I’ve been the new guy at several different startups in my career, and during the first week or so it’s always an interesting experience to get a peek behind the curtains and see what the actual culture of a company looks and feels like. A lot of promises are made during the recruiting process, but do companies actually deliver?
I’m extremely fortunate to say that so far, all of the startup companies I’ve joined in the past have, for the most part, delivered on their promises. However, my first few weeks at Sysdig Cloud have far exceeded my expectations as a new employee – here are four reasons why:
Collaboration:
Hiring great talent isn’t the same thing as hiring who is located near your office. In Sysdig Cloud’s case that means that our team is geographically spread out across a couple continents. How do you make sure everyone is working together towards common goals in the most efficient way possible? I think the answer is effective collaboration.
Besides using tools that enable collaboration internally (Slack, Skype, Trello, etc.) I think what makes Sysdig Cloud special is the dedication towards company-wide collaboration. Every week we have a team day located in one of our two Bay Area offices where everyone gathers and works together in-person for the whole day. During team days we also have a company wide call where the leadership team provides company and product updates, and everyone (from engineers to sales to operations) has the ability to ask questions, provide feedback, and bring up issues that are important to them. Even outside of these more formal settings, I’ve found everyone very open to take a break from what they are doing to help answer questions… even all of the annoying ones coming from a new guy like me (thanks everyone!).
Some of the best ideas I’ve seen just in the few short weeks I’ve been here stemmed from these informal pow-wows during team days. It’s really exciting for me to see my new employer inspire creativity and collaboration across all departments.
Benefits:
Where do I start? I was already really excited about this opportunity at Sysdig Cloud, but when I got the offer letter that outlined the benefits that are offered to all employees I was floored! Besides all of the standard startup perks (free food, free drinks, flexible working hours, etc) here is a list of some of my favorites:
- Monthly house cleaning service – pretty self-explanatory. Get your house cleaned once a month on the company’s dime.
- Self-improvement subsidy – spend up to $100 per month on whatever you want to make yourself a better person or further your career. Gym memberships, classes, books, massages – whatever you choose.
- Computer budget – when you join you get a budget to buy your own computer, monitor, and peripherals. Do you have a favorite kind of monitor or laptop configuration? Spend the budget however you want so you are as productive as possible.
- Unlimited vacation – employees are not only encouraged to take time off, we are required to take 2-3 weeks off each year. Thats a rule I am more than happy to obey.
Events:
Besides the aforementioned team days, we also have monthly team happy hour events. These events are things like bowling, going out to dinner, or catching a San Francisco Giants game. I haven’t been on board long enough to attend one of these yet, but I am definitely looking forward to attending the next one.
We also recently held a company retreat in Napa that all employees attended. It was great to meet our distributed team face to face and to work (and play) alongside them for an entire week. Besides getting a bunch of work done, we participated in team building activities, brainstormed company values, drafted a mission statement (is “getting shit done” a mission statement?), played some bocce ball, ate good food, and drank excellent Napa Valley wine.
As a new person, this company retreat was great timing as I was able to connect and bond with the entire company during my 2nd week. In addition to be really excited about the company and the product, I left the retreat blown away by the quality of people we have on board.
Great technology:
I’ve had the pleasure of marketing great technology throughout my career. I think one of the best ways to truly understand how great a particular technology is to judge a user’s first time reaction to the product. Over my first few weeks here I’ve sat in on dozens of product demos and the vast majority of prospects are speechless when they first see what Sysdig Cloud is capable of. To witness this euphoria first hand is an awesome experience and great validation of what we are building at Sysdig Cloud.
We’ve also organized a few meetups oriented around our open source tool, sysdig, that have been well received by the community. If you want to learn more about upcoming meetups, join our meetup group or follow us on twitter to stay up to date.
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If you are interested in exploring career opportunities at Sysdig Cloud, visit our jobs page or email us at [email protected]. Please share this blog post if you or someone you know might be interested in working here. Even if we don’t have a formal job opening, we are always looking to add great people so don’t hesitate to reach out!