A recent blog post from engineer career development site Developer Pitstop found that devs spend an average of two years at a job before seeking greener pastures. This means that Ranna Bansal could have had three different jobs in the past six years.
Instead, Bansal chose a different route and decided to spend that time building his career at LoanStreet. That turned out to be time well spent: In six years, he’s gone from being a member of the engineering team to one of the company’s vice presidents — and the future is looking brighter still.
“At LoanStreet I found an opportunity to make an impact on the financial services sector with an innovative SaaS product,” Bansal said. “As the business quickly scaled, LoanStreet allocated more resources to the task at hand and positioned me to better manage the growth. Today, there’s an even bigger chance to succeed in the fintech market.”
Bansal’s story may not be the norm in tech but he’s far from a rarity. In fact, there are many tech workers in New York just like him who have chosen to invest in a company for the long term — and been rewarded for it. We recently spoke with eight of them who shared their stories below.
When Michael Greenbaum joined Addepar, the fintech company had fewer than two dozen employees in a single office. Eleven years later, Addepar’s wealth management platform is now used by thousands of wealth advisors and the company has more than 700 employees in the United States, Scotland and England.
Greenbaum, now a principal software engineer, said that despite Addepar’s growth, the reasons he initially joined the company are the same ones that have kept him around for the long term.
What drew you to apply for and accept a role at Addepar in the first place and, looking back, what have been the most important reasons for staying as long as you have?
I was struck by two things when interviewing: the company’s ambitious vision and the excitement and conviction of the team in pursuing it. It seemed like a place where I could get things done and have an impact, which was a nice change from the plodding pace of grad school. Looking back, these reasons remain largely relevant as to why I’ve stayed. While we have undergone many changes over the years, our vision has remained remarkably consistent.
It’s exciting to make progress in building a platform that becomes more powerful and valuable to clients as it grows. While I’ve been at Addepar, I’ve been lucky enough to work on and develop expertise in some of our most challenging technical problems. These are areas where I can put my experience at the company and the unique perspective I’ve gained to use. I can do this while also appreciating the insights gained from fresher sets of eyes.
Lastly, the company has advanced through several phases since I joined, growing from 20 or so people in a single office to a global workforce of over 700. I’ve had a chance to grow with the company and learn new things through each of these phases.
We encourage employees to embrace a growth mindset, which can form the basis of a long-running career here.”
What advice would you give to someone who is thinking about applying for an open role on your team?
We’re looking for curious candidates who are not afraid to spend time learning and asking questions to develop expertise on the job. Addepar is a place where employees can find stability and longevity in their careers. We encourage employees to embrace a growth mindset, which can form the basis of a long-running career here.
Investors use Republic’s platform to discover opportunities to add startups, cryptocurrencies, real estate, video games and video game development companies to their portfolios. Brooke Chapin Robbins, head of portfolio, has built a four-year career at the company despite the fact that she initially intended to only stay temporarily.
Here’s why she decided to extend her stay.
What drew you to apply for and accept a role at Republic in the first place and, looking back, what have been the most important reasons for staying as long as you have?
I met Ken, the CEO of Republic, at an entrepreneurship event during my last year at Columbia and was immediately intrigued by the vision he articulated of democratizing private investing and expanding access to capital to founders of all backgrounds. After a year abroad on a Fulbright scholarship in Taiwan, I came back to New York and joined Republic as a legal analyst. At the time, I saw the position as a short-term opportunity, imagining that I’d leave shortly thereafter to attend law school.
Little did I know I’d soon fall in love with the fast-paced high-energy and visionary culture at Republic and the future we were creating. Rather than moving on to law school, I moved from the legal team to the business development team. Two years later, I was given the opportunity to lead our retail portfolio division where I currently look after more than 700 portfolio companies with the help of a mighty team of three.
Little did I know I’d soon fall in love with the fast-paced high-energy and visionary culture at Republic and the future we were creating.”
What advice would you give to someone who is thinking about applying for an open role on your team?
Being successful at Republic requires agility, proactivity and positivity. When hiring for my team, I look for direct communicators who enjoy taking initiative, aren’t intimidated by ambiguity and come to work excited and energized. My best advice is to study up on the company and your interviewers, be prepared to communicate your passions both inside and outside of work, and demonstrate that you know yourself and your working style.
