One of my guilty pleasures is reading blog posts and books by entitled tech workers complaining about their last job or company. The authors complain about their managers. They ridicule company culture. The best are self-aware and point out important issues in tech. My favorite is probably Disrupted by Dan Lyons.
I thought I’d do the opposite and write about the managers and aspects of corporate culture that have made a positive impression on me. Seems more fitting for the moment.
Scoop
I currently work at Scoop. Yay, carpooling!
I don’t want to name names here. It might come across as kissing up. I might offend people I don’t mention. But there are special people at Scoop that I really appreciate.
I chose this job, in part, because the interview process was kind and thoughtful. They had a small set of coding exercises that they had clearly vetted as a team. Two future colleagues at a time interviewed me during the data science interviews. These felt like meetings to work on a real feature. Scoop really understood who I was before making me an offer. The onboarding process was even better. We volunteered at a local food bank. I had an onboarding buddy and one small and several larger projects to start working on.
There is a real sense of camaraderie at Scoop. I find this true at tech firms in general. Accomplishing most tasks requires meeting and working with 2 or 3 coworkers with different skill sets. We are all driving towards the same mission and people are genuinely happy for each other’s success. I love and honestly miss the open plan office, which was my biggest concern before switching to a tech job. An algorithm periodically pairs up random people from across the company to meet for coffee. We all have (had) lunch together regularly. This is all somewhat new to me.
Prior Jobs
I had a number of good jobs and great managers prior to joining Scoop. Alan Nicholson stands out. He was the Head of Department and the leader of our Transport group when I worked at the University of Canterbury. He invited me to shadow him when I started in academia. I watched him teach and sat in on his meetings with students. I can’t tell you how valuable this was. Sometimes boring, sure, but also incredibly valuable. Alan would invite me to dinner with his wife when we were away at a conference. That’s just the sort of small thing that tells you everything about Alan. It often felt like he believed in me more than I believed in myself.
(Bassam Musaffar, Kathy Lee, Sandy Lozito, William Chan, Nelson Lim, and Maria Lytell are other managers that have gone out of their way on my behalf. I’d recommend any of them in a heartbeat. Sorry, there are so many; I have worked on many projects and have had many managers.)
Academia is not known for camaraderie.But… The Staff Club at Canterbury provided (excellent) subsidized drinks for staff on Friday afternoons. There was no pressure to attend but it always a pleasant atmosphere. It was particularly valuable to the expats who didn’t have a strong social network in town. And there were always lots of us expats. There was a diversity in the age and rank of people who attended that I haven’t seen in after-work events since. Maybe that’s because it was so easy to stop by for a bit, whatever was going on at home. We also had tea time together every morning. Tea time is pleasant. There are some things the Commonwealth just does better.
I spent more than 6 years at the RAND Corporation. One thing I like about RAND, that runs somewhat contrary to what I’ve written above, is that they treat you like an adult. You choose your own adventure. You are responsible for finding funded projects to work on — either bringing in moneys or convincing a colleague with a project to “hire” you. It’s called the internal labor market. Yes, it can be stressful and dystopian. Yes, it can be a tax on the young, the introverted, etc. But it offers you some sense of control and visibility into status within the company. It forces you to figure out where you fit in. You learn how to contribute. You learn about your coworkers, both who is strong in what areas and who has your back. It’s relatively easy to change what you work on and who you work with. I never got bored in 6+ years at RAND. I learned about cyberwarfare and about flood risk in Coastal Louisiana. I went to Puerto Rico to inspect hurricane damage and to Lansing, Michigan to meet with an Army “textile technologist.” I coded, I presented, and I wrote. I did all this as a relatively shy person with no connections in government and a primary interest in transportation (which, let’s be honest, isn’t ideal for securing grant money).
Uni
I was lucky to have great advisers in college and graduate school, Chuck ReVelle and Samer Madanat. Professor ReVelle always had time for me, ignored it when I said something stupid (as college students do), and gave me solid advice on what to do after college. I could say similar things about Samer. He gave me honest feedback at the time in my life when I needed it the most. He’s always looked out for me an
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