Attila Olbrich.

Here I was, my first day in England, unsure what to expect. I arrived at 9:30, and after some paperwork, I was introduced to everyone. Surprisingly, it wasn’t raining—dry weather! A good start! I didn’t have to swim to work, and the trusty London bus did the trick. Little did I know then that buses in London are as reliable as a BMW: you never know if they’ll work the next day.

The company was a digital agency recently acquired by new owners. One of the owners was a kind lady, while the other was a man who seemed to have a black belt in talking. I soon learned I was the first new hire in their plans to replace the old staff. It was exciting but also a bit nerve-wracking.

The company handled a variety of projects, dabbling in PHP, JavaScript, WordPress, and a not-so-popular MVC framework called Kohana. This was a new one for me. Kohana was in its end-of-life phase, but since many inherited projects relied on it, we patched it together like an aging ship limping through stormy seas. It was quite the experience!

The Cultural Shock: Work and Pub Life

I wasn’t used to working in a team, having been a lone wolf in Hungary for most of my career. Here, teamwork was the norm. Meetings were frequent, ideas were exchanged, and everyone collaborated on tasks. At first, I wondered if this “team” would perform as well as the Hungarian football team (which is saying something). Thankfully, they were better!

The cultural difference extended beyond work into social life. I got invited to English pubs—a quintessential British experience. Unlike Hungarian pubs, where the primary goal is to drink until even yoga masters would struggle to replicate your “positions,” English pubs had a different vibe. People enjoyed getting tipsy, sharing laughs, and relaxing without planning feats of drunken acrobatics. It was a revelation!

Becoming a Team Player

This job was a crash course in teamwork. It wasn’t just about writing code; it was about collaborating, sharing responsibilities, and learning from others. I thought I was a senior developer, given my years of experience. But I realized that being senior wasn’t just about what you know—it was about how you work with others, how you share knowledge, and how you improve as part of a group.

Here, I was introduced to Agile methodologies and version management for the first time. As a sole developer in the past, I’d never needed such tools, which are designed for teamwork. It was a whole new world, and adapting to these practices helped me grow professionally. It felt like a mutual exchange—me learning from them, them learning from me. It was a professional growth spurt that I didn’t even know I needed.

The "Big Room" Surprise

While I was adapting to my new role, my wife joined me in the UK. This brought up a new challenge—housing. Our tiny room wasn’t ideal for two people, but when I mentioned it to the landlord, he smiled and pointed to a larger room across the hallway.

“Do you see that big room opposite your cabin?” he asked. “Yes, I do.” “The tenant is moving out today. It’s yours if you want it.”

And just like that, we moved our belongings into a spacious room that felt like a palace compared to our previous setup. Things were looking up.

A Short-Lived Experience

This job was short-lived, lasting only six months. But in that time, I learned a lot—especially about teamwork, Agile, and how to work in a foreign language environment for the first time. It was a valuable chapter in my career, and in the next chapter, I’ll share what happened after this company and where my journey took me next.