Picnic Blogs - Picnic Careers

Picnic 10 years: 2022 — Building a Store Platform to Scale Beyond a Million Customers

Picnic 10 years: 2022 — Building a Store Platform to Scale Beyond a Million CustomersLessons learned from 8 years of building the Picnic StorePicnic’s...

Lars LockefeerFri Aug 29 2025

Technology

Automating the Pick: How Picnic is Integrating Robots in Their Order-Picking Process

Innovation has been embedded in Picnic’s DNA since our inception. From reinventing traditional grocery delivery to developing fully automated warehou...

Jhon MauroThu Aug 14 2025

Breaking a Supply Chain Monolith — A Learning Journey on the Ship of Theseus

Breaking a Supply Chain Monolith — A Learning Journey on the Ship of TheseusAt Picnic we have grown in many different directions over a relative short...

Chris DekkerTue Aug 05 2025

Technology

From Fragile to Flexible: Rebuilding Our Slotting Brain from Scratch

🧩 IntroductionBuilding the best milkman on Earth requires thinking fast. You come up with a bold idea, trial it with a PoC, convince the stakeholder...

Evgenii KorobkovTue Jul 29 2025

Picnic 10 Years: 2021 — Expanding into France, and beyond

Picnic 10 Years: 2021 — Expanding into France, and beyondIn our seventh year, Picnic launched in France — a milestone not just in expansion, but in re...

Seleme TopuzTue Jul 15 2025

Picnic 10 years: 2020 — Sudo pick me a sandwich

Picnic 10 years: 2020 — Sudo pick me a sandwichIn this edition of the blog series about 10 years of Picnic, we take you back to December 2020, we’re i...

Sjoerd CranenTue Jun 17 2025

Adding Eyes to Picnic’s Automated Warehouses

How computer vision can spot problems long before a customer noticesIn Picnic’s fully-automated fulfilment centre in Utrecht thousands of totes move o...

Sander LamWed Jun 11 2025

Building an AI-first company: lessons from scaling from a small start-up to a Machine Learning…

Building an AI-first company: lessons from scaling from a small start-up to a Machine Learning powerhouseIn the rapidly evolving landscape of e-commer...

Jelmer BorstWed May 28 2025

Technology

Building a Real-time Analytics Platform for Picnic

In the fast-paced world of online grocery delivery, making data-driven decisions quickly can be the difference between delighting customers and losing...

David MischkeThu May 15 2025

Technology

Picnic 10 years: 2018 — Hello, Germany

Picnic 10 years: 2018 — Hello, GermanyWith Picnic turning 10 this year, we are dedicating 10 blog posts, one for each year, to highlight our achieveme...

Marc MarschnerWed Apr 23 2025

TechnologyMobile

Adding Write Functionality to Pages with Self-Service APIs

(Written by Kirill Voloshin & Abdullah Abusamrah)In our previous blog posts, we have covered our server-driven UI framework called Picnic Page Pla...

Kirill VoloshinTue Apr 15 2025

Technology

Solving the weekly menu puzzle pt.2: recommendations at Picnic

A little over a year ago, we shared a blog post about our journey to enhance customers’ meal planning experience with personalized recipe recommendati...

Giorgia TandoiMon Apr 07 2025

Beyond Static Pages: bringing UI to life

In the previous blog posts, we’ve explored how Picnic’s Page Platform has revolutionized the way we build our mobile grocery shopping experience. As...

Florencia BoschThu Apr 03 2025

A decade of scaling (real-time) analytics and master data at Picnic

TL;DR Over the past decade, Picnic transformed its approach to data — evolving from a single, all-purpose data team into multiple specialized teams us...

Iliana IankoulovaFri Mar 28 2025

Technology

Refaster & OpenRewrite: Better Together

Last year we explored Error Prone [1] and Picnic’s journey [2] developing an open source repository built around this static analysis tool. Open-sour...

Rick OssendrijverThu Mar 20 2025

Technology

Experiences of a first year Java developer at Picnic

It was a bit more than a year ago when I decided to move to The Netherlands and start a new chapter in my life. I was happy that Picnic helped me in...

Matteo ŠimićTue Mar 11 2025

Technology

Picnic 10 years: 2016 — The Milkman Routes

Picnic 10 years: 2016 — The Milkman RoutesPicnic turns 10 this year! To celebrate such an achievement we will highlight each year in a series of blog...

Joris van TatenhoveMon Mar 10 2025

TechnologyQuality

Java Meets JavaScript: A Modern Approach to Dynamic Page Rendering

(Written by @masoud. alali.

João NogueiraFri Feb 28 2025

10 Lessons from 10 Years of Innovation and Engineering at Picnic

A decade ago, Picnic set out to reinvent grocery shopping with a tech-first, customer-centric approach. What began as a bold experiment quickly grew...

