In just a few days, we are going into a new, glorious year, with technology more and more part of our lives. Japanese robots building robots on the Moon, self-driving cars, OLED displays as thin as a piece of paper, high-speed railroads from London to Beijing – who knows what other breakthroughs we’d be witnesses to?
Until all these “new wonders of the world” will unveil to us, what should we do?
Before throwing into any challenge or new venture in 2020 – we think it’s important to give yourself time and feel the happiness & warmth these winter holidays offer you while making room for your thoughts and intentions for the next year.
It’s about taking a break to remind ourselves why we’re here, what inspires us and gives us joy at the end of the day. Also, it’s time once again to thank our eJumpers, clients, and partners for all the efforts, energy, trust and talent we put together this 2019.
2019 in BIG numbers: eJump’s Year in Review – projects and partnerships, people and parties & co.
Besides eating traditional food, drinking (too much) mulled wine, partying and skiing, and wrapping Christmas gifts – we should really wrap this year and notice just how many important, challenging and beautiful things we accomplished, witnessed and embarked on this last year of the 2010s decade.
It is worth recognizing some other accomplishments as well, such as the fact we’ve worked for a few major companies that merged this year, and we remained their web design and IT development provider in the new formula. Which is big!
15+ Birthdays and 12+ Work anniversaries celebrated at the office
This means a lot of pizza, sushi, cookies, and sweets at the eJump office! But, most of all, this number means that we are fond of celebrating our successes, our life milestones and also each one of our quirky, reliable, fun and unique team members together, every time we get the chance to.
Being able to take a pause and simply talk and laugh it’s equally important as working together for a greater purpose, bound by common values, enthusiasm, and motivation.
4 new families in our big eJump family!
2019 was a year of celebration of new, beautiful stages of our personal journeys. Besides laying the cornerstones of our design & development company, part of our crew members celebrated love, trust and happiness in their personal life and got married (George even has a baby girl!). So, cheers to a year of love and growing families!
7+ LogOuts & Team buildings
We started off the year pretty good, getting our wine tasting face on at our first LogOut for 2019 @ Mesange Fromagerie. That time again we gathered both current and ex-eJumpers because this team is actually bigger than one might think! At this cozy and exquisite place, most of us got the chance to try cheese assortments we’ve never heard before and pair them with different types of wines.
Throughout the year, we also had fun at football, bowling and ping pong games since we tried to make everyone happy and choose various activities that they liked or wanted to try for the first time.
And we closed this year’s LogOut series with something bold and adventurous, that we never tried before – going to an adrenaline-packed shooting training @ Calibru9.
As for the team buildings… we had our fair share of fun, adventures and team activities to remember at our classic retreat in Râșnov, but also Bușteni. From first-time archery lessons, tennis & football matches at the top of the mountains, to campfires and barbeques at night, under the starry sky of each season, hiking on snowy trails to see heaven on earth, but also real bear and fox tracks – our team-buildings remind us of the meaningful role each one of us has in growing our strong team at this epic level and sharing happy memories like these ones.
9+ fresh allies welcomed on board!
We celebrated together the changing of the seasons during our team buildings in the mountains. Because we grow and we learn new things and valuable lessons, colliding with each other in beautiful ways, we also support one another even when it’s time to say goodbye to a colleague or enthusiastically welcome a new eJumper on board right from day one.
This year, we had to send our thanks and best wishes to some of our quirky and unforgettable colleagues – Alexandru, Marcel, Alin, Tibi – who were part of this crew for quite some time. They continued their journeys in different galaxies while making space for new fresh members to start their own and be a meaningful part of what each of us has built at eJump – our project manager Raluca, our coders Andrei S. and Andrei P, Ioana and Tudor, Roland and our tester Mihai (and possibly by the end of the year, more to come!)
