Brazilian soccer superstar Pelé once said that a great player isn’t just the person who scores a lot of goals.
“A great player is a player who can do everything on the field,” Pelé said. “He can do assists, encourage his colleagues, give them confidence to go forward.”
Though specifically referencing athletic colleagues, Pelé’s comments are easily applicable to teams off the field. These six New York companies similarly value team members who are collaborative, welcoming and talented.
With people-first and mission-driven cultures, the companies — including Chapter, Sorare and Checkout.com — are growing fast and hiring across roles in development and engineering, operations, design, marketing, product and more.
Built In New York connected with the organizations featured below to learn more about how they develop talented employees who score big and support their teammates.
Chapter’s digital platform helps retirees navigate Medicare and maximize their coverage benefits.
Think back to your early days on the job. What stood out to you most about Chapter’s culture?
I joined Chapter because I knew that the people here valued empowering employees and were excited by helping seniors navigate retirement and Medicare. However, when you join a company, you know you’ve been sold a vision that may or may not reflect reality. Talking about the mission sounds great, but you may wonder: do these value statements actually mean anything? At Chapter, they do.
In an early meeting, I was discussing trade-offs in a small part of our onboarding funnel with our founders, engineers and lead Medicare advisor. I was scared because, in previous jobs, I had experienced micromanagement from leaders and meetings where the mission was explicitly invoked and then ignored. At Chapter, it is different. We all have our say. Our opinions are heard.
That meeting ended with our CEO Cobi Blumenfeld-Gantz saying, “I trust you all. Just remember that the goal is to help seniors.” It’s a line that I’ve heard many times since. We’ve learned a lot, and we understand the business much better than we did back then. Still, in so many discussions, it’s the same message.
What’s the coolest project that you’ve worked on recently, and what skills did it help you develop?
I’m currently working on expanding our internal suite of tools that Medicare advisors use when helping their customers. In the past, I’ve primarily worked on customer-facing products, so working with internal users has stretched my skills in the best ways.
I’ve been able to expand my leadership and project management focus from the narrow view of my squad to a large cross-functional team. In the past, I’ve worked mostly with people who understood the product development life cycle, but now I’m working with people who are much more operational and think in completely different ways than I’m used to. I’ve had to sit in their shoes, understand their needs and make sure that we’re all rowing in the same destination.
I’ve been able to expand my leadership and project management focus from the narrow view of my squad to a large cross-functional team.”
A highlight is working directly with our advisors. Watching them every day has been a master class in building empathy with customers in a way that is totally different than what I’ve ever experienced before. Observing them not only helps me build products that will help them succeed, it teaches me how to listen to others’ needs and explain the right solutions. Our advisors are smart, energized and dedicated.
Sorare offers a fantasy sports platform where users can buy and sell digital player cards in the form of NFTs.
Think back to your early days on the job. What stood out to you most about Sorare’s culture?
When I joined Sorare, one of the things that stood out the most was how passionate and knowledgeable everybody was about football, the NBA and the MLB. I was already expecting my colleagues to be interested in sports, but in my early days, I had deep conversations about players’ performances and the history of various clubs. I even briefly chatted with Sorare Co-Founder and CEO Nicolas Julia about Millonarios, my hometown football club in Colombia.
This passion for sports transfers to what we do daily to improve the Sorare experience for all of our users. Whether it is launching a new sport or enhancing a long-standing feature, everybody on the team is devoted to delivering the highest quality work.
Whether it is launching a new sport or enhancing a long-standing feature, everybody on the team is devoted to delivering the highest quality work.”
How long have you been with Sorare, and what professional growth have you seen in that time?
I’ve been at Sorare for five months. One of the areas where I’ve grown the most involves complex problem-solving.
I’ve worked on projects that focus on improving the Sorare wallet experience and marketplace. These two areas might not sound like the most challenging parts to design, but when you introduce the blockchain aspect to a wallet or a marketplace, they become complicated and foreign to most people.
Being part of these projects helped me learn the intricacies of Web3 and blockchain technologies. It forced me to challenge the status quo and think deeply about how to make a Web3 marketplace and wallet feel familiar, simple and trustworthy.
Fintech company Checkout.com provides a cloud-based payments platform for brands including Patreon, Udacity and Sony Electronics.
Think back to your early days on the job. What stood out to you most about Checkout.com’s culture?
When I first joined Checkout.com, it really stood out to me how much the team made an effort to create a welcoming environment. From my welcome box of Checkout.com swag to the onboarding meeting, efforts by the team really connected everyone and made us feel like we were joining a company that was doing great things.
One year later, many of my co-workers are friends. The office in New York is something we’re really proud of; it’s such a beautiful space in a beautiful location. Lunches on the rooftop in the summer are definitely a highlight.
When I first joined Checkout.com, it really stood out to me how much the team made an effort to create a welcoming environment.”
How long have you been with Checkout.com, and what professional growth have you seen in that time?
I’ve been with Checkout.com for almost a year now. I’ve really loved being able to apply my knowledge of financial crimes compliance to the payments industry and across all of Checkout.com’s product offerings.