Daniel GeblerThu Feb 13 2025

MobileDesign

Tackling Configuration: creating Lego-Like Flexibility for non developers

In our previous blogs, we explored how Picnic’s Page Platform transformed the way we build new features — enabling faster iteration, tighter collabora...

Joachim van SchothorstThu Feb 06 2025

TechnologyMobileDesign

Picnic’s Page Platform from a Mobile perspective: enabling fast updates through server-driven UI

After introducing our Page Architecture initiative in this previous post, we’ll now dive deeper into how we transformed the mobile app — the primary p...

Lucas TwiskThu Jan 30 2025

OptimizationQuality

Bridging the gap: A future-proof approach to identifier migration in complex systems

Over the years, Picnic has achieved multiple milestones and overcome numerous challenges. Our warehouses continue to expand, our product assortment g...

Dima LegezaTue Jan 14 2025

MobileAPIsTools

Enabling rapid business use case iteration with Apache Calcite

Picnic increasingly follows a data-driven approach towards serving content. Every customer sees their own version of the store, fitted to their needs...

Rick OssendrijverTue Jan 07 2025

Define, Extract and Transform inside Picnic’s Page Platform

This blog post is part two of a seven-part blog series. We recommend reading the first part where Lars Lockefeer shares the motivation and introducti...

Phil WerliMon Dec 23 2024

ToolsCultureTechnology

Spreading Holiday Cheer at Picnic

The holiday season is always special at Picnic! In this blog post we will take you on our journey to bring Christmas spirit to Picnic.

Pepijn van AkenTue Dec 17 2024

TechnologyMobileDesignOptimizationTools

Developing a Java plugin that automatically fixes code

In one of our previous blogs we wrote an article that explains the tools Error Prone and Refaster, and how we use them within Picnic. Now we will div...

Rick OssendrijverThu Dec 05 2024

TechnologyMobileDesign

Faster Features, Happier Customers: Introducing The Platform That Transformed Our Grocery App

As an online grocery retailer, we operate in a complex environment that requires us to adapt on an ongoing basis to changes in customer behavior, our...

Lars LockefeerMon Dec 02 2024

Technology

Solving the most complex task of grocery shopping — meal planning

We’re all familiar with grocery shopping. You venture into your nearby supermarket, walk down all the aisles and start filling your basket with the t...

Leslie ManTue Nov 12 2024

OptimizationTools

Hill-climbing towards good plannings with TimeFold

Each day, Picnic delivers groceries to tens of thousands of customers. To do this as efficiently as possible, operations follow a plan created the da...

Daan GoslingaTue Oct 15 2024

TechnologyMobileDesignOptimizationCulture

How tech-driven workforce planning brings better-balanced outcomes for everyone

Picnic’s supply chain teams work with in-house recruited Runners (electric vehicle drivers) and Shoppers (order pickers). Investing in local talent h...

Toon BorrenTue Oct 08 2024

TechnologyMobileDevOpsAPIsDesignQuality

Applying continuous integration to infrastructure @ Picnic

It is amazing to see how far we have ventured with a solid foundation for our infrastructure as code (IaC) building blocks, having developed various s...

Saul Ivan Rivas VegaTue Oct 01 2024

Relocating for a new life in the Netherlands with Picnic

My wife and I are from India, and had been living in the United States for 10 years then, mostly in California. While life there was sunny and we had...

Abhilash NarayanaTue Sep 17 2024

APIsFintech

The Hidden Complexity of Online Supermarket Payments

I don’t think I’ve ever underestimated the depth of a topic as much as I did with online payments. Like most people, I used to be just another custom...

Stan HennekesTue Sep 10 2024

Culture

Leading the Way: A journey from the first delivery driver on the road

Hi! My name is Jeroen, I’m an Area Lead in the distribution team at Picnic.

Jeroen BoumeesterWed Aug 28 2024

MobileDesign

Improving Maven build times

Before our recent improvements to the Maven build process, our developers had mixed experiences with slow build times. For some, it was an opportunit...

Oksana EvseevaWed Jul 24 2024

Culture

Harnessing the power of meaningful conversations: Picnic x Workleap Officevibe

At Picnic, we believe that the best teams are well connected and intrinsically motivated. To ensure that we can keep track of our employee engagement...

stefanievanvelthovenMon Jul 15 2024

TechnologyAPIs

Cultivating change - Picnic’s Food Forest

9 years ago, Picnic embarked on the journey to create a less resource-intensive grocery delivery model, cutting out physical stores, helping to take c...

Sofia CassutiWed Jul 03 2024

OptimizationTools

Automating large-scale refactorings with Error Prone

When it comes to writing good computer programs, avoiding mistakes is key. To prevent errors, several processes are generally put in place, such as t...

Rick OssendrijverTue Jun 25 2024

Mobile

Open-sourcing dbt-score: lint model metadata with ease!

With the rise of tools like dbt, it has become much easier to document, test and create data models in a data warehouse. In a previous blog post we h...

