SRE Offsite 2026
Today I am coming back home, actually writing these words from the train, after a few days in Valencia for our SRE team offsite. It was one of those trips that starts with a bit of pain, because the train hours are long, both going there and coming back. But in the end it was totally worth it.
Working remotely is great, but it also means that many people are just a small avatar in a chat window most of the time, or small windows where we talk to each other during meetings. Meeting them in real life changes that. You put faces, voices and small stories to the names you see every day. It makes the team feel much closer.
In some way, it also brought back some nostalgia from those sprints we used to do in Naxos years ago. Different time, different people, but a similar feeling of being together, sharing time and building something as a team.
We had workshops, talks, walks, bike rides and many small moments in between. Just time together. And sometimes that is exactly what is needed. You learn things, of course, but you also share laughs, food, conversations and the kind of moments that are hard to get in a normal working day.
The BBQ deserves a special mention. It was not only about the food, even if the food was great. It was about seeing people from different countries bringing different things to the same table. Different tastes, different habits, different ways of doing things, all together in the same place. It was a very nice picture of the cultural mix we have in the team.
The office also surprised me a lot. All its different spaces, corners and little areas felt amazing. It is the kind of place where you can work, talk, rest for a moment or just walk around and keep discovering new details.
After these days I am coming back tired, but also very happy. The trip was hard, yes, but the experience was much bigger than the effort. I feel more connected to the people, to the team and to this big SRE family we are building inside the company.
It is one of those experiences that will be hard to forget. Hopefully we can repeat it again, and hopefully not too far in the future.
