Debugging with Brush Strokes: Ceramics, Cake, and Good Vibes

Our Fall Quarterly (feat. Homer, Pots, and a 10-Year Legend)

Developers can do more than code. On Friday, 10 October 2025, we swapped pull requests for paintbrushes, turned our Vienna office into a mini studio, and discovered that everyone secretly wanted to be a ceramic artist. Who knew?

First, the big anniversary. Our very first employee, Niki, hit 10 years at LEAN-CODERS. Ten. A full decade of shipping, mentoring, and surviving at least three framework hype cycles with grace. CEO Chris held the laudatio—many, many, many stories not to tell, including an absolutely vast photo archive of Niki from the last 10 years—cue the laughs. Then we celebrated properly: a Homer Simpson cake with the extremely on-brand message “congratulations, now get back to work,” a personalized skate deck (yes, it’s rideable; no, we’re not racing it in the hallway), a cash bonus, and extra holidays. If loyalty had a version number, Niki just unlocked the LTS release.

Then we called in the pros. The team from Potteria set up shop right in our office and taught us how to paint ceramic like we actually knew what we were doing.

The selection was massive. Tables full of mugs, bowls, plates, and statement pieces that whispered “I will be your new desk buddy.” About 20 of us circled the tables like shoppers on a launch day, each finding a canvas that felt just right. And the colors, so many colors. Plus techniques with names that sounded suspiciously like sprint rituals: gradients, speckles, masking, layering and the classic “looks dull now but trust the kiln.”

Highlights we’re still smiling about:

• The Splatter Queen (aka Aneta’s splatter mode): enthusiastic paint distribution across plate, table, and floor. Abstract expressionism meets office cleanup

• Poké-ceramics by Thomas: a confident Gengar and a cheeky Ditto cameo. Gotta glaze ’em all.

• The Jules Bowl Debate: is it a swimming pool of nudes or do we paint tiny bathing suits? Also, why is there a pink donut floating by? Art invites questions.

• Alex vs. Time: entered deep focus for four hours and still didn’t finish the mug. Perfectionism ships when it’s ready.

• Marc’s Identity-Crisis Mug: a beer glass painted on a coffee cup. Intended use TBD—breakfast of champions or a feature request no one saw coming.

• Matthias’s surf-skate training session: he brought his surf skateboard and casually dropped instructor-level moves between brush strokes. Balance, but make it DevOps.

What we took away (besides paint on our sleeves):

• Creativity scales. Give people a safe sandbox and they’ll experiment like pros. “Fail fast” is even better when the rollback smells like paint.

• Hands-on resets the brain. For folks who ship the intangible all day, making something you can hold is oddly profound.

• Celebrate the humans. Culture isn’t a slide deck; it’s cheering a decade of craft, a good laugh during a laudatio, and then handing over a skate deck, a bonus, and five extra holidays.

After the brushes were down and the pre-firing lineup was set, we all headed to the pub together—pints, laughs and spirited debates.

The grand reveal is now officially behind us: pieces fired, colors glowing, and smiles all around. Everyone is thrilled with how their ceramics turned out—and judging by the the proud looks on their faces a few teammates may have just found a new hobby.