Jochem Mathijs van DoorenMon Jun 10 2024

Technology

Driving change: how the supermarket on wheels reduces environmental impact

Symbolized by our iconic electric delivery fleet, our sustainability commitment has been part of Picnic since day 1. In honor of World Environment Da...

Anna KrotovaWed Jun 05 2024

Technology

How we broke customer support language barriers without breaking production

Ever since we first started with a single vehicle in one city nine years ago, Picnic has always taken our end-to-end user journey very seriously, and...

Carlos ArcenasTue May 28 2024

Culture

Mental well-being for all – how we OpenUp

We are committed to promoting a healthy lifestyle for our employees with a strong emphasis on mental health. And we believe a healthy mind starts wit...

Lezaan SchoenmakersWed May 22 2024

TechnologyMobile

Enhancing Search Retrieval with Large Language Models (LLMs)

When people think of Large Language Models (LLMs), generative AI often comes to mind, especially with models like ChatGPT, Midjourney, and other tools...

Maarten SukelWed Apr 24 2024

TechnologyOptimization

Under the hood of Picnic’s demand forecasting model: A Deep Dive into the Temporal Fusion Transformer

Demand forecasting is critical for any retail company, but even more so for Picnic, an online supermarket selling perishable products with a just-in-t...

Daniela SolisMon Apr 22 2024

MobileDesign

YAML developers and the declarative data platforms

The declarative paradigm is becoming ubiquitous in data engineering, to the point we sometimes feel we became YAML developers. Yet, I’ll argue it’s a...

Matthieu CaneillTue Apr 02 2024

TechnologyQualityTools

Python @ Picnic

From Machine Learning to black box testing of Java services, Picnic uses Python throughout its tech stack. Picnic has grown to serve hundreds of thou...

Sven ArendsWed Mar 20 2024

Tools

How Picnic uses Slack to revolutionise the world of online groceries

Our focus on making online grocery shopping simple, fun, and affordable has propelled us to become the fastest-growing online supermarket globally. W...

Pepijn van AkenFri Feb 16 2024

TechnologyMobileDevOps

From Cloud-native to Hybrid and back again: Picnic’s on-premises computing journey

Many companies are working on their digital transformation, transitioning their traditional on-premises deployment to a cloud setup. Other companies,...

Tyko KieskampTue Feb 06 2024

TechnologyMobileDesign

Solving the weekly menu puzzle: recommendations at Picnic

Figuring out what’s for dinner is that daily question we can all relate to. Not only does it require effort, it can also be hard to get creative, so...

Giorga TandoiMon Jan 15 2024

Technology

Generating your shopping list with AI: recommendations at Picnic

Introduction At Picnic, we’re not just an online supermarket; we’re the modern milkman. This means that we want to make the shopping experience of ou...

Thijs SluijterTue Jan 09 2024

MobileCulture

2023 in a nutshell —ride along!

With operations in full swing to pull us through the busiest time of the year, the code slush we apply in some of our teams allow us to take a step ba...

Paulo GeusauFri Dec 15 2023

TechnologyMobile

Running demand forecasting machine learning models at scale

Forecasting at PicnicPicnic is proud to deliver groceries to our customer’s doorstep in a sustainable manner and with great service. Using data scien...

Maarten SukelTue Dec 12 2023

TechnologyToolsCulture

Meet the Trainers of Picnic’s Tech Academy

Picnic’s Tech Academy plays a pivotal role in upskilling our tech team. We’ve previously written about how the Academy’s Java Learning path accelerat...

Sander MakTue Nov 14 2023

TechnologyMobileDevOpsCulture

Picnic’s migration to Datadog Pavel Storozhenko

Every team wants to deliver new features to delight their users but if the application is not available even the best feature won’t have the intended...

PavelStorozhenko and HarkeetBajajTue Oct 31 2023

TechnologyMobileDesignTools

The Art of Master Data Management at Picnic

The Importance of MDMIn the fast-paced world of technology, it’s easy to be captivated by the allure of artificial intelligence. As organizations see...

Hidde SchwietertThu Oct 05 2023

Creating an Engaging Security Awareness Program

In today’s digital world, businesses are increasingly dependent on technology, making them vulnerable to cyberattacks. According to a recent study by...

Ali AbdollahiWed Sep 27 2023

MobileDesignCulture

The tech team behind the most customer-friendly supermarket

At Picnic, we dream of being the best milkman on earth. While we believe we still have a long way to go, we’re definitely on our way: Picnic was rece...

Ilonka CornelissenThu Jul 27 2023

Technology

Using Transformers to Cut Waste and Put Smiles on Our Customers Faces!

IntroductionTransformer models have revolutionized natural language processing with their human-like text generation capabilities. At Picnic, we’re u...

Maarten SukelTue Jul 25 2023

TechnologyMobileDesign

Adding Automatic Logout to Angular Applications

At Picnic we have a clear goal: make the online supermarket of tomorrow available today. In our journey to change the way people do their groceries,...

