With the first quarter of 2022 coming to a close, many companies are making a final push to meet or exceed early goals for the new year. Alongside that energy, there is a parallel opportunity for employees to assess their own development and consider new opportunities to make the most of new-year momentum.
However, there is one key component that is difficult to glean from bare job listings: a candid sense of internal company culture. The most powerful descriptions come from within. To that end, Built In met with members of 10 local companies to learn more about growth opportunities, recent projects, and success stories from each team.
Wherever you are in your career trajectory, each of these companies offers a unique take on company culture and support for employee growth.
What they do: Notion blends everyday work tools into one, allowing for synchronized organization without sacrificing customizability.
What makes them unique: “We created a series called ‘Life Stories,’ where a Notino (that’s what we call team members) shares a condensed version of their life for about 45 minutes,” Software Engineer Alma Wang said. “I’m always amazed by the vulnerability, support and enthusiasm from other Notinos. Hearing about the experiences that defined our teammates allows us to better highlight people's strengths and unique perspectives.”
A recent project she worked on: The release of arrow keys on the preview modal for a database item that allows you to move up and down between items. Wang said this project highlighted the cross-functionality of her team and enthusiasm from their users.
What they do: With more than 10.7 million users, including companies like Apple, Google, Adobe and Amazon, RocketReach.co is helping organizations power their sales, recruitment and marketing teams.
What makes them unique: “We are a company that still values getting together and bonding with team members in-person,” Director of Recruitment and People Ops Julia Kimmel said. “We have an annual company retreat where we do a little work and have a lot of fun. This type of time together allows for building relationships that build collaboration.”
Investing within: At the start of 2021, leadership asked each team member what benefit was most important to them. Kimmel said it became clear that the team wanted the company to invest in a strong 401(k) program. “Even though we’re a small company, we decided to make a huge financial investment in a 401(k)-matching program that begins at three months of employment. It's been a huge hit and makes a significant impact on the financial futures of our team members.”
What they do: Current aims to empower its members with fintech services that help improve their financial health and create better financial outcomes.
What makes them unique: “Everyone who works here feels empowered to share their feedback about the product in open forums,” Product Manager Anat Gilboa said. “Not only do we ship at an incredibly impressive pace, but we also strongly encourage dogfooding — beta testing our own product — across the company. This has facilitated effective cross-organizational collaboration that I haven’t seen at many other companies.”
Collaborative resolutions: Gilboa recently worked on a project that involved working across product, engineering, data, design and member experience teams to figure out how to best address the most impactful user problems. “We prioritized a few projects that we shipped over the course of a few quarters, which dramatically reduced the amount of inbound feedback with respect to those issues.”
What they do: As the world’s only sports-focused live streaming TV service, fuboTV offers viewers a breadth of premium content, interactivity and integrated wagering for a full-service experience.
What makes them unique: “At every level, from the CEO to new hires, there’s a culture of being humble yet driven,” VP of Product Management Varad Kishore said. “This manifests as bold swings in how we innovate for our customers, and in how we evolve ourselves to meet the challenge. In the past year, we’ve restructured our product development teams to drive more bottom-up autonomy, accountability and innovation. I couldn’t be more excited for the future.”
Growth opportunities: Leadership recently gave employees access to a platform with numerous development courses. “I like the idea of giving employees the agency to design their path,” Kishore said. “At the end of the day, what matters most is how we lift each other up. When we first launched the platform I was overwhelmed by the number of choices, but then a colleague suggested I start with something fun, so I did a course to ‘Become a Songwriter.’ It was a great introduction, and I then built a collection of courses to become a better manager for my team.”
What they do: Happeo is a community-powered employee social network and collaboration platform that builds employee enthusiasm and connects global workforces.
What makes them unique: “Our company mission is to make employees happier at work,” Product Manager Victor Manrique said. “To that end, we communicate almost daily with our customers to build strong relationships and understand their journey and needs. It’s this open communication that makes my tasks and responsibilities satisfying on a personal level. I feel like I’m making a difference and helping people be happier at work.”
A plethora of perks: Friday lunches pose an opportunity for coworkers to get closer as a team and carry that energy back into the workplace. “This makes the environment more comfortable and relaxing,” Manrique said. “Other benefits like the great office view, the events and the office snack cupboard help in making the employee experience better!”
