bending Spoons for the amazing experience and special thanks to the Spooners that put up with us the whole 3 days: Federica, Caterina, Lorenzo, Matteo, Ilaria, Andrea, Silvia, Chiara, and Andrea.

Treasure hunt challenge