Luis Enrique Acedo HerreraThu Jul 20 2023

Why Using GPT May Not Be the Best Option for Customer Feedback Classification

How we explore and benchmark new technologies for customer feedback classification. Large language models like GPT have garnered a lot of attention i...

Maarten SukelWed May 24 2023

APIs

Using Change Data Capture for Warehouse Analytics

IntroductionWe continue our story on the Analytics Platform setup in Picnic. Last time, we looked at the internal services data pipeline.

David MischkeMon Apr 03 2023

MobileDesignTools

How to find dead code in your Java services

When building solutions, the code we write can last many years. While casually browsing legacy code we might wonder; is this still used?

Pieter Dirk SoelsMon Apr 03 2023

MobileDesignCulture

The Journey to Product Ownership

Here at Picnic, we have more than 30 teams that are building the cool products that we love. But while the product teams build the future — who empow...

Jarmila KaiserThu Mar 16 2023

Tools

Replicating a multi-million Euro automated warehouse in Python

In our previous part of this blog series we have talked about the challenges we faced developing our very first Warehouse Control System (WCS). This...

Dylan GoldsboroughThu Mar 16 2023

TechnologyMobileDesignOptimization

How we built the supply chain Matrix

The story of building an automated warehouse without having one — Part II In the blockbuster movie The Matrix, Neo, the main character, is asked to ch...

Manuel LombarderoTue Mar 07 2023

MobileDesign

How we got robots to do your groceries

The story of building an automated warehouse without having one — Part IA wintery day It is a cold, dark, wintery day. You are at your desk, it is yo...

Manuel LombarderoTue Feb 21 2023

TechnologyAPIsOptimization

Deploying Data Pipelines using the Saga pattern

Delivering the right events at low latency and with a high volume is critical to Picnic’s system architecture. In our previous blog, Dima Kalashnikov...

Shibi RamachandranThu Feb 09 2023

MobileDevOpsAPIsDesignQualityCulture

Bye Travis CI, hi TeamCity!

Continuous integration forms the backbone of every tech company. Without a smooth build and test setup teams lose productivity and everything grinds...

Ivan BabiankouWed Feb 08 2023

MobileCulture

Making our apps festive with Christmas decorations

Do you like the holiday season? At Picnic we love it!

Tyko KieskampWed Dec 21 2022

Tools

Why Picnic picked Java

Picking a tech stack for your startup isn’t something to do lightly. It’s a choice that will shape the future in many ways: how will the tech enable...

Sander MakWed Dec 21 2022

TechnologyAPIsTools

Transitioning from aiohttp to FastAPI

Written by: Dylan Goldsborough While we love using Java in Picnic, we also adore Python. Over the years, our tech landscape has been enriched with nu...

Dylan GoldsboroughWed Nov 30 2022

OptimizationTools

Picnic Open-sources Error Prone Support

We’re excited to announce that Picnic’s Error Prone Support project is now open-source! Last week, we already shared an in-depth overview of how Picni...

Sander MakWed Nov 30 2022

OptimizationTools

Picnic loves Error Prone: producing high-quality and consistent Java code

Error Prone Support is now open source! Check out the announcement.

Rick OssendrijverWed Nov 30 2022

TechnologyMobileDevOpsDesign

MLOps Principles to build Picnic’s Data Science Platform

Here at Picnic, we love data. Over the last years, Picnic has grown into a data-driven online supermarket that is active in three countries.

Tom SteenbergenWed Nov 30 2022

Technology

Internal services pipeline in Analytics Platform

We continue our story on the Analytics Platform setup in Picnic. In the “Picnic Analytics Platform: Migration from AWS Kinesis to Confluent Cloud” we...

Dima KalashnikovWed Nov 30 2022

Q&A Picnic Data Engineering Series

The most important thing for a successful analytics strategy. Data Mesh, or Hub-and-Spoke?

Iliana IankoulovaTue Jul 12 2022

TechnologyDevOpsTools

Adopting SFDX for Salesforce Deployments

Small Talk SFDX is the most common buzzword among Salesforcies right now. If you know it, I am sure you would have been tempted to try it out an...

Bhushan PuriTue Jun 28 2022

TechnologyCulture

Picnic’s Tech Academy Through the Eyes of Recent Graduates

Pablo Picasso once said, “I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it. ” For someone who spent so much time on th...

Ryan WhitmoreTue Jun 14 2022

TechnologyAPIsTools

Shaping a Full-Fledge Procedure by Streaming Salesforce Exception Emails

This blog post is the third in a series of blog posts about Picnic’s Salesforce Makeover Project. At Picnic, we use Salesforce to fulfil diverse purp...

nyrandonenoboudTue May 31 2022

Quality

Making it All Work: Picnic’s QA Engineers

Picnic is more than a grocery delivery company — it’s more accurate to say we’re a tech company. After all, the service we provide to our customers w...

