Onsite Week

The Whole Company in Sydney

There is a difference between the person you talk to on a call every day and the person sitting at the next desk and for a week, there wasn't. We crammed the entire company into one office, sharing monitors, lunch tables, coffee runs and way too many inside jokes. It was louder than usual and a lot more fun but you'd think squeezing everyone into one space would slow things down but if anything, collaboration happened faster because every question was just a few steps away instead of a Slack message and the only thing the week really proved is that we might be starting to outgrow the office.

‍

A Club Every Single Day

The best part of the week was that our LyraClubs ran the whole thing. Every morning and every evening, a different club took over, all led by the reps who keep them going year round.

‍

Monday opened with Board Games with Dimas then Table Tennis with Alfie once the laptops closed.

‍

Tuesday started early with Pilates and matcha run by Gia and finished with a Bouldering session with Alan.

‍

Wednesday was Desserts in the morning with Tiff, then Badminton in the evening with Alvin.

‍

Thursday kicked off with an 8:30am tennis hit led by William, then wrapped with Movie Club hosted by Aarnav with a rogue crew bailed on the movie for an escape room instead, which is exactly the kind of spontaneous detour we encourage.

‍

Friday morning was Cafe Club with Hari and we closed the week the right way with dinner at Meat and Wine Co, the whole company out together one last time before the Melbourne crew flew home.

‍

Saturday was a free day at the office for anyone who wanted it, which of course turned into a Bondi to Cogee walk.

The Team Behind the Team

While the engineers are often the face of Lyra, our Ops and Growth team are the ones working behind the scenes to make weeks like this possible. From coordinating travel and bookings to managing marketing, organising food, keeping the kitchen stocked, making sure the office is running smoothly, and handling the countless small details that nobody notices until they’re missing, they spend the year making sure everyone else has a great experience.

‍

So, somewhere in the middle of the week, they took a well deserved break for a dinner together. No Slack DMs, no schedules, no logistics to manage, just the team behind it all finally getting to enjoy the moment themselves.

‍

Worth Every Flight

You cannot build a culture entirely over video calls and weeks like this are how a company that lives in two cities stays one team. The Melbourne crew flew home a little more connected than they landed, the goodbyes were genuinely warm, and the only real complaint was that the Sydney team now has to wait their turn to get flown down south and don't worry we are already thinking about the next one.

That was EngFest 6 of 12. Halfway through the year and somehow only getting bigger.