What they do: Through its digital programs, Kaia Health brings affordable and accessible relief to more than 400,000 patients with chronic disease.
What makes them unique: “I came from a larger television network, where there were lots of conversations around institutional change, but things moved slowly,” Head of Content Max Tedaldi said. “At Kaia, we can and do move quickly, but while also remaining connected to those around us. To be able to adapt, be remote and find emotional connection with those who are far away is incredibly unique.”
Flowing forward: “We recently recorded a new series of exercises (Kaia Flow), and it's a really unique approach to what we have done in the past,” Tedaldi said. “It's been an incredible experience working with internal and external experts to get it right. Kaia Flow is yoga-inspired, but with a pain management lens. It's a great example of remixing our existing content to inspire and reach more users.”
What they do: Valon supports homeowners on their financial journeys by providing simple, dependable, and personalized mortgage servicing.
What makes them unique: How closely the team lives their company values. “For example, last week, our escrow team was inundated as we scaled from hundreds to thousands of loans within the last couple of months,” Software Engineer Kafu Chau said. “Our operations team needed help, so C-suite and engineers alike rolled up their sleeves to help get us caught up. I'm confident our team will succeed together as we face new challenges.”
A recent project he worked on: Rebuilding tooling for the operations team to perform escrow analyses more efficiently. “I built our original automation back in early 2020, and what I knew then is vastly different from what I know now about how a real person runs an analysis,” Chau said. “As a result, our original product didn't actually meet our needs at scale. In this last iteration, I was able to work with the operations team to understand what levers and features were needed to help them do their job efficiently. At the same time, I was able to become more proficient at doing React front-end work (which was the most complicated web experience I've built to date).”
What they do: monday.com aims to keep teams organized and on track through a work operating system that promotes transparency and empowerment.
What makes them unique: How much they all support each other. “One of the ways we show our support to everyone across the globe is through company meetings,” Senior Customer Success Manager Christina Kilpatrick said. “We built a publicly available Chrome application (Clappr) so that we can cheer for each other out loud, and it's incredibly heartwarming to see and hear everyone celebrating each other from around the world.”
Favorite resource: Coaching from all levels of the organization has tremendously enhanced Kilpatrick’s employee experience. “Our team leads put significant work into helping us develop our short- and long-term goals. It's been amazing that the leadership team has maintained that high level of individualized support alongside our rapid growth,” she said.
What they do: Torch is targeting the $30+ billion dental supply industry by pooling ordering, demand and practice data to provide users with the best prices available.
What makes them unique: Their highly collaborative culture, even during rapid growth. “As the VP of Sales, it is important for me to check in with everyone on the sales team to hear what’s going well and where they feel stuck,” Drew Woodcock said. “It is this feedback that has driven what I prioritize. Thanks to feedback from the sales team we have introduced a better process for opportunity management, the SDR and ISR partnership and tools to help people meet and exceed their goals.”
Coaching future leaders: The sales team recently updated their coaching playbook for sales managers. “Many companies spend a lot of time optimizing the process for sales reps, but there is not enough invested in the process for sales managers to become great coaches,” Woodcock said. “With the right playbook, sales managers can help their teams set challenging and attainable goals and give them a clear path to meet and exceed those goals. By investing in our managers, our sales representatives have a better experience.”
What they do: More than 37 million students and 100,000 instructors have joined Teachable to build and enroll in online courses including varied subjects like acrylic pouring, triathlon training, and 3D design.
What makes them unique: A genuine prioritization of hiring empathetic, people-centric leaders. “Importantly, Teachable continues to promote people into management who exhibit strong communication and people skills,” Engineering Manager Orion McClelland said. “My peers in management exhibit patience, a growth mindset, accountability, and all-around care for their team members across the organization.”
Building efficiency: “Our growth team recently worked on moving our creator payments system from a custom Stripe implementation to a third-party vendor called Chargebee. This was a big win, as it allows us to spend less time worrying about bugs and internal tools for payments, and more time working on onboarding, pricing and packaging. Ultimately, it helps us focus on driving growth, so we can better support our creators as they build and scale their businesses.”