Ryan WhitmoreTue May 17 2022

Technology

Turning Shadow IT Into Sunshine IT

Not only software developers but also many employees in other roles help companies move forward by developing different kinds of software systems. In...

Max van RestMon May 02 2022

MobileDesignCulture

A Snapshot of Our Tech Recruitment Team

(Left to right: Jan, Pia, Jana, Pablo, Carolina)At Picnic, we’re more than a grocery delivery company. The app that our customers use to buy their gr...

Ryan WhitmoreWed Apr 20 2022

Creating a Rule Engine for Real-Time Action Automation

At Picnic, we strive to offer a personal, proactive, helpful, and friendly service. It’s why many of our customers choose to shop with us and it’s es...

Frans BookholtWed Apr 06 2022

TechnologyMobileDesign

Introducing the Picnic Sneakernet

In The Netherlands, Germany, and France, Picnic has built a backbone of electric vehicles driving from hubs to thousands of customers on a daily basis...

Matthieu CaneillFri Apr 01 2022

Vendor Selection: From Tech Radar to Tech Stack

“Tech Radars: the best thing since sliced bread! ” Okay, that might be an over-exaggeration, but they are on the rise, and for a good reason.

Tyko KieskampTue Mar 22 2022

TechnologyTools

7 Antifragile Principles for a Successful Data Warehouse

The best of two worlds — the structure and quality of a centralized data warehouse combined with the agility of antifragile practices Data Warehousing...

Iliana IankoulovaWed Mar 09 2022

ETags: Saving Bandwidth 1Kb at a Time

At Picnic, we do our best to ensure that the information we provide to our customers is relevant and up to date. In order to do so, we provide most o...

Joao NogueiraThu Feb 24 2022

Tools

Supporting Developers’ Growth With Salesforce Certifications

Here at Picnic, we often say we’re more than a grocery delivery company. We like to let people know how we’re fundamentally a tech company — we shout...

Bhushan PuriTue Feb 08 2022

Tools

Getting People to Love Queues With Java, Python, and JavaScript

Do you like standing in queues? I bet you don’t.

Anastasiia NykolaichukTue Jan 25 2022

Technology

Picnic Analytics Platform: Migration from AWS Kinesis to Confluent Cloud

Picnic is an online-only supermarket operating in 3 countries and providing the lowest price guarantee. We heavily rely on data-driven decisions to a...

Dima KalashnikovTue Jan 11 2022

MobileDesignCulture

Spreading Christmas Cheer at Picnic: Decorating Our Apps During the Holiday Season

Work during the holiday season can be quite hectic. Many people are on vacation, and especially in companies like supermarkets, demand rises.

Simon BaarsThu Dec 23 2021

TechnologyMobileDesign

M1 Pro MacBooks: Building a Tech Foundation

On June 22, 2020, CEO Tim Cook announced Apple’s two-year transition plan to their own silicon in his WWDC keynote speech. This marked the 3rd time i...

Philip LeonardTue Dec 14 2021

TechnologyMobileDevOpsDesign

Scaling Cyber Security Awareness

As the reliance on digital infrastructure to provide collective resilience increases, it makes sense that the importance we place on cyber security sh...

Nuray AkdemirWed Dec 08 2021

Tech Radar on Event Streaming Platforms

Making the right business and tech decisions isn’t an easy process in our ever-changing world. To accomplish this, it’s best to rely on facts and tru...

Dima KalashnikovWed Nov 24 2021

MobileDesign

Picnic’s Service Coach: Building Data-Driven Tech to Enhance the Delivery Experience

Picture the local milkman doing his rounds in days gone by: climbing out of his truck and walking up to your door with a broad smile on his face, lade...

Richard van der BylWed Nov 10 2021

Tools

Embracing Java 17: Here’s What We Learned

Java 17? Count us in!

Sander MakTue Nov 02 2021

MobileDesign

Using State Machines in Front-End Development

Here at Picnic, we’re in the process of building our first automated warehouse. When you think of an automated warehouse, your first thought might be...

Danielle RichterWed Oct 27 2021

MobileDesign

The Milkman Van of the 21st Century

Picnic makes grocery delivery effortless for the customer, and even makes the whole process seem effortless. However, behind the scenes we have built...

Joris WoltersWed Jun 23 2021

TechnologyTools

Picnic’s data archiving strategy in Salesforce

Picnic is a data-driven company. We rely on it for forecasting, fulfilling deliveries, doing analyses to support decision making, and this list goes...

Gonçalo MoreiraSat Jun 05 2021

TechnologyMobileTools

Quest to the OS: Java Native Memory

As developers we want to spend most time on new features and improvements, providing value to our users or customers. However, all software inevitabl...