15+ web & mobile design & development projects for international clients
2019 was a good year to restart & rebrand some old websites and craft other ones into the digital space, in order to adapt to new technologies and design trends for the new decade. For example, we’ve rebranded the Litera.ro e-commerce website (one of the biggest online bookstores in Romania), we developed some awesome mobile apps for Faurecia (a major global player in the automotive industry), new modules for Videvo (a major online source for thousands of free stock videos, motion graphics, music tracks, etc.) – a project we’ve been working on since 2013.
At the same time, design and coding stages are always important for any website, e-commerce or mobile app, but what about testing and maintenance? They are critical after a project goes live because that’s where the „fun” starts! – for the dev and also the client team.
So this year, we continued our work on the ClubWow platform, which has been expanding from year to year! Our coders have been making sure the live streaming, video on demand & on-site printing platform worked perfectly especially during the Dance World competition events in different countries.
You can see here some impressions from our web development team in charge of the Club Wow project.
We also continued the ongoing front-end development work on the international bunker management app Shiptech. This complex platform offers real-time data and guidance on bunker procurement from start to finish for international clients in the maritime world.
We also designed and developed this fine selection, that can help people actually see what we do 😊:
- LATZIO, a forward-thinking European lifestyle brand that curates hand-picked interiors and products from amazing designers – which you can inspire from and buy on an intuitive shop platform.
- Davino – a beautiful presentation website that showcase Romanian wine brands through fine storytelling
- ACA – the Academic Cooperation Association website that promotes innovation and internationalization of European higher education.
- autonom.ro – a simple and intuitive presentation website for a renowned company that offers car rental services (and not only) at the highest level, in Romania.
- Seven Media – a beautiful and straightforward presentation website for a creative Public Relations agency based in Bucharest.
- Surecam – a neat and clean website that connects people with real-time video solutions, such as dash cameras combined with telematics that enable drivers and fleets to run safer, smarter and more profitably.
33 different web design and dev stories on 99designs
Okay, this year had a lot of work for our design and development crew. Drawing the Christmas line for 2019, it seems we’ve already completed 33 projects and design contests held by clients on 99designs. They came from all domains and industries around the world, such as software, investment, sports, retail industry and many more. Wow, that’s a lot even for us, haha!
These stories emerging on 99designs are basically little adventures and challenges design-wise especially. We meet all kinds of curious and innovative people that appreciate creativity and hard work on a common goal: their projects coming to digital life.
They are short-term endeavors, but valuable milestones in our journey of growth as professionals, learning how critical communication is. Learning how to better communicate with one another, especially with difficult clients or when things change unexpectedly, is of essence in any business.
This year we learned more about the ups and downs of communication and became more flexible towards change, no matter if it’s good or bad. Focusing on solutions is the best mindset for success, isn’t it?
1 x Gândăcel Rewards 2.0
Our super-jiu-jitsu-coding-girl Diana has finished the legacy for our gamification platform we’d been developing for some time. Now Gândăcel Card Rewards is up and running – with thousands of cards, messages and milestones sent and achieved already by our crew. This internal gamification system helps us promote our culture and keep our motivation and performance high, by supporting, having fun and helping each other with web projects, challenges or tasks we may have.
7 Interns that fully committed to work and fun together!
During these past ten years of experience in business and also recruitment for our growing and energetic team, we noticed that new generations need more. More attention to their needs, more challenging work, more connection to like-minded people, more new things and also more balance.
So our team actually invested a lot in providing a smooth onboarding for new eJumpers and student interns, every year. Just like we thought during the beginning, it’s important to help people work as they dreamt of and start their journey with the right tools and mindset. At least we try, of course, aiming to help IT talent grow in a thriving environment.
It’s a cool stage of a young designer or developer (and any other student), to be able to actually put into practice what you learn, while understanding your goals better with experience. Romania needs more talent and we need to be able to do what we love and become better at it, in a healthy environment. Plus, the top recruiting criteria in the IT industry still are previous work experience and internship experience.
In 2019, we had seven interns on board, which proved to be an awesome opportunity to meet new curious and super-smart people. They were all unique – as you can read here about our interns’ experiences and outcomes. We couldn’t be more grateful and happy to meet them.
