Igalia - Free Software Engineering

I don't often talk about job here. Perhaps it's because, for one reason or another, I don't like to mix work with personal life, although I think that's not exactly the reason, as I have talked about job occasionally in the past: "Programa de becas ICEX" (in Spanish).

After coming back from HK, I joined a software company near my hometown called Igalia. Igalia is a software company specialized on free software, which implies that almost everything it does is free software and on the other hand, the tools we use happen to be free software as well.

Apart from the techlogical side, which was what attracted me the most when I came in, Igalia has its own philosophy as a company. It will take me long to explain the nitty-gritty details on how the company is structured and run, so I think I will leave that for my co-worker Tanty: "Igalia is yours".

B&W poster at the new office with some Igalia members, too many to name them all here :)

In a nutshell, the way Igalia works gives way to every member of growing in a career while strengthening values of self-responsibility and commitment. Following its own philosophy, Igalia shows high degree of commitment on other values such as balancing personal life with work, languages, continuous formation, etc...which translates on benefits such as teleworking (working from home), fully paid English courses abroad, technical speeches within the office, conferences, or a personal budget for training, among other things.

Last Tuesday Igalia reached a milestone. After more than 8 years of existence, a new main office in Coruña was unveiled, joining together the two offices in Coruña in one single place. To celebrate it, relatives, old friends and customers, were invited to join us. I had a very good time meeting again friends I hadn't seen for years, it was good to catch-up with all them again.

Me, Moncho & Paulo (LtR)

And the new office looks very flashy and cool. Check some pictures on flickr: Igalia's new office. Let's see they put us in the next list of cool offices from IT companies in Spain, that will be awesome :)