I am on my way to becoming an expert in risks pertaining to money laundering and sanctions in fiat and virtual currency payments, and I have appreciated the opportunities that Checkout has given me to deepen those skill sets. Recently, I was asked to present at an industry conference on these topics. I’ve seen how Checkout.com has the opportunity to be a leader in establishing standards for fintech compliance programs.
Mack Weldon is a menswear brand on a mission to reinvent basics with performance fabrics and smart designs.
Think back to your early days on the job. What stood out to you most about Mack Weldon’s culture?
When I started at Mack Weldon, it was clear that the company had a strong and distinct culture. What stood out to me was the genuine nature of the people and the strong partnerships across different departments. I appreciated the fact that everyone, including cross-functional partners, was open to change and eager to make a positive impact.
I have been given the opportunity to not only perform my role but also branch out and assist in other departments, allowing for a diverse range of experiences and growth opportunities.”
How long have you been with Mack Weldon, and what professional growth have you seen in that time?
I have been with the company for a little over a year now, and I have never felt so genuinely supported in my growth and development. I have been given the opportunity to not only perform my role but also branch out and assist in other departments, allowing for a diverse range of experiences and growth opportunities.
Mack Weldon has been an amazing experience and provides a supportive environment for personal and professional development.
Place Exchange is a platform that allows marketers to plan, buy and measure their digital media and advertisement displays in physical spaces.
Think back to your early days on the job. What stood out to you most about Place Exchange’s culture?
At Place Exchange, we place a high degree of trust and faith in our engineers across all levels. As a result, each engineer has the autonomy to make decisions and explore areas that are uniquely interesting to them. This became evident the moment I joined, and it remains one of the defining aspects of our engineering culture.
Early on in my time at PX, one of our engineers considered exploring a testing framework for our services to identify performance regressions. I had the freedom and flexibility to take on this project, build an initial implementation and apply it to one of our services. It was a great learning opportunity to independently lead a project outside of our product roadmap so early on in my role. The engineer who suggested it also provided consistent guidance and context for me to tackle this project successfully.
Additionally, when I joined PX, I voiced interest in developing on the site reliability engineering and infrastructure fronts. Currently, I’m involved in our active mentorship learning program, in which I’m paired with a leader from our site reliability engineering team and given hands-on guidance. For example, I am able to dive deep into our usage of AWS and Kubernetes.
Each engineer has the autonomy to make decisions and explore areas that are uniquely interesting to them.”
What’s the coolest project that you’ve worked on recently, and what skills did it help you develop?
Last year, we worked on releasing Dynamic Creative capabilities at Place Exchange, which enables advertisers to run display creatives that render depending on context. For example, it can display live betting odds for an upcoming NBA game or a different version of a display creative depending on the local weather.
While working hands-on to develop these capabilities, I was also directly involved in planning a feature at the epic level and collaborating on system design, which became a fantastic learning experience.
Planning was a challenging endeavor because this feature is new within the programmatic digital out-of-home space. Initially, requirements were ambiguous. We wondered: what do our partners and advertisers need from this feature?
I developed skills planning an epic end-to-end while minimizing its scope to deliver value to our partners quickly. I was also able to take an iterative development process and incrementally introduce more capabilities while proving out our new features and collecting customer feedback. Additionally, I had the opportunity to work closely with external stakeholders on both business and development fronts.
Hivemind is an investment firm that specializes in blockchain technologies, cryptocurrencies and other digital assets.
Think back to your early days on the job. What surprised you about Hivemind’s culture?
Before I started working at Hivemind, I met the leadership team at a group off-site after I accepted my job. Coming into the day of meetings and activities, I was nervous about starting in a new environment full of such well-qualified and experienced individuals. However, I was pleasantly surprised by how welcoming everyone was and how quickly I felt comfortable.
Our leadership made a point from the very beginning to maintain a driven, competent and familial company culture with an emphasis on mutual respect and kindness. They’ve maintained that approach as we continue to hire and grow.
Another point that I was pleasantly surprised by was how much everyone truly values my input, perspectives and experience, even though I am a junior member of the team. It is exciting to be given permission to explore my ideas and then see them implemented.
This extends to the broader team culture. Our leadership doesn’t have a typical “do as I say” mentality. They are very collaborative, which allows our company to flourish. The leaders all have an open-door policy, and we are able to express our thoughts and opinions without hesitation.
At Hivemind, I have been not only supported but encouraged to take leadership over many of my projects, which has greatly furthered my growth professionally.”
How long have you been with Hivemind, and what professional growth have you seen in that time?
Since I started at Hivemind less than a year ago, I can confidently say that I have grown into a better professional in a variety of ways.
I think that many people can relate to being in their mid-20s and, despite having enough experience, facing barriers to taking charge of roles and projects in a corporate environment. At Hivemind, I have been not only supported but encouraged to take leadership over many of my projects, which has greatly furthered my growth professionally.
The leadership team is also very good at effectively pushing me in areas where I have less knowledge or experience, without creating a stressful or toxic culture. For example, when I need to make an improvement — whether it’s better communicating on a project or fixing an error — a senior-level person will productively bring it to my attention and explain what needs to be worked on and why. This type of constructive criticism has brought some areas for growth that I was previously unaware of to my attention, which has propelled my professional development immensely.
