Syncing Up in Bretten: Day 1

Today marks the first day of our working retreat in Bretten, Germany. Bretten is a beatiful town in the Baden-Württemberg region known for its beautifully preserved medieval architecture and half-timbered houses. Being a remote company has many advantages—one of the biggest being the ability to recruit talent from all over the world. But it also comes with challenges. It’s not as easy to get quick feedback when you have to send a message and wait for a response, compared to simply walking across the room for a quick chat.

One of the great things about WunderGraph’s culture is its emphasis on building strong connections. With so much of our time spent communicating, working, and collaborating through screens, it’s refreshing to take a break from the virtual world. We prioritize bringing team members together whenever possible, giving everyone the chance to step away from their home offices and connect in person. Sometimes that means a working retreat like this one, while other gatherings focus more on team-building and strengthening company culture.

After long flights, train rides, and road trips, most of the team made it to Bretten. Two team members traveled from India, four flew in from the United States, one from Spain, and another from the UK. Two drove across Germany, and one took the train from Italy. Once most of the team was checked in (the last few members arrived today), we kicked off the retreat with a fantastic dinner on Sunday night—giving everyone the chance to catch up, share stories, and enjoy each other’s company.

This retreat is also an important milestone for three of our new team members, who are meeting most of the team for the first time. We hope that next time, the two new teammates who couldn’t join us this round will be able to experience the in-person connection as well.

Even as a relatively young company, it’s easy for team members to become siloed in their work and lose sight of the bigger picture. To kick off the retreat, Nithin (one of our founding engineers) and Jens led an introduction and demo of some upcoming features. This gave team members not directly involved in those projects the chance to engage, ask questions, and get a broader understanding of what’s coming—something that’s much harder to achieve when we’re all working remotely across different time zones.

With teammates spread from GMT+7 to GMT-8, these kinds of real-time discussions rarely happen organically. The retreat provided a rare opportunity for in-person collaboration, making it easier to spark conversations, share insights, and align on the bigger picture—something virtual meetings often struggle to replicate.

This kind of interaction is especially valuable for team members who aren’t deeply involved in the technical side of things. WunderGraph is a highly technical company, and being part of these discussions provides insights into the software that they might not typically encounter, as their focus lies elsewhere. These conversations bridge the gap between technical and non-technical roles, as well as between front-end and back-end teams, fostering a stronger sense of shared ownership over the product.

Ultimately, our goal is to make sure developers can focus on what truly matters: business logic and delivering a great user experience. By taking the time to align and refine our approach, we ensure WunderGraph continues to provide the tools that make this possible.

This is the first in a series of updates from our working retreat. Our goal is to give you a peek behind the scenes—not just at the software, but who we are as a company.

Stay tuned for more updates as we continue our working retreat—there’s plenty more to come!