Geert KonijnendijkWed May 26 2021

TechnologyCulture

Why you should make leaders of your team

An operational environment is a challenging workplace. There are multiple daily deadlines, unexpected issues and the constant pressure of keeping ord...

Katherin SchuppenerTue May 25 2021

DevOpsOptimizationTools

Scaling Business Intelligence with Python and Snowflake

Three big migration projects brought Picnic’s self-service Business Intelligence to new heights — speeding up the development cycle with lightweight t...

Iliana IankoulovaTue May 18 2021

Culture

Accelerating Developer Growth with the Picnic Tech Academy

Continuous learning is at the heart of every tech company. At Picnic we recently launched our Tech Academy.

Phil WerliTue May 04 2021

ToolsCulture

Becoming a multiplier: on our Java developer platform

The Picnic backend tech stack is polyglot in nature, comprising mostly Java and Python. To support the majority of our developers we have two platfor...

Nathan KooijWed Apr 28 2021

Picnic Tech Radars

Opinionated tech radars have been on the rise as of late. The Lindy effect postulates that the future life expectancy of non-perishable things like a...

Philip LeonardWed Apr 21 2021

TechnologyMobileDesignOptimizationCulture

Building a Scalable Caching Platform

The assortment of a grocery store app business is a dynamic thing. A team of category managers, striving to meet the needs of the customer, add and r...

Dylan GoldsboroughWed Apr 07 2021

MobileDesignTools

How we built our Lakeless Data Warehouse

Welcome to the third part in a series of five blog posts about Data Engineering at Picnic. It is inspired by Guy Raz’s awesome podcasts “How I Built...

Iliana IankoulovaWed Mar 31 2021

Fintech

Payments @ Picnic

This interview was co-authored together with paymentspaymentspayments. com About you Hello, I’m Jelmer Borst.

Jelmer BorstWed Mar 31 2021

TechnologyMobileDesign

Building a distributed ETL pipeline for a monolithic data warehouse

The Parkinson’s Law of Data states that Data expands to fill the space available for storage. Now, this poses serious challenges when...

Matthieu CaneillWed Mar 17 2021

MobileAPIsDesign

Tracking events inside React(-Native) applications using HOCs

Tracking user interactions inside of applications and web pages is of great importance for data-driven companies such as Picnic. Applying analytics t...

Elias el KhaldiWed Mar 17 2021

TechnologyOptimization

Data vault: new weaponry in your data science toolkit

Picnic is an online grocer, where we aim to bring grocery shopping and the traditional Milkman model into the 21st century. Easy and frictionless ord...

Bas VlamingWed Mar 17 2021

TechnologyAPIsCulture

Leveraging domain sponsorship to organize product teams at scale

Picnic is growing at a rapid pace in all of its departments. As a tech company with big aspirations for the future, the teams concerned with technolo...

Jakob LöhnertzThu Feb 25 2021

Quality

Reinventing the QA process

Adapting QA processes for the automated fulfillment In the near future Picnic will launch its first automated fulfillment center (AFC). With its l...

Julia ZarechnevaThu Feb 25 2021

TechnologyMobileDesign

Code in Unix while using Windows

You have probably wondered at some point why most developers choose Unix based operating systems such as Linux distributions or macOS over Windows. T...

Seleme TopuzThu Feb 25 2021

MobileDesignCulture

Rebuilding the team spirit with Discord

At Picnic, all of the teams working on technological components of our product can freely choose how they handle their internal communication. By thi...

Jakob LöhnertzThu Feb 25 2021

MobileDesign

Brownfield React Native development at Picnic

At Picnic, we have not been hiding that we like using React Native to build apps. Some time ago we started building the Runner App, the application t...

Lucas TwiskFri Feb 05 2021

TechnologyCulture

Remote onboarding at Picnic

Picnic is the fastest growing online supermarket in the world. To enable this growth while giving our customers an unmatched experience, we have to t...

Willem EversThu Jan 28 2021

TechnologyDevOpsDesignOptimization

It’s in our DNA: Solving logistics problems using Genetic Algorithms

What do designing an aircraft wing, packing boxes into a container and making timetables have in common? They’re all optimization problems.

Geert KonijnendijkWed Dec 09 2020

MobileDesign

Staying Ahead Of The Competition With Executable Specifications

Any company wants to adapt quickly because of new or changed business ideas, or because of changes in the market. Only by adapting quickly, you can s...

Simeon van der SteenWed Dec 09 2020

Data Engineer’s Role in the Future of Groceries

How Data Engineers collaborate with other roles at Picnic? What are some real business challenges solved by using the Data Warehouse?

Iliana IankoulovaWed Dec 09 2020

OptimizationTools

Picnic’s Lakeless Data Warehouse

At Picnic, we are proud of having a Data Warehouse (DWH), which covers all aspects of our business and is widely adopted in the organization. We achi...

Iliana IankoulovaWed Dec 09 2020

MobileAPIsCulture

A Microservice Success Story

Picnic “went microservices” a while ago. The migration happened around the same time the growth of the tech team started picking up, and the previ...

