🇧🇷 “Beach, Beer & Barbecue” meets “Beer & Autobahn” – what we can learn from each other 🇩🇪
Our colleague Tales knows both worlds: He grew up in Brazil, worked with German technology at an early age – and now lives between two cultures. 🌍
His professional journey began in 1997 at Brazil’s largest aluminum producer, where he worked with German equipment and many German engineers for six years. He was particularly impressed by the precise and goal-oriented way of working – typically German. This aroused his ambition: Tales decided to study mechanical engineering – in Blumenau in southern Brazil, a region with German roots where many exchange students from Germany were also studying.
He moved to Germany himself in 2013. There he completed a one-year internship at Bosch. Back in Brazil, he completed his Master’s degree – and continued working at the same time. In 2018, he finally applied to Innospection and came on board after a successful interview. Today, Tales is part of InnetiQs and regularly commutes between Germany and Brazil for work. ✈️
His perspective on the two cultures is therefore particularly exciting and very differentiated:
🔧 Industry and working methods:
In Germany, a lot of emphasis is placed on planning, knowledge and technical discussions. German engineering is characterized by precision, standards and processes. In Brazil, day-to-day work is often more pragmatic: you start directly with implementation – and optimize later. This brings speed, but sometimes challenges.
⚖️ Work-life balance:
In Germany, the working week is usually 35 to 40 hours – free time is seen as an important factor. In Brazil, on the other hand, the standard is 44 hours. Many also work on Saturdays or Sundays.
🧑🤝🧑 Hierarchies & communication:
In Germany, Tales experiences an open corporate culture with flat hierarchies. In Brazil, hierarchies are usually much more pronounced and access to the management level is rarer. A cultural difference that Tales also emphasizes: while Brazilians are very open, warm and sociable, Germans initially seem reserved and distant. It often takes time to build trust and warm up to them – but then strong, reliable relationships develop.
📚 What can we learn from each other?
Brazilians can learn something from Germany in terms of punctuality, seriousness and respect for rules. If a meeting starts at 3 p.m., you are there at 3 p.m.
Germans, on the other hand, could learn a little more lightness, joie de vivre and warmth from Brazil – not everything has to be standardized, licensed and perfectly planned.
Tales puts it in a nutshell:
💬 “The culture is not the system – it’s the people who make it work.”
What intercultural experiences have you had – and what have you taken away from them? 🌐