One of the students, Ioana, has chosen to stay with us a little longer, as an official team member. She works as a coder on a complex project already (the Shiptech app). So glad, Ioana, many thanks from all your colleagues!
So the Internship Experience at eJump is always open to new interns. Our crew will take care of anyone and help accommodate them in no time, while lending a hand for you to discover the work, but also the fun of being in a great team and in this profession, after all.
1 Pro Bono project – upgrader.biz
This year we also decided to take over the design and implementation work for a new pro bono project, upgrader.biz – this is a platform aiming to strengthen and help the growing community of passionate and creative entrepreneurs in Romania.
By attending their events and being part of various initiatives, we discovered what authentic networking means and how important it is to surround ourselves with like-minded professionals in the business development area. When we heard that this project was taken over by Autonom, one of our oldest clients, which also happens to be the leader on the car rental & mobility services market in the country, we knew it was a sign of high-quality work and innovation on the long run.
1 new Project Manager
The growth of our team and the volume of our digital projects at a higher scale meant that we needed more help. That is why we can now breathe more easily knowing that Raluca has become our ambitious and organized project manager. She helps us big time, especially with keeping the honest and frequent communication with our clients and making sure everyone is in sync!
1 well-deserved air purifier in the office
We took an air purifier for eJump HQ, as a welcoming gift for the team that took another successful gratitude challenge this year – by using our own custom gamification platform, Gândăcel Rewards, each member got to send and receive personalized messages and accomplishment cards. The result exceeded the goal, reaching 192%. This means almost 2000 thank you messages!
4+ Internal best practice & Knowledge pages – aka our own wiki!
In order to simplify work properly keep all things that happen in a company, especially when it comes to technologies used, communication templates and workflows – and not only -, the best thing you can do is to keep a “record” that everyone can access when they need. It’s also a smart way of keeping things more professional and high-quality. This is extremely helpful for new members on board, who will go through the accommodation process in order to learn about your company culture, workflow and best practices.
That is why we’ve developed (and constantly updated) essential internal knowledge pages that guide our work processes and practices (communication, design, coding, project management). It was hard and time-consuming, but totally worth it!
1 x partnership with an important pentesting company for clients
Because we care about the projects that we deliver and also about the clients who reach out with various complex projects or apps to be launched in the digital space, we thought it’s extremely important to assess the security vulnerabilities and make sure everything we work together is well protected.
That is why we partnered with a pentesting company in case any client is willing to secure their projects and make sure they take no risk with their businesses. After all, it’s a big financial but also emotional investment involved in everything we do.
5+ successful long-distance collaborations
Even though we think it’s a bit difficult to keep a strong and thriving work collaboration remotely, it seems that it somehow works! Of course, we have five collaborators in the long run due to the fact that they are people who were part of the eJump crew for a while, but life happened and mutually decided to try this remote work relationship.
So, many thanks to our coders Emil, Sorin, and Alexandru, but also to our designer George and our content writer, Andreea. Waiting to see what other amazing challenges await us in 2020!
40+ coaching & personal development sessions
We continued with our weekly one-on-one (and sometimes team) coaching sessions led by Simona, the psychologist who support the personal and professional development journey of the eJumpers.
Mental health and wellbeing are incredibly important in order to remind ourselves about strengths and what matters the most, but also what gives us joy, motivation, and inspiration to continue on our chosen path. It’s not always easy, so these sessions help us get back on track or simply explore more of our potential.
And we completed over 22,276 hours of work in 2019! It’s a wrap!
That’s it. Done. Mission accomplished.
Or, at least this year in review wrap-up.
Even though there are plenty of other things we can mention here, we’ll just go have some relaxing time and be grateful for all we’ve accomplished and learned so far.
Our team thanks you and wishes you the warmest winter holidays and a Happy New Year! Let’s hear again next year, with plenty of stories and experiences to share and be happy with!
Also, check this funny game-like video we made for Year in Review last year. Bringing 90s back!
