A few months ago, when I decided to join Nubank at the Berlin office, I went through a mixed bag of uncertainty, anxiety and being stoked. Einstein once said that “the measure of intelligence is the ability to change”, and yet a lot of us find it difficult to embrace change because there’s always more to it than meets the eye. Any change comes with its own challenges—especially when it involves changing jobs and changing locations.

My goal with this blogpost is to share the factors that persuaded me to join Nubank and relocate to Berlin. Let’s dive right into it:

Culture @Nubank

“There is nothing more important than culture. Culture allows you to hire people, people build products, and products attract consumers. Consumers don’t come to you for your products, they come to you because of the culture..” – David Velez – CEO & Founder of Nubank

At present times, it’s not new for companies to set goals to create a diverse and inclusive workforce. At Nubank, we have proudly formed task forces that are led by organization’s leaders to accomplish D&I goals. One of the best things about the Berlin office is the diverse group of people that work there. 

With them, I’ve learned to appreciate differences in opinion and to have a huge hearted acceptance of challenging the ‘status quo’. In addition to their complementary thinking, the team is also persevering when it comes to solving problems.

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Product & Platforms

One important thing to know is that we are very different from the traditional banks in a sense that we are a technology company that is turbocharged by principles such as customer centricity, challenging the status-quo and taking 100% ownership of what we do. And we serve our customers by providing them with financial products and services that essentially enable them to have a better control of their future.

To build products that our customers love fanatically, there are roles such as Developers, Product Managers, Designers, Business Architects, Marketing, Branding and so many more who relentlessly work together to solve pain points of our customers.

Data infrastructure

“In god we trust, all others must bring data” – W. Edwards Deming

Nubank opened its European headquarters in the Mitte district, at the center of Berlin, in late 2017. Since data is the backbone of all the decisions that we take while building products, our teams require access to datasets easily and quickly. Nubank’s Tech hub in Berlin has started as a home to Nubank’s data infrastructure and platform teams, is now expanded to various other functions such as:

  • Crypto: At the moment we offer our customers ways to buy, hold, and sell Bitcoin and Ethereum and we already have 700k+ active users at the moment. 
  • Global Acceleration: The team is focused on efforts to leverage the platformization approach which would enable faster roll out of our products to new countries. 

My challenge: Platformization

I am currently working on a topic that is extremely close to my heart i.e. Platformization, where we are also crafting a mindset to deliver our products to our customers faster and easier than ever. We are building platforms with a 25X thinking and from a long-term reusability standpoint.

Berlin Environment

I read somewhere that the “world’s best and most delicious pie won’t make people happy if delivered cold”. For me, Berlin provided an environment that kept everything warm and nice. Let me tell you some things about this fantastic city:

A multicultural city

Berlin’s population is comprised from more than 190 countries: a true epitome of what a multicultural city should look like. Berlin has an eclectic mix of museums with flourishing art exhibitions and a burgeoning tech landscape. I can easily say that Berlin is one of the most diverse cities that I have lived in. And almost everyone speaks English here, so there isn’t a language barrier.

Living Costs 

The costs depend a lot on your ‘way of living’. Even though the rentals have increased in the last few years, the good news is that the prices are still low compared to other cities in the western Europe. I used the Numbeo app for my personal research and found Berlin to grant a better bang for one’s buck, but make sure that you do your own research to understand your costs.

Food 

Being one of the world’s most cosmopolitan cities, Berlin has an abundance of a variety of food. From a plethora of cuisines for meat lovers to being known as the vegan capital of the world, the city has food for everyone. 

So finally, putting it all together…

  • If you are the kind of person who likes challenging the status quo then Nubank is the place you should be at.
  • If you are the kind of person who likes to take ownership and be in charge of the goals then Nubank is the place you should be at.
  • And, if you are the kind of person who wants to bring technology and people together to build products, which will positively impact the lives of millions of our customers, then Nubank is the place you should be at.

Because, at Nubank, everyday is a new challenge – everyday is a Nu day!

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