LinkedIn Life: A look inside LinkedIn’s São Paulo office

Editor’s Note: LinkedIn’s culture sets us apart, defines who we are and shapes what we aspire to be. One way our culture really shines is in our 30 offices in 19 countries around the world. Our new LinkedIn Life blog series will give you a look inside these offices and introduce you to our number one operating priority, our talent, who are working to transform themselves, LinkedIn, and the world.

First stop São Paulo, Brazil.

Welcome to São Paulo, home to LinkedIn’s regional headquarters for our Latin American market. As the Facilities Site Supervisor for our Sao Paulo office, I am excited to give a look inside what’s unique about our team, culture and how we are working towards LinkedIn’s vision of creating economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce.

                                            Lobby in the São Paulo office

São Paulo is Brazil’s largest city and Latin America’s financial center. It’s located 222 miles southwest of Rio de Janeiro. You might know it as one of the sites where the 2016 Summer Olympics were recently held. Our first LinkedIn Brazil office opened in 2011 with just one employee. At the time, we had six million LinkedIn members in Brazil and our office was one small room with no windows in a rented office suite. In 2014, we moved into our current office. Today we have almost 170 people employees and 26 million members in Brazil and 63 million members in all of Latin America. As the only LinkedIn office in Latin America, multiculturalism is extremely important, and many of our employees are from countries across South and Central America.

Ana Maria Serrano, a Relationship Manager is a good example of this. “I love working for LinkedIn Brazil because the people are funny, friendly and hardworking. Here we can learn about other cultures. Even though I’m from Colombia, I feel at home here in Sao Paulo.”

Since a large majority of our São Paulo-based team are a part of our sales organization they constantly engage with customers both in Brazil and other countries. This means many of them speak Portuguese, Spanish and English to provide the best possible customer experience.

As Pedro Caldeira, a Sales Development Team Lead explains, "I enjoy working at LinkedIn because everything that we do is for our customers and members to deliver on our mission and make the best impact on society. We strive to live LinkedIn’s culture and values and help make our customers more successful every day.”

            Flags of all the Latin American countries hang in the São Paulo office

As in most Latin American offices, lunch is a very important time in the São Paulo office. One of our key values at LinkedIn is Relationships Matter and we see lunchtime as a way for our employees to build those personal relationships with their colleagues. Immediately after eating, we all go brush our teeth, a routine post-lunch activity here in Brazil.

Here’s why Michelle Schneider, Head of Financial Services, Healthcare and Education loves the culture at LinkedIn. "I believe that what makes our culture so special is our team. Most of LinkedIn’s employees are intelligent, kind, collaborative and genuinely good human beings.”

                            São Paulo employees enjoying their lunch together

                                    All employees brush their teeth after lunch

And it comes as no surprise that here in Brazil we are all very passionate about sports, especially with the Summer Olympics having just taken place. To make sure we didn’t miss any big moments, all of the Olympic events were streamed on a big screen in our cafe where everyone could watch the games together in the office.

                                    Employees getting in a game of ping pong

                              2016 Rio Summer Olympics celebrations in the office

LinkedIn’s publishing platform also launched last year in Portuguese with Senior Editor Rodrigo Brancatelli leading the efforts from the São Paulo office. Before, during and after the Rio Olympics many Brazilian athletes, who are also LinkedIn Influencers, utilized our publishing platform to talk about their experience in the Olympics and what they have learned from their experiences as a professional athlete. Some of these athletes include Ricardo Kaká (soccer), Marta Vieira da Silva (soccer), Daniel Dias (swimming) and Maureen Higa Maggi (track and field).

Here at LinkedIn, we believe creating the best office environment keeps our employees more productive, happy and successful. To learn more about our offices around the world, check out our LinkedIn Brasil Careers Page and our new LinkedIn Careers site.