On Tuesday, October 13, a team lead in Lviv posted a short note to a client channel. The team would miss that morning’s standup because they were meeting with Len Pagon, CEO of Robots & Pencils. It was the shortest status update of the week, and it said a lot.
Len made two recent trips. In July, he flew to Bogotá with Nick Waynik, SVP Global AI & Engineering, and Jeff Kirk, EVP Applied AI. In October, he went to Lviv with Waynik, Nate Carmon, COO, and Tony Antonelli, CFO.
“Our teams in Lviv and Bogotá are a big reason we can move as fast as we do,” said Pagon. “I wanted to thank them in person, and you can’t do that on a video call. You sit down at lunch, you hear what’s working and what isn’t, and you get to know each other better as colleagues. We’re remote-first, and that’s not changing. We’re also going to keep getting on planes.”
Lviv
From October 12 to 14, four members of the Robots & Pencils leadership team visited our Ukraine office: Len Pagon, Chief Executive Officer (CEO); Nick Waynik, Senior Vice President (SVP) of Global AI & Engineering; Nate Carmon, Chief Operating Officer (COO); and Tony Antonelli, Chief Financial Officer (CFO). They held meetings and working sessions in the office and shared lunches with the team. On Tuesday evening, everyone gathered for a bowling reception with lanes, billiards, and a healthy amount of friendly trash talk.
Khrystyna Hrupska, Talent Operations Specialist in Ukraine, helped organize the visit. She summed it up for the team afterward, “There were many interesting discussions, productive meetings, new ideas, fruitful cooperation, and, of course, positive emotions.” The bowling night amped up the fun and competition.
Waynik put it plainly in his thank-you: “I appreciate all of the warmth and hospitality you’ve shown us, and I enjoyed meeting each and every one of you in person.”
Engineers in Ukraine tell us they value clear expectations and work that holds their interest. Four members of the leadership team in the Lviv office put that team at the center of the company, where it belongs.
Bogotá
In July, Pagon, Waynik, and Jeff Kirk, Executive Vice President (EVP) of Applied AI, visited our Bogotá office. Our Colombia team is newer, and many of them met colleagues in person for the first time. Pagon, Kirk, and Waynik attended AWS Summit Bogotá with local team members.
Engineers in Colombia choosing their next role weigh stability and a real place to work alongside people as heavily as the work itself. Three senior leaders flying in to meet the team by name answer both.
The Proximity Premium
Robots & Pencils is a remote-first company. Our work runs on Slack threads, standups, and SharePoint, and it runs well. A video call still carries information, and a shared lunch carries something more. It is the extra trust, speed, and context that show up when people share a room.
Our Ukraine development center opened in early 2025, and our Bogotá office opened earlier this year. Both teams are growing fast.
