In the eight months that Senior Engineering Manager Jillian Kando has worked at ezCater, the corporate catering company has raised $100 million dollars, bought a company in Paris and doubled in size.
That’s impressive if not surprising: Since ezCater’s 2007 launch, the tech company has transformed a $24 billion-per-year industry, becoming the only nationwide option for ordering catering online and changing the way businesses provide food for events and meetings across the country.
To date, Kando estimates they’ve served more than 59 million people across the country from companies of all sizes, including 90 percent of the Fortune 500.
But Kando said she’s most proud when she hears about how the products her team is building are directly helping catering partners — in her words, they “solve problems for real people.” We caught up with Kando to learn more about her work at ezCater.
You joined ezCater about eight months ago. What made you want to work for the company?
I’ve spent the last 11 years building products for startups, and the last three of those years working for myself as an independent contractor. When I started contracting as a software engineer at ezCater, I never intended to become a full-time employee. When I was offered a full-time position two months later — after seeing how the company operated from the inside — I decided it was an opportunity I could not pass up.
The people, transparent culture and business opportunity were what drew me to join ezCater. People here are happy. We empower engineers, and people in all roles, to make decisions and contribute in meaningful ways. I enjoy coming into the office every day and spending time with the people around me. It’s the most transparent company I have ever worked for. We get to hear about the ups and downs and watch this company rapidly grow firsthand. It’s an exciting time to be at ezCater, and I feel lucky to be a part of it.
It’s very rewarding to solve problems for real people.”
What’s ezCater’s mission, and how is it reflected in the engineering team’s work?
EzCater is the world’s largest online marketplace for business catering. We help businesspeople from organizations of all sizes and industries, and we help over 60,000 restaurants and caterers grow their catering business.
My team works on the caterer side of the marketplace. We build the core features that restaurant operators use to manage their catering business, and are working on new ones as we grow our product suite. We spend a lot of time with our partners, learning their needs so that we can build products that empower them to run their businesses better. It’s very rewarding to solve problems for real people. The entire team has exposure to the problems we are trying to solve and the people we are solving them for.
Describe the engineering team’s culture. Any fun team traditions?
Our engineering team feels like a bunch of friends who get together daily to solve problems. Everyone is very helpful, and it is not uncommon to see people from different teams pairing on a development task. We work hard to build and maintain quality products for our partners and customers, but we make time to have plenty of fun. The ‘Fun Club’ plans activities for engineering and product, like painting our own coffee mugs, trips to Harpoon, or in-house trivia and karaoke. We work in squads — which include engineers, a product manager, a designer and a design researcher — and plan squad outings, like bowling or rock climbing, to celebrate wins and bond outside of the office.
What do you look for in engineering candidates?
When interviewing, I have to consider whether we are a good fit for the candidate as much as whether they are a good fit for us. I am looking to see if the candidate will contribute to my team in a positive way, but also if we can support them to be successful at ezCater. We look for someone who aligns with our core culture values, like being insanely helpful, being data-driven and aiming higher. They should care about what they are building and want to be a part of a team that is making a difference in our customers’ lives. Of course, we also look for people who are at the right technical level or show potential for the role we are hiring for.
What is a big challenge the engineering team faces? How are you working to overcome it?
We’re growing really fast, which can cause some challenges, but we’re deliberate about maintaining focus. We do this in a number of ways. For example, each squad has its own mission or specific goal that they are trying to achieve. This keeps our teams focused on the right things and prevents overlap in the work we do.
How do you maintain your team’s culture as it grows?
Culture starts at the top. Our founders live and breathe ezCater values, and that trickles down through management and to individual teams. We’ve been able to maintain our company culture throughout the growth we have seen in the last year. Truly, it is a team effort. It is not uncommon for people to cross-check our core values on a given topic. We talk about these values a lot, whether we are making a hiring decision, changing a process or explaining a technical decision.
What about your work most inspires you?
Working with such intelligent, caring engineers inspires me every day. Watching my teams push to be better, learn more and solve problems for our partners is incredibly rewarding.
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