Our Autumn Quarterly: What do Homer Simpson, a 10-year anniversary, and Pokémon have in common?
Developers can do more than just code. The team at LEAN-CODERS proves this time and again. On Friday, October 10, 2025, we swapped Pull Requests for paintbrushes, transformed our Vienna office into a mini-studio – and discovered that apparently everyone secretly wanted to be a ceramic artist. Who would have thought?
First, the big anniversary: Niki – our very first employee – is celebrating ten years at LEAN-CODERS. Ten years. A full decade of shipping, debugging, and stoically surviving at least three framework hype cycles. CEO Chris gave the speech – many, many, many stories that are better left untold, including a small but fine photo archive from the last ten years that brought plenty of laughs. Then the celebration kicked off: a Homer Simpson cake with the ironically meant inscription "Happy Anniversary - now go back to work!", a personalized skate deck (yes, it’s rideable; no, we’re not riding it down the hallway), a bonus, and extra vacation days. If loyalty had a version number – Niki just unlocked the LTS release.
Then came the real professionals. The Potteria team set up in our office and taught us how to paint ceramics in such a way that it at least looked like we knew what we were doing.
Mugs, bowls, plates, vases: the selection filled several tables, and the crowd was accordingly large. About 20 people crowded around, each searching for the right piece. Many didn’t stop at one: once you started, you just wanted to keep going (some even the next day). In the end, almost everyone had two or three pieces in front of them – gradients, splatters, masking, layering, and of course the classic: "Looks boring now, but the glaze will fix it."
Our Highlights:
- The Splatter Queen (alias Aneta in splatter mode): Enthusiastic color distribution on plates, tables, and floors. Abstract expressionism meets office cleaning.
- Poké-Ceramics by Thomas: A confident Gengar and a cheeky Ditto. Gotta Glaze 'em all.
- The Jules Bowl Debate: Is that a swimming pool full of naked people, or is he painting little swimsuits? And why is a pink donut floating by? Art raises questions.
- Alex against the clock: Four hours focused on a mug – and it wasn’t quite finished when submitted. Some things just take time.
- Marc's identity crisis mug: A beer glass painted on a coffee cup. Purpose still open – breakfast for champions or a feature request no one saw coming?
- Matthias' surf-skate session: He brought his surfboard skateboard and casually pulled off instructor-level moves between two brush strokes.
Our Takeaways (besides the paint stains):
- Those who build software all day that you can’t touch sometimes forget what it feels like to hold something at the end. A mug, a plate – no matter how crooked it turned out.
- Niki's anniversary reminded us that team cohesion consists of real moments: a good speech, a laugh, a skate deck, and shared time.
- And apparently, there’s a secret ceramic painter in more than one of us.
After we put down the brushes, we headed to the pub together – beer, good food, lively conversations. The painted pieces came back fired a few weeks later, and the joy over our own masterpieces was immense. One or two may have discovered a new hobby through our quarterly.