Ernir ÞorsteinssonWed Dec 09 2020

TechnologyMobileOptimization

Data Science As a Product

At Picnic, we see ourselves as tech’s answer to groceries. From the app-only store, 20-minute delivery windows, and just-in-time supply chain, the te...

Tad SlaffWed Dec 09 2020

Technology

Picnic plays it cool: a data-driven cold chain for groceries

Delivering fresh groceries to customers is a challenge, even more so in the summer months when ice cream needs to remain perfectly frozen and the outs...

Floris BoekemaWed Dec 09 2020

Optimization

Computational Logistics at Picnic

Logistics is the science of efficiently moving items from one place to another. This sounds simple at first, but it serves as the gateway to some of...

Regan KoopmansWed Dec 09 2020

MobileDesignQualityTools

Behavior driven UI test automation with Selenium

The Warehouse Management System (WMS) is the software system that runs nearly all operations in Picnic fulfillment and distribution centers, enabling...

Simeon van der SteenWed Dec 09 2020

Culture

Perks post 2

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LarsTue Dec 01 2020

Culture

Perks post 1

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Maecenas mattis auctor ullamcorper.

LarsTue Dec 01 2020

DevOpsTools

Monitoring and Observability at Picnic

What does a typical 24 hours look like at Picnic? Customer demand is predicted, tens of thousands of trading units are ordered from suppliers, and de...

Philip LeonardTue Oct 27 2020

DevOps

Scaling Picnic systems in Corona times

As an online groceries company, Picnic saw an enormous increase in demand during the start of the Corona crisis. Our systems suddenly experienced tra...

Sander MakSun Sep 27 2020

Programming a Safer Drive

Picnic is in the business of delivering groceries. To do this, we operate a fleet of hundreds of small electric trucks, whizzing across the streets o...

Ernir ÞorsteinssonMon Jan 27 2020

FintechQuality

Cryptocurrency Incentivised Code Reviewing, Open Sourced.

Some time ago Picnic published a blog post about our cryptocurrency powered code review leaderboard. The general goal is simple: achieve code review...

Philip LeonardMon Jan 27 2020

TechnologyMobileDesignTools

Incident Management at Picnic

Nearly everyone has experienced the struggle of making an appointment with a service technician. Once you have waited for a good 20 minutes, listenin...

Steven van de RidderMon Jan 27 2020

MobileDesign

Localizing native apps made easy with Localicious!

Today we are officially releasing Localicious, our tool to manage localization of the copy in our apps. For those of you that are not well-versed...

Lars LockefeerMon Jan 27 2020

TechnologyMobileDevOpsAPIsDesignTools

Hitchhiker’s Guide to HashiCorp Vault in Kubernetes Part 1: System integration

Nowadays, we get a lot of benefits from the dynamicity and scalability of cloud environments. This dynamic nature makes the task of keeping confident...

Anh ĐạtMon Jan 27 2020

MobileDesign

(Consistent) App Analytics with Snowplow

To build the best app for grocery shopping, we determined that a robust analytics platform is critical for collecting the data needed for decision sup...

Dimitar NedevMon Jan 27 2020

Technology

Optimal drop times using machine learning

Picnic delivers groceries to thousands of customers every day. In order to do so both efficiently and effectively, Picnic’s distribution system needs...

Tom SteenbergenMon Jan 27 2020

MobileTools

Making the Best Warehouse Management System One Flow at a Time

To support the processes in Picnic fulfillment centers, we developed our in-house Warehouse Management System. This system made it possible to o...

Csaba JuhászMon Jan 27 2020

Technology

Picnic ❤️ Open-source (2020 update)

Picnic loves open-source software, both using it and giving back to the community. We’ve said that before and even wrote a blogpost about i...

Arturs DrozdovsMon Jan 27 2020

Technology

Bringing knowledge to the lunch table

Gaining knowledge is an essential part of learning and growing. However, reading articles, books, and following the latest tech news can’t teach you...

Robert CarosiMon Jan 27 2020

Design

Company-wide Spring 5 migration head on

We at Picnic have always been at the frontier of new and exciting technologies. One such technology we adopted is reactive programming.

Nathan KooijMon Jan 27 2020

TechnologyAPIsCulture

Leveraging domain sponsorship to organize product teams at scale

Picnic is growing at a rapid pace in all of its departments. As a tech company with big aspirations for the future, the teams concerned with technolo...

Jakob LöhnertzMon Jan 27 2020

DevOpsOptimizationTools

Micrometer and the Modern Observability Stack

In the Picnic backend landscape, our monitoring stack looks like this. New Relic is our APM provider for tracing and performance monitoring of our Ja...

