It’s 2022 and people care less about how many ping-pong tables and standing desks a company has and more about whether they can work in a way that best supports their lifestyle — whether that’s a hybrid setup, in-office or entirely remote. They also care about how company values impact company culture, and want to be continually challenged in ways that grow their careers.
In short, expectations around where people work and what they want out of it have changed. Continue reading to learn how 11 local tech companies have responded by doubling down on career development, open communication and transparency, and workplace flexibility.
Thesis is an e-commerce company that offers personalized nootropics, or supplements designed to boost brain health and mental performance.
What is one standout career development opportunity Thesis offers employees?
Our promote-from-within culture. We’re cognizant of setting an appropriate skills gap to ensure your success. If you’re outperforming your role, you’ll get promoted quickly to ensure you constantly have room for growth. If you want to wear a few hats or learn new skills, we’ll encourage you to take on projects in those areas. I’ve lived this as the company’s first employee, starting in supply chain before pivoting to strategy and operations. Those with perseverance and ambition excel here!
If you’re outperforming your role, you’ll get promoted quickly to ensure you constantly have room for growth.”
What is one way your company supports open communication and transparency?
We practice radical transparency and prioritize the truth, even if it hurts.We’re all encouraged to give candid feedback on a regular basis to promote development and growth. I give and receive feedback on a weekly basis, and while it may sting sometimes, it’s allowed me to become a better employee and person. To emphasize its importance, our CEO solicits feedback publicly.
What is Thesis’ approach to flexible work?
We monitor output, not hours, which manifests in a hybrid policy. We recognize that some work better outside of the office and provide the flexibility to do so. We also allow for extended remote trips to visit family or travel. We keep in-office days to build culture and encourage team-bonding and brainstorming. We’re an early-stage startup, so maintaining a strong culture is incredibly important to us!
Alt is a platform for buying collectible cards — including sports cards, Yu-Gi-Oh! cards and Pokemon cards — and researching market trends.
What is one standout career development opportunity Alt offers employees?
Our employees are given $2,000 to spend on learning and development expenses each year, which can be used for training, conferences, coaching and more. A few weeks ago, a colleague went to TEDxPortland, and we have a few teammates headed to NFT.NYC to learn more about Web3 and the metaverse. Reminding each other to stay curious and find daily inspiration are ways that we stay connected, even as a remote company.
Our employees are given $2,000 to spend on learning and development expenses each year.”
What is one way your company supports open communication and transparency?
One of our values at Alt is to “share the why,” and this lays the foundation for how we communicate openly. To keep all employees on the same page, we have a weekly town hall where we celebrate our wins, discuss key metrics and project updates, and recognize employees. We also maintain an open forum where employees can ask our operating team anything. And by anything, I mean anything!
What is Alt’s approach to flexible work?
Alt is remote-first and our employees are spread across the United States. We began the company during the pandemic, which made remote work key to our identity and success. It’s been a great experience, as so many of us have been able to travel or spend time with loved ones. I was able to spend a month with my mom last year because of our remote work policy.
As we are predominantly a remote workforce, employees can expense the cost of co-working spaces, which offers a nice change of pace from the home office and facilitates opportunities to meet with teammates. We also offer a monthly work-from-home stipend.
Harry’s made its mark as an online shaving razor retailer, but today the company has expanded its product line to include deodorant, face and body care products, and travel accessories.
What is one standout career development opportunity Harry’s offers employees?
Our learning and development team recently launched an initiative called “career conversations” as a way to support individual team members and their managers in starting a conversation around career development. We recognize that while everyone is looking to grow and develop in their careers, envisioning what exactly that looks like can be challenging! This initiative kick-starts open and honest conversations about what development looks like and gives managers the opportunity to coach and guide their direct reports on how to take meaningful and manageable steps to reach their goals.
Our career conversations initiative kick-starts open and honest conversations about what development looks like.”
What is one way your company supports open communication and transparency?
One of our values is “embrace the mammoth,” which directly supports open communication and transparency. We always expect direct, honest and supportive communication: We tell it like it is without blame and see every interaction as an opportunity to grow together. As such, we strive to live this value each day by encouraging feedback and being open to receiving it, whether it’s about a project, idea or a way to help a team member learn and grow.
What is Harry’s approach to flexible work?