Applecart is a marketing technology company that uses publicly available data on more than 250 million Americans to map billions of social relationships, with those maps used to help politicians, corporations and nonprofits get their messages to the right people.
Marissa Adler joined Applecart as an intern in May 2017 and accepted a full-time offer in June 2018. Adler, who is now manager of campaigns, said that in addition to Applecart’s ambition, her colleagues have played a key role in her decision to stick around.
What drew you to apply for and accept a role at Applecart in the first place and, looking back, what have been the most important reasons for staying as long as you have?
It was some time ago, but what excited me most about Applecart was how it positioned itself at the intersection of politics and technology. I studied politics in college and have always been passionate about government in general. I loved that Applecart was creating products and tools to help good candidates be successful in their campaigns, and I really wanted to be a part of that. As the years have gone by, we have expanded our offerings and built incredible products that I frankly couldn’t have imagined years ago. To me, that really speaks to how much we’ve grown and the amazing potential this team has.
This folds really nicely into why I’ve stayed for so long. I tell this to everyone, but the team at Applecart is comprised of some of the smartest, most dedicated, passionate and kindest people I’ve ever met. I feel so lucky to be able to collaborate with them and learn from them on a daily basis. And I really do learn something every day! That in itself is another big reason why I’ve decided to keep myself hitched to the Applecart.
As the years have gone by, we have expanded our offerings and built incredible products that I frankly couldn’t have imagined years ago.”
What advice would you give to someone who is thinking about applying for an open role on your team?
My advice would be to look for a role that excites you! Are there skills you love to flex in a specific position? Are there new things you want to learn or try? Shoot for the roles that make you say “yes” to those questions. More than anything, I recommend being prepared for a lot of collaboration because we are constantly working on things together, which I think makes them even more valuable.
PolicyGenius’ insurance marketplace enables consumers to compare and purchase life, home, auto and disability insurance policies. Beth Koscianski joined the company shortly in 2015 shortly after it was founded. Koscianski said her seven-and-a-half-year career has been spent in operations, which has given her the opportunity to work alongside the dev team on internal software updates and in a customer-facing capacity.
The first member of PolicyGenius’ product operations team and the team’s current senior product operations manager, Koscianski shared detailed advice for candidates who want to join her team.
What drew you to apply for and accept a role at PolicyGenius in the first place and, looking back, what have been the most important reasons for staying as long as you have?
I was looking for a role where I could work with new and innovative technology in an industry where a company could reliably grow long-term. The fintech side of the insurance industry felt like the perfect fit. There were a few companies I was considering, but working for a female founder with a strong business background was really important to me and put Policygenius at the top of my list.
One of the most impactful things that plays a role in my dedication to Policygenius is the transparency of our co-founders who consistently report on the current state of the industry, our business and our long-term strategy and goals. One of the scariest things about joining a fast-growing company or joining a company in a more turbulent economy is potentially not knowing how well the business is really doing. I’ve never felt that way at Policygenius.
The trust the founders put in us by providing as much detail as they do translates into trust and confidence in themselves and the business. For me, knowing that I’ll never be kept in the dark about our trajectory has been huge.
One of the most impactful things that plays a role in my dedication to Policygenius is the transparency of our co-founders.”
What advice would you give to someone who is thinking about applying for an open role on your team?
My team has consistently evolving goals and works across multiple engineering, product and operations teams to help facilitate and fill in where we identify process or knowledge gaps. Over the years, as those teams or their products have changed, so have our priorities and expectations. So my advice for anyone applying for an open role on my team would be to get to know the company at a high level, think about where your specific skill set could benefit those teams, and think through how you could turn that into long-term process improvements.
While you’ll always need to be flexible, it’s helpful to know how you specifically might contribute to the team. That will act as a guidepost and help you easily frame where you can be most effective.
Credit unions use LoanStreet’s technology to manage the complex process of buying and selling participations, or stakes in loans pooled among other credit unions. The company was founded in 2013 and, according to Crunchbase, has since grown to 110 employees and raised $39 million, including a $25 million Series B earlier this year.
Ranna Bansal joined the company nearly six years ago and has seen a lot of that growth firsthand. He’s also grown his own career simultaneously, joining as an engineer and working his way up the ladder to become a VP.
What drew you to apply for and accept a role at LoanStreet in the first place and, looking back, what have been the most important reasons for staying as long as you have?