Philip LeonardMon Jan 27 2020

Picnic 10 years: 2022 — Building a Store Platform to Scale Beyond a Million Customers

Picnic 10 years: 2022 — Building a Store Platform to Scale Beyond a Million Customers

Automating the Pick: How Picnic is Integrating Robots in Their Order-Picking Process

Breaking a Supply Chain Monolith — A Learning Journey on the Ship of Theseus

From Fragile to Flexible: Rebuilding Our Slotting Brain from Scratch

Picnic 10 Years: 2021 — Expanding into France, and beyond

Picnic 10 years: 2020 — Sudo pick me a sandwich

Adding Eyes to Picnic’s Automated Warehouses

Building an AI-first company: lessons from scaling from a small start-up to a Machine Learning…

Building a Real-time Analytics Platform for Picnic

Picnic 10 years: 2018 — Hello, Germany

Adding Write Functionality to Pages with Self-Service APIs

Solving the weekly menu puzzle pt.2: recommendations at Picnic

Beyond Static Pages: bringing UI to life

A decade of scaling (real-time) analytics and master data at Picnic

Refaster & OpenRewrite: Better Together

Experiences of a first year Java developer at Picnic

Picnic 10 years: 2016 — The Milkman Routes

Java Meets JavaScript: A Modern Approach to Dynamic Page Rendering

10 Lessons from 10 Years of Innovation and Engineering at Picnic

Tackling Configuration: creating Lego-Like Flexibility for non developers

Picnic’s Page Platform from a Mobile perspective: enabling fast updates through server-driven UI

Bridging the gap: A future-proof approach to identifier migration in complex systems

Enabling rapid business use case iteration with Apache Calcite

Define, Extract and Transform inside Picnic’s Page Platform

Spreading Holiday Cheer at Picnic

Developing a Java plugin that automatically fixes code

Faster Features, Happier Customers: Introducing The Platform That Transformed Our Grocery App

Solving the most complex task of grocery shopping — meal planning

Hill-climbing towards good plannings with TimeFold

How tech-driven workforce planning brings better-balanced outcomes for everyone

Applying continuous integration to infrastructure @ Picnic

Relocating for a new life in the Netherlands with Picnic

The Hidden Complexity of Online Supermarket Payments

Leading the Way: A journey from the first delivery driver on the road

Improving Maven build times

Harnessing the power of meaningful conversations: Picnic x Workleap Officevibe

Cultivating change - Picnic&#8217;s Food Forest

Automating large-scale refactorings with Error Prone

Open-sourcing dbt-score: lint model metadata with ease!

Driving change: how the supermarket on wheels reduces environmental impact

How we broke customer support language barriers without breaking production

Mental well-being for all &#8211; how we OpenUp

Enhancing Search Retrieval with Large Language Models (LLMs)

Under the hood of Picnic&#8217;s demand forecasting model: A Deep Dive into the Temporal Fusion Transformer

YAML developers and the declarative data platforms

Python @ Picnic

How Picnic uses Slack to revolutionise the world of online groceries

From Cloud-native to Hybrid and back again: Picnic’s on-premises computing journey

Solving the weekly menu puzzle: recommendations at Picnic

Generating your shopping list with AI: recommendations at Picnic

2023 in a nutshell —ride along!

Running demand forecasting machine learning models at scale

Meet the Trainers of Picnic&#8217;s Tech Academy

Picnic’s migration to Datadog Pavel Storozhenko

The Art of Master Data Management at Picnic

Creating an Engaging Security Awareness Program

The tech team behind the most customer-friendly supermarket

Using Transformers to Cut Waste and Put Smiles on Our Customers Faces!

Adding Automatic Logout to Angular Applications

Why Using GPT May Not Be the Best Option for Customer Feedback Classification

Using Change Data Capture for Warehouse Analytics

How to find dead code in your Java services

The Journey to Product Ownership

Replicating a multi-million Euro automated warehouse in Python

How we built the supply chain Matrix

How we got robots to do your groceries

Deploying Data Pipelines using the Saga pattern

Bye Travis CI, hi TeamCity!

Making our apps festive with Christmas decorations

Why Picnic picked Java

Transitioning from aiohttp to FastAPI

Picnic Open-sources Error Prone Support

Picnic loves Error Prone: producing high-quality and consistent Java code

MLOps Principles to build Picnic’s Data Science Platform

Internal services pipeline in Analytics Platform

Q&amp;A Picnic Data Engineering Series

Adopting SFDX for Salesforce Deployments

Picnic’s Tech Academy Through the Eyes of Recent Graduates

Shaping a Full-Fledge Procedure by Streaming Salesforce Exception Emails

Cultivating change - Picnic’s Food Forest

Mental well-being for all – how we OpenUp

Under the hood of Picnic’s demand forecasting model: A Deep Dive into the Temporal Fusion Transformer

Meet the Trainers of Picnic’s Tech Academy

Q&A Picnic Data Engineering Series

Picnic’s Service Coach: Building Data-Driven Tech to Enhance the Delivery Experience