As we developed our new working model, we heard two primary things from our team: They want flexibility and opportunities for connection and collaboration. Based on this, we established hybrid-first and remote-first working models. As a company we want to be hybrid-first but have allowed leaders to choose what works best for their teams.
In our hybrid-first model, team members are expected to be in the office two to three days per week with a baseline expectation of two days. Most team members are in between Tuesday to Thursday, and many of our teams coordinate one or two of those days to optimize for in-person connection and collaboration.
In our remote-first model, which is subject to approval, team members are expected to travel to the office at a regular cadence agreed upon between each individual and their manager. For new hires, unless your role is eligible to be remote-first day-one, we have a one-year tenure requirement before you can apply to be remote-first.
Cockroach Labs is the company behind CockroachDB, a cloud-native, distributed SQL database used by enterprise companies to build cloud data architecture.
What is one standout career development opportunity Cockroach Labs offers employees?
One thing we’re very proud of is developing our managers, who are pivotal to our company’s success. We’ve put an emphasis on ensuring our managers feel aligned with the company strategy while also supporting them in their development.
As our team shifted toward distributed work, communication became more challenging and managers needed to be intentional in sharing information. This year, we held our first manager all-hands to give managers a forum to present their initiatives and facilitate collaboration across teams. One of our manager development programs, MORPH, is designed for “Roachers” transitioning into management. With this program, we’re able to develop our internal team and ensure they feel supported through their transition, whether they’re veteran team leaders or first-time managers.
What is one way your company supports open communication and transparency?
One of our company values is “communicate openly and honestly.” We focus on recognizing success while acknowledging setbacks as opportunities to learn and improve. We have two Slack channels that represent this value well: #customer-wins and #customer-loss.
The #customer-wins channel recognizes closed deals and new customers. Account executives share details about the new customer, including the use case, why CockroachDB was their choice and what’s next for the business. This is also an opportunity to give shout-outs and recognition to those whose support helped close the deal.
The #customer-loss channel provides the opportunity to understand why CockroachDB was not a fit for a potential customer, whether it be that they went with a competitor or that their use case was not ideal for our product. This streamlines feedback to our product and engineering teams and brings greater awareness to our customer needs and how we can improve the product roadmap for the future.
Our employees have the flexibility to define their own schedules.”
What is Cockroach Labs’ approach to flexible work?
We’ve just returned to the office after two years remote. While some Roachers choose to utilize our office spaces, our team is truly distributed, and when it comes to flexible work, we live by one of our core values: establishing balance.
We strive to move toward more asynchronous communication practices where our team can engage and respond during their own working hours. Where possible, we record companywide meetings and trainings for employees to watch on their own time to allow for greater support across multiple time zones.
With asynchronous practices, our employees have the flexibility to define their own schedules, and we encourage team members to set their working hours to let others know when to involve them in meetings. Calendar-blocking is also recommended as this helps our team manage their day more thoughtfully and supports balancing personal obligations, heads-down strategic work and day-to-day team collaboration while also helping to reduce the amount of back-to-back video calls.
Melio is a fintech company whose payment technology is intended to make it easier for businesses to pay their suppliers and vendors and for contractors to request and manage payments clients.
What is one standout career development opportunity Melio offers employees?
I have grown from an associate to a senior associate and now into a manager and have received tremendous amounts of support and mentorship from leadership along the way. Melio requires people leaders to attend a multi-session intensive course on how to lead a team, develop direct reports and provide 360-degree feedback. The team has really set me up for success with regard to my personal growth, as well as ensuring that I am prepared to help my peers and direct reports succeed. I work with so many amazing people who are experts in their fields and am continuously learning new things.
What is one way your company supports open communication and transparency?
Open communication and transparency are non-negotiable for any employee on our team, regardless of the position. Our growth as a company has been positively impacted by working together as a cross-functional team, giving and receiving feedback consistently, and the desire to learn and grow. We do quarterly reviews with employees and managers to ensure that we are providing room to welcome open communication and transparency, especially in relation to how our team is performing within their roles.
I work with so many amazing people who are experts in their fields and am continuously learning new things.”
What is Melio’s approach to flexible work?
Melio has a flexible working approach. We have offices around the globe, which makes it imperative that we are communicative across the board. Not only do we have a hybrid working model, but we also want to ensure that there is a great work-life balance within the team. We want our employees to enjoy working at Melio but not make work their entire lives.
