We are the Thomann Web Team. Everything we do, all our projects and even little tasks, everything is aiming at fulfilling our mission "to create the most inspiring shopping experience for musicians". The roles in our team cover the complete life cycle of our features and leave little to be desired for anyone who wants to work in modern web development. What are the features for, you may ask? The Web Team designs and develops thomann.de and the Thomann App.
Who we are and where we are
Our team members are spread across Germany in various offices or work remotely. You can find team members in Treppendorf, Berlin, Erlangen, Aschaffenburg and Iserlohn, but also Leipzig, Munich and Hamburg. We regularly meet in the real world at team events but under the premise "one remote, all remote", our daily business happens digitally. We have our meetings on Slack and Google Meet and work together via Github, Jira, Zeplin or mural to improve the customer experience everyday (yes, we release regularly!). We don’t only feel connected by our cool hoodies and Slack, but also by the fact that we can identify with our company mission. Many team members are customers themselves and know our online shop and the customer journey inside out. Other team members have nothing to do with instruments or event technology, but are professionals who enjoy working in such a passionate environment.
What we do
We work on features for the webshop and app every day. This ranges from small bug fixes (yes, no one is infallible) to improvements to existing elements (like our product detail page), to completely new features (such as the option for affiliate partners to create their own landing page). And of course, there could always be a job to fine-tune our essentials – our cookie granny doesn't manage the biscuits all by herself.
What roles there are
Our team, now more than 30 people, is currently divided into 4 Dev Teams and a Design Team. They actively work on designing and implementing features. In addition, there are Meta Teams, which are made up of the various departments. Their responsibilities include the prioritization of the backlog or the preparation of our monthly team meeting (there are badges for special achievements!). Our teams “knusprig“ (“crispy”), “Difixiano“, “APPic“, “International Ticket Bangers” und “Haubitze Trallalla” (too hard to translate) – yes, we love to be creative with our team names – are always made up of experts on the subject, a project manager and a coach. The teams sometimes work the Kanban way, sometimes the Scrum way, sometimes it’s a mix, sometimes completely different. Each team has the freedom to decide what is best for their workflow and current tasks.
In Addition to the Web Team, there are several roles with supporting functions. These include the Recruitment Team (we love new blood in the team) and the Management (someone has to organize everything). But there are also more unusual roles, such as our Feedback Hub Manager, who receives relevant customer feedback as well as all ideas from colleagues and adds to the future backlog of our Project Management Team. Brand new to this, we also have a BI role in the team to link the implementing teams and our data warehouse. This improves the way we can find out how features are perceived by customers.
2021 will be responsive
Our biggest challenge – since we have been working together as such a big team – is still ahead of us and YOU can help tackle it: We are finally going to complete the separation of our mobile web shop and desktop web shop and are working on a responsive version of thomann.de. Remaining web views on our app are also going down and the app is switching bit by bit to a fresh React Native version to make everything a bit cooler and cozier. When we achieved this, we will certainly celebrate it with a DevCamp. Hopefully we’ll be all together (vaccinated) for several days and on site, not via Discord. DevCamps can look like this: We'll all get together, e.g. in a loft in Hamburg, and work on projects for a few days. Projects that make our lives easier or that simply fall by the wayside in daily business. We mix up all the teams, have workshops and presentations by team members, but also by external professionals. Plus, there will be delicious food, drinks and team building activities. If you want to experience this with us, just remember the phrase "Jöran is the imposter." when playing Among Us.
What it’s like in our team
Micha (Fullstack Web Developer)
My best Web Team moment
For me, the best moments in the Web Team happened during our DevCamps. I've attended two so far, on site in 2019 and online in 2020. Even if I preferred the real-life event, I thought it was very cool that we hosted a super interesting and fun event last year in the midst of a pandemic with home office and lockdown. What makes the Web Team unique? Flat hierarchies and great freedom with designing and implementing tasks are particularly noteworthy, in my opinion. The very friendly way of working together also creates a real team spirit across different divisions and locations. Work related problem or issues between colleagues are taken seriously and are worked on to be solved. What might the team still be missing? Actually, I can't really think of anything, except maybe a few more women in the Development Team.
Sarah (Tester)
My best Web Team moment
When I went to DevCamp even though I’m not a “Dev“ and played Among Us with the whole team – even with the "boss".
What makes the Web Team unique? The way we treat each other. Even as a working student, I am seen as a full-fledged colleague and am held accountable. At the same time, there is always time and a friendly ear so that I feel like I can ask even my silliest questions. What might the team still be missing? Diversity
And what would our band look like?
If the Web Team was to form a band, we would write Dev bangers like "It's all in the confluence", "Can someone review the PR", "Agile is just placebo," and "Who overwrote the package.lock again?" Our genre would certainly be PHP-based melodic marching band funk death metal with a few electronic influences and a pop punk singer. We can all play nose flute and trump, but Jens and Johannes can argue about who plays the bass guitar. The band name doesn't matter as long as Julia designs the logo for it.
