At Qatium, our collaborative culture enables our fully remote team to achieve stellar results for our community and its users — our impressive product roadmap alone shows the incredible results we achieve through collaboration. Qatium’s product team brings our vision to life by using a mix of techniques to promote crystal-clear communication and keep workflows running smoothly.
So, what does a typical day in the life of Qatium’s product team really look like? Here’s an unfiltered, behind-the-scenes look at #LifeAtQatium with two of our product team members.
We thrive on innovative and adaptable team distribution – and choosing our own adventures
Blending Agile project management styles with other techniques isn’t just a strategy; it’s a pillar of the product team’s philosophy. Product Designer Nora González Dwyer says “As a team, we’re distributed across different product areas, ensuring that every aspect of the product is continuously managed. We maintain high product quality by assigning stable teams to each area, allowing them to build deep expertise.”
We’re also mindful of the pitfalls of working in silos. As Nora put it, “We mix things up by rotating team members between areas every few months. It helps keep our knowledge and expertise fresh and prevent siloes from forming.”
Some team members even have cross-functional, transversal roles, and the team as a whole is constantly seeking out synergies and dependencies across different areas. Nora said, “We let team members decide for themselves where they can provide the most value. This level of autonomy is a big part of our successful approach to working together.”
Powering progress and flexibility with Extreme Programming (XP)
Qatium has several stakeholders who help define the vision. While high-level prioritization is handled by management, the teams still own their plans. Therefore, an agreement on specific priorities will be reached. While high-level prioritization is handled by management, the teams focus on short-term tasks that matter most. “It’s all about teamwork,” Nora said. “We know what ripe fruit is, and we come together to decide what’s ready to be tackled.”
Extreme Programming (XP) — a methodology aimed at developing high-quality software via continuous feedback, collaboration, and adaptation — plays a major role in the day-to-day life of the product team. The team has regular sync sessions for everything from product conception and prioritization to cocreating to find solutions to problems.
Sync sessions foster smooth communication and prevent information overload
The team relies on a range of Slack channels to stay transparent, sharing all discussions and decisions. Plus, sync sessions always produce notes and conclusions that are shared openly with the team as a whole.
“We’re confronted with huge amounts of information when first joining Qatium” Nora admitted. “There’s a lot of info to process, but that’s just a part of the tradeoff of being an open organization.” New team members quickly get the hang of filtering through what’s important to the product roadmap.
Communication at Qatium is all about balancing directness with kindness. “As the company grows, it’s crucial to get this balance right,” Nora added. “We strive to strike a balance between being clear, assertive, and considerate in our interactions.”
Pair work improves product quality and the speed of delivery
Even though Qatium operates remotely, pair programming is a big part of the team’s every day. Javier Carrasco, Software Engineer at Qatium, explained how he spends about 80% of his day pairing and working with a colleague.
Drivers, navigators, and collaboration
Mornings, from about 8am – 9am, are reserved for simpler tasks like maintenance, answering emails, and participating in study groups. By 9am, Javier and his partner join Zoom for their pair programming session. “One of us takes on the role of the driver — coding and sharing their screen — while the other acts as the navigator, reviewing every line of code alongside the driver,” Javier explains.
Every code decision is a team effort. As Javier explains, “No one can push through ‘great’ ideas without the pair’s approval.” This collaborative approach means all code is reviewed line-by-line, enabling them to catch bugs and quality issues early.
The goal is to reach “committable” code as quickly as possible, where the pair will then switch roles. Each task or user story often requires multiple commits. Javier adds, “We also pair on other tasks like discussing with stakeholders, making infrastructure changes, or adding monitorization and observability unless the tasks are too trivial.”
Pair programming improves product quality, speed, and onboarding processes
Javier explains that pair programming prevents distractions and ensures every line of code is reviewed. “All code decisions are better made together,” he says. “No one implements ideas without the pair’s agreement.”
This approach also removes the need for pull requests. With high-quality code, continuous delivery becomes achievable, leading to more frequent releases and a smoother onboarding experience for new engineers. Javier concludes, “Onboarding while pairing makes it easy for new team members to get up to speed and contribute from day one.”
How the product team lives Qatium’s mission
After years of agency work, Nora wanted a job with a meaningful purpose. “I was drawn to Qatium’s mission of supporting small municipalities,” Nora said. She mentioned that her personal priority of reducing the human footprint aligns completely with Qatium’s mission to make smart water management more accessible.
Javier acknowledges that Improving water networks is crucial for conserving our finite water resources. He explained, “Qatium can be used for free, and is accessible to towns of all sizes — even the smaller ones that otherwise wouldn’t proactively manage their water networks.” He believes that this offers significant opportunities for widespread eco-improvement.
Javier added, “I truly think Qatium is great for both the planet and people. Working on something that aligns with my ideals really helps me sleep at night.”
Join our mission, join Qatium
If something in the blog has piqued your interest, please check out the latest opportunities to join the Qatium team here.