Addepar’s software was created to help wealth management firms provide more personalized advice by giving wealth managers a single place to view and analyze all of their clients’ assets.
What is one standout career development opportunity Addepar offers employees?
I found the deepest growth and development in projects where I am building and innovating. Addepar was built to unlock the power and possibility of more informed data-driven investing, and “advice-innovation” is in our DNA. There are many opportunities here to build, innovate and put your fingerprints on work that really matters. That is true for all teams in every corner of the business.
There are many opportunities here to build, innovate and put your fingerprints on work that really matters.”
What is one way your company supports open communication and transparency?
We hold regular companywide all-hands and spotlight sessions where employees are encouraged to ask questions — through a variety of channels — that are answered live. In addition, we follow up those sessions with surveys to gauge how we are doing and highlight what we could be doing better.
What is Addepar’s approach to flexible work?
We believe your performance should be measured by your work and how you do it, not where you’re doing it from, and we can accommodate a broad range of life choices with our flexible work approach. Addepar offers the option to work remotely for the vast majority of roles, giving employees the choice and flexibility to pick a work environment that best suits their needs.
Sealed helps homeowners reduce their energy consumption by matching them with local contractors specializing in heating and cooling systems as well as insulation, with the company covering the costs and only charging customers if their energy bill is reduced.
What is one standout career development opportunity Sealed offers employees?
We are in the initial phase of building out a product and engineering team, and part of this is creating a team culture that motivates and inspires. We’re a relatively flat org with open access and exposure to everyone, and something that’s often overlooked when growing careers is exposure. Do people at various levels in an organization know and recognize your great work?
Whether it’s through architecture brainstorming sessions, sharing code or wireframes, or researching or collaborating with other teams, we are designing our team to provide opportunities for exposure and interaction. This can often be the missing accelerant in many engineering and product management careers.
Something that’s often overlooked when growing careers is exposure. Do people at various levels know and recognize your great work?”
What is one way your company supports open communication and transparency?
At Sealed, any employee is free to ask a question or share an idea with anyone else regardless of team or title. We don’t have to speak through a hierarchy. To layer on this open access, we have more formal channels for questions, such as an anonymous question form at our live all-hands Q&A. Questions are answered by our CEO and other members of our executive team.
We’re trying to take the politics out of providing the context people need to succeed and feel at ease in their role. This is especially important for a company entering a scaling phase where conditions and market dynamics are ever-changing.
What is Sealed’s approach to flexible work?
We are remote-first and leave the details of what that means to each team. For example, if a team is customer-facing and all of our current customers are on Eastern or Central time, they likely need to mirror when those customers would be most available to connect. In the case of product and engineering, that example doesn’t apply.
We have some team overlap time — for scrum meetings, as an example — but aside from that we allow each team member to schedule their work around their lives. We respect that everyone has different dynamics at home and times when they’re most productive. We strive to be performance-based and not slow our teammates down with our individual schedules.
Grow Therapy provides a platform where patients can discover therapists covered by their insurance and that handles the administrative work of accepting insurance claims for therapists.
What is one standout career development opportunity Grow Therapy offers employees?
Grow Therapy believes in reinvesting in their employees, and in the development of their careers. A great example of this commitment is the monthly education stipend that is offered to the employees. I’m passionate about continued education, so with this stipend program, I can ensure to perform at the top of my profession.
What is one way your company supports open communication and transparency?
Grow Therapy genuinely cares about open communication and the well-being of its employees. There are weekly and biweekly team meetings with managers, where we are regularly asked how we are doing and if any improvements can be made to the work process to make our jobs more efficient and enjoyable. The company promotes and fosters an open communication environment with tangible outcomes.
The company promotes and fosters an open communication environment.”
What is Grow Therapy’s approach to flexible work?
Grow Therapy allows me to manage my own schedule. One of the great benefits of that is flexibility. For example, I have a pre-teen son who tends to “forget” to inform me about important school events. The fact that I can make last minute adjustments to my schedule in order to accommodate his forgetfulness is a miracle in Mom-land. I can now be a part of important events in his life, whereas before I would end up missing them.
Cityblock Health is a value-based healthcare provider for Medicaid, dually-eligible, and lower-income Medicare beneficiaries. They partner with community-based organizations and health plans to deliver medical care, behavioral health, and social services virtually, in-home, and in community-based clinics.
What is one standout career development opportunity Cityblock offers employees?
