Melon’s Social Fridays

For Melon, 2018 was a year full of hard work and lots of get-togethers. Our business keeps growing and we’re constantly on the lookout for nice smart developers who make things happen. Now, we are 100 in Sofia, 40 in Skopje and 15 in Veliko Tarnovo. Our developers are experts in varied web and mobile platforms. And to foster better communication between the different teams and to help them get to know each other, we started throwing parties every last Friday of the month in our spacious and cozy local offices. 

It’s up to the regional offices how to party. In our HQ in Sofia, every meetup has a theme selected by the team nominated to organize it. From ice-cream and home-made burgers and treats to cocktails and coffee workshops, we had it all. In Skopje, our folks enjoyed the most the mojito and do-it-yourself crafts workshops. In Veliko Tarnovo, our small but very united team decided they don’t need a theme, just to get together and have fun talks over drinks and treats.

1. Let’s first test our idea! At the end of 2017, our Marketing team organized a Bulgarian wine degustation with cheese and meat platters, tantalizing our taste buds. It was fancy! And a success so we nominated the next team. 

2. Cold January got warmer with the cocktail pitchers prepared by one of our .NET teams. 

3. In February Damian, our DevOps business development guy and coffee enthusiast, made the whole office wake up with the smell of freshly ground coffee. We loved it so much, we ended up buying a new fancy coffee machine with build in grinder and other gadgets for our office. 

4. Oh, my beers, March! Our Mobile team made us awe at the sight of 100+ beers from different countries. 

5. Our good-hearted Python team threw a cooking challenge in April. Colleagues from different teams brought home-made sweets to the office. The money we gathered were donated to BCause Foundation.  

6. We welcomed summer early. In May our Quality Assurance team treated us with different flavors of gelato ice-cream.  

7. June was yummy. One of our .NET teams prepared delicious home-made burgers in the kitchen. We garnished them with beers. 

8. In July we took a break and spent it at the sea, because … why not ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

9. August was fun. We played BINGO over pizza and beers thanks to our Game Development team. 

10. In the back to school September, we got together with our DevOps team to help them configure some computers which we later donated to a local school. Of course, there were some beers involved. 

11. In November our office smelled of cinnamon and pumpkin. Our Share Point team engaged us in some pumpkin carving competition including indulging with lots of pumpkin cupcakes, pumpkin punch and pumpkin sweets. It was all about pumpkin! 

12. December – we decided to skip the Social Friday tradition and go out for our Xmas party. We had a blast at Sputnik bar in downtown Sofia.