A table near Hart bei Graz
I was in Croatia, tired of traveling and ill with kidney stones that weren’t going away. I needed a place to stay, a place where I could really rest. After some research, I was lucky to find a good home in Austria up in the mountains, far away from the main city and good enough for me to stay for about two weeks. But honestly, I would never have guessed what the future had prepared for me there.
On the pictures you can see where the marienbraeu.at story starts—right around the corner, in the second photo: a restaurant that I went to every single day, where I found good company, a comfortable place to sit, eat, and make small talk.
A Heartfelt Wish from Mama Chef
Marienbräu was special to me from the moment I first arrived. What stories can I tell about what happened?
How about on the second day, when I was shy to accept some roasted chestnuts… and how my backpack went back home completely filled with them?!
Or how on the next day, I was invited to sit and eat with them at the family table for dinner and to share my background, even if only a few of the family members could speak English? I was their friendly Brazilian guest, always happy to listen and chat about life. We spoke in Italian, sometimes Spanish or English, and I even used Google Translate for German. At that table, one thing I can tell you: I felt how life surrounded me with genuinely good and kind people.
Over one of those nights when I was there having dinner, I mentioned that I was a software engineer, and, out of the blue, I heard “website” coming from the Mama Chef—with such a wishful tone and cheerful eyes that I immediately understood how important a website was for her, and how for me, it was something trivial and easy to accomplish.
My reaction? I told her that I would do it for free, because I saw how much it meant to her. It was the way I could return their kindness and their hospitality, which was already more than enough for me. What I never imagined? For the remaining days there, without me ever asking, I became part of the family—with all my beer and dinners on the house.
An Amateur with 20 Years of Professional Experience
I’m not going to romanticize it: I had to work hard on the website, 3 days of focused work in total. In this new AI era, this was my first project made for someone else—my first client. And I built the first prototype right there, in front of everyone’s eyes. I opened my laptop, started Crew (Firstmate from Sprint 3), gave him a few instructions, while still discussing things with everyone around and understanding initial requirements, and I was able to quickly generate a small working prototype that they loved. It had so much positive feedback that, in just 1 hour of work, I can tell you I received more genuine positive feedback than during my entire time working at Microsoft.
Going even further, we all know that AI doesn’t generate anything great on the first try. I was doing it live, without manually typing code or fast-prototyping by hand—it felt different and scary, but I was never worried or without full control over what AI was building. I think when we are surrounded by kind people, life just flows easier. Thoughts and ideas can come and go without harsh criticism, and after eight months of not wanting to build anyone else’s ideas and dreams, I am finally back to being myself: happy, grounded, energized, and ready to collaborate with everyone to do the best work I can.
Collecting the requirements was not an easy task. English is not widely spoken in a small town in Austria, but when people want to connect, they surpass communication barriers. Over the days, I pushed further and further: clarifying questions, showing improvements, drinking beer, refactoring from a quick template to real production code, fixing AI bugs, helping the owner purchase their own domain name, taking photos for the website, and covering all the required legal aspects (Impressum, Datenschutz, allergens) to protect them under Austrian gastronomy law.
Looking back, I can tell you that many times I felt like a beginner again—an amateur learning from basic mistakes or bugs, and even more, learning from the surprises that AI agents bring to the table. I cannot count how many lessons from my MBA I reviewed in my mind while living through this, but those, I’m keeping close to my chest. I might have learned to protect my peace and myself. Who knows why?
Last Beer Before the Next Trip
Even if I don’t share everything I learned this time, one thing I can say: before taking on my next client, I have small improvements to make to my infrastructure, and AI has to improve with that knowledge as well.
Now, with my kidney stones gone, and with my first website built with AI for someone else live and done, I can say: I took an unexpected, massive first step toward completely healing from burnout and recovering my identity as a software engineer. Furthermore, future maintenance and improvements—whenever they need them — well, my AI is here and available to help! Work Completed! Cheers everyone!