I was interested in working for a startup, particularly one with solid, fundamental ideas and passionate, intelligent founders. At LoanStreet I found both, and an opportunity to make an impact on the financial services sector with an innovative SaaS product. I started as an engineer, collaborating with senior developers, leadership and clients to develop the platform and determine how it could serve the needs of credit unions by offering them transparency and trust in the loan participation and lending process.
As the business quickly scaled, LoanStreet allocated more resources to the task at hand and positioned me to better manage the growth. Today, there’s an even bigger chance to succeed in the fintech market. The team at LoanStreet is highly motivated to achieve their long-term goals of using forward-thinking tech solutions to solve old, industry-wide problems and helping credit unions help America. At LoanStreet, it’s the people who make the day-to-day work a pleasure and who inspire me to stay.
You’ll be able to make a difference in how institutions lend while developing your skills and career in a healthy, reliable and growing space.”
What advice would you give to someone who is thinking about applying for an open role on your team?
You should apply if you’re looking for a stable startup with bright and brilliant people, interesting projects and a professional work environment. We are on a mission to help credit unions position themselves to better serve American communities and businesses. Improving the financial infrastructure of this country is deeply meaningful and long overdue. You’ll be able to make a difference in how institutions lend while developing your skills and career in a healthy, reliable and growing space.
Grata is a research platform that helps mergers and acquisitions professionals discover small- and medium-sized businesses to invest in as well as evaluate for potential M&As. Alex Yanai is an engineering manager who joined the company four-and-a-half years ago and said he’s stayed because of the ability to grow both personally and professionally.
What drew you to apply for and accept a role at Grata in the first place and, looking back, what have been the most important reasons for staying as long as you have?
I was excited about the technology being used, the data being worked with and the opportunity to build something new. Of these, the most important reason for staying has been the latter, especially given how much the platform has grown and evolved over the years. Along with the growth of our main platform, another important reason for staying has been personal and career growth: I’ve had many opportunities to develop my technical skills as an independent contributor and to develop my leadership skills as I’ve transitioned to engineering management. Finally, any list of reasons for staying would be incomplete if I didn’t mention Grata’s open, supportive and fun culture.
I’ve had many opportunities to develop my technical skills as an independent contributor and to develop my leadership skills.”
What advice would you give to someone who is thinking about applying for an open role on your team?
A person would do well in a role on my team if they’re excited about building something new and definitely making an impact on our platform.
OpenWeb’s content moderation platform is used by companies like IGN, The Wall Street Journal and HuffPost to on-page moderate comment threads for toxic behavior. Manager of Trust and Safety Matt Rahm told Built In why he has built a six-plus year career at the company.
What drew you to apply for and accept a role at OpenWeb in the first place and, looking back, what have been the most important reasons for staying as long as you have?
OpenWeb partners with the world’s leading companies in digital media, which affords you the opportunity to have an impact on a global scale. I enjoy working in a fast-paced environment alongside an amazing group of international teammates who all share the vision for a healthier web.
OpenWeb partners with the world’s leading companies in digital media, which affords you the opportunity to have an impact on a global scale.”
What advice would you give to someone who is thinking about applying for an open role on your team?
We’re a team of innovators constantly looking for the next area to pioneer. Be a self-starter who’s not afraid to ask questions and get involved!
TheGuarantors provides insurance and financial products that help improve renting affordability and accessibility for millions of American households. For Elsa Liao, the company’s VP of risk management who has been at the company for nearly six years, it was TheGuarantors’ impressive lease guarantee product that initially hooked her on the company.
What drew you to apply for and accept a role at TheGuarantors in the first place and, looking back, what have been the most important reasons for staying as long as you have?
I accepted a job offer because I liked the lease guarantee product the company offers, which helps renters qualify for their dream apartments.
I stayed because the company has a great team and it is well-capitalized and, as a result, able to winter storms that other startups wouldn’t survive. The company hired smart, motivated and kind people from day one and built itself a very productive and fun team that collaborates in solving problems and moving forward. I became good friends with many coworkers and that gave work a lot of additional meaning and joy. The founders made good strategic decisions to raise enough capital early so the company was always in a good position to get through tough times including COVID, which was a huge stress test for the real estate industry.
The company hired smart, motivated and kind people from day one and built itself a very productive and fun team.”
What advice would you give to someone who is thinking about applying for an open role on your team?
Hard work and thoughtfulness will be expected here, but the work-life balance is great.
