Still early days in Warsaw, but the culture is the real deal
Pros
Great people – the quality of the engineers is very high, comparable to what I’ve seen at companies like Google, but people here seem a bit kinder and more grounded (I haven’t met any “brilliant assholes”). The culture really does feel like what’s advertised – people put effort into being kind and supportive. I’ve been here a little over three months, so still in the honeymoon phase, but so far it’s been genuinely positive. The Warsaw office is nice and well-located, and the work-life balance seems to be respected. There are occasional meetings with US teams, but folks there are mindful of time zones and often take early calls themselves. Asana is heavily dogfooded – you live in the product all day, and it works well. I hardly use Slack or email; it’s mostly tasks. There’s a lot of feedback flowing from internal users to the product team, and you get early access to all the new AI features, which are genuinely useful. The culture feels very non-hierarchical – no one pulls rank in meetings, and everyone’s voice seems seems to be heard. There's also a lot of learning opportunities, and the onboarding experience is surprisingly good – not just the usual corporate stuff, but real, thoughtful content (there’s even a session on how to write better). There’s also a really interesting mix of people in the Warsaw office – lots of folks with niche hobbies, and lunch conversations are often unexpectedly fascinating. Once a week, we have an office all-hands, and as part of someone gives a short presentation on any topic they want. So far, I’ve seen talks on security, training cats to do tricks, robotics, computational complexity, and even time machines. It makes the place feel curious and alive.
Cons
Some growing pains in the Warsaw office, which is still relatively new. The experience can vary a lot depending on the team – some have a clear roadmap and well-defined roles for folks in Poland, while others seem to be figuring things out as they go, with shifting priorities and plans. These issues are acknowledged by leadership, which is good, but that doesn’t always make the day-to-day uncertainty easier. There have also been some recent shifts in the US org (including a small round of layoffs), which understandably affected morale there to some degree. That said, it hasn’t had a major impact on the Warsaw office so far.