Many of our job openings are new positions on new teams or in new markets, meaning your ideas and experience can make a real impact and help build and shape the company as it evolves. Decisions are made quickly to enable our teams to move fast and pivot if needed. While we are hiring people who have the range of experience needed to be successful in their new role, we also look for people who love to build processes that don’t exist, can offer new ideas and who thrive in ambiguity because they have a vision.
We support internal mobility and provide our team with opportunities that stretch and grow their skills: Approximately 15 percent of our open roles this year were filled by current employees. We’re really proud of this because recent research shows that making internal, lateral moves is a huge driver of employee retention during the Great Resignation.
Approximately 15 percent of our open roles this year were filled by current employees.”
What is one way your company supports open communication and transparency?
Cityblock has a hybrid workforce, so effective communication is critical to engaging our employees and keeping them informed. One of the key mechanisms we have at Cityblock is our monthly “on the block” meeting, or “OTB.” This is an opportunity for Cityfolx to hear directly from our CEO, our executive leadership team and their peers about key business updates, culture initiatives and to celebrate great work. We hear stories about our members so that everyone feels connected to them and knows the impact we’re making.
As we continue growing, we’re exploring new tools and channels to connect us to those we serve and each other. This looks like investing in our intranet, creating new Slack channels and providing office hours as a way for Cityfolx to get their questions answered and understand new systems, processes and tools.
What is Cityblock’s approach to flexible work?
While we have some member-facing roles, many of our positions are fully remote and we recognize that flexibility is what’s best for our employees. Diversity is essential to our organization and it is critical that we build an employee community that reflects the member communities we serve. In addition, offering remote opportunities enables us to build relationships with potential candidates outside of where we are located today. Our employees are scattered across the country and we are continuing to build out norms to ensure we are truly respectful of everyone’s time, for example, by scheduling meetings within core hours so that people are not working late or starting too early.
Uber, Coca-Cola and Twitter are just a few of the companies that use Foursquare’s technology to build location-based apps and services, launch geolocated marketing initiatives and better understand consumer behavior.
What is one standout career development opportunity Foursquare offers employees?
In addition to offering personalized Bravely professional coaches to all full-time employees, we also offer a generous annual learning stipend. Not only can this be used for professional development, but it can also be applied toward training that increases allyship awareness, drives inclusivity and continually improves our culture here at Foursquare.
Our professional development bonus can also be applied toward training that increases allyship awareness.”
What is one way your company supports open communication and transparency?
In the spirit of transparency and to encourage more open communication, we have quarterly meetings with every team across the company where we present employee engagement survey data and DEI metrics at both the department and company level. Sharing this data gives employees and leaders the opportunity to have open dialogue and identify areas of potential growth.
What is Foursquare’s approach to flexible work?
We have a fully flexible workplace that allows our employees to work from home, in one of our offices or in any combination that best serves them in delivering great results for our customers and stakeholders. We also continue to provide optional in-person events across our various locations for employees who want to participate.
Caesars Digital is a betting and gaming company with more than 20 million users.
What is one standout career development opportunity that Caesars Digital offers employees?
Each team member in product technology has a core role that they are hired for, but can take on additional responsibilities that they are interested in as a non-core role. These non-core roles allow team members to try out different sets of responsibilities, without any long term commitment, helping them understand different career paths. For example, there are senior engineers that take on the player-coach role. This allows them to coach more junior members of the team, working with them on both their craft as well as their career aspirations, without creating any formal hierarchy. All team members maintain autonomy in their decision making, which is one of our key principles.
What is important to our team members personally is important to the company.”
What is one way your company supports open communication and transparency?
We are a strategy-led organization. Our product technology team develops its strategy every quarter, and input is solicited from all levels within the organization, irrespective of one’s role. Once the strategy is ratified across the company, our engineers, product managers, designers, etc. all work together to develop a quarterly execution plan. That execution plan is updated consistently throughout the quarter and our progress against that plan is shared broadly across the organization, including the executive level. This ensures that all team members at all levels understand why we’re working on the things we’re working on and how we’re tracking to deliver them.
What is your company’s approach to flexible work?
We want team members to have the flexibility to enjoy their personal time, balanced with meaningful and productive work time. Our organization offers in-office, hybrid, and remote work arrangements. The product technology team is entirely remote. We also provide collaborative workspaces to get together for brainstorming and team-building exercises.
