What do you get when you combine office dogs, free snacks and supportive company culture?
To some, it sounds like a dream job — but for Alessandra Armstrong, it’s just another day in the life of her role as a senior account executive at Trustpilot. Though the pandemic has left the decision to work in-person up to employees, Armstrong described the software company’s office environment as fun and welcoming — particularly when it comes to celebrating and strategizing with the team: “We want each other to be successful, which is refreshing to see in a competitive environment.”
Like Trustpilot companies across Colorado are designing their workplace cultures with an intention to stand out in the tech landscape. Built In Colorado sat down with Armstrong, Cary and leaders from six other companies — namely Zayo, Hotel Engine, Documoto, Tipico, Suited Connector and Gtmhub — to learn what projects, resources and cultural qualities make their respective organizations unique. And they’re all hiring now!
What’s one thing that makes your company culture special?
When I first joined the Hotel Engine team, it was clear to me that this company would be so different from any other place I’d worked previously. The transparency and openness amounted to a breath of fresh air. One of the things I value most about our culture here is the trust we receive from leadership. Hotel Engine hires smart, proactive individuals and trusts them to get the job done, while also understanding that first and foremost, we are all people. That balance of freedom and trust resonates with me and has helped me develop an incredible relationship with our management.
An employer that not only recognizes the importance of mental health, but also takes steps to help associates cope in healthy ways is refreshing.”
What’s one company benefit that has really enhanced your experience as an employee?
We are all doing everything we can to continue living through this pandemic and all of the hurt, sorrow and loss that has come with it over the past two years. Because of that, supporting positive mental health has been a front-and-center focus for many of us. I was thrilled earlier this year when Hotel Engine rolled out a free Calm membership for all employees to aid us in finding space for self-care through this tumultuous time. Personally, I suffer from anxiety, so this benefit has given me moments of silence and peace when I need them most. It helps to ground myself when my mind is moving ten thousand miles a minute. Having an employer that not only recognizes the importance of mental health, but also takes steps to help its associates cope in healthy ways is so refreshing.
What’s one thing that makes your company culture special?
The company culture at Trustpilot is one of a kind — collaborative, rewarding and welcoming. As a team, we celebrate everyone’s success and more importantly, we help each other strategize on challenges that arise within the sales cycle. We have created a work atmosphere that gives our team the space to communicate openly and honestly, which in turn has led us to form meaningful bonds with one another. Due to the pandemic, we started working from home and it was encouraging to see that our company culture was not jeopardized one bit. When we do go into the office — which is still optional — it is by far the most relaxed, fun and welcoming environment. Imagine wearing casual attire, being surrounded by dogs running around and never having to buy snacks — you can’t beat it.
A work atmosphere that gives our team the space to communicate openly and honestly has led us to form meaningful bonds.”
What’s one company program that has really enhanced your experience as an employee?
Back in 2018, a Trustpilot employee founded Trustpilot Women in Leadership, an employee-led resource group that was formed to help foster female leadership within our workforce. As a woman in sales — a male-dominated industry — it was encouraging to see that our company prioritizes change.
What’s one thing that makes your company culture special?
Open culture is a big deal at Documoto. We have weekly companywide lunches where Documoto pays — we often end up with Thai food, but our team is always open to suggestions — and we all eat together. It’s a nice change of pace to sit and talk with your coworkers. We discuss everything from current Netflix shows to upcoming movies and musicals to anything that isn’t work-related. It provides a nice break and gives everyone a chance to get to know each other better.
We have weekly companywide lunches where we all eat together. It’s a nice change of pace to sit and talk with your coworkers.”
What’s the coolest project you’ve worked on recently, and what did you enjoy most about it?
One cool feature we’ve been working on lately is virtual scrolling. We have large customer data sets and being able to show this data seamlessly in the user interface has always been a problem. While running JavaScript in browsers today is fast, and we can iterate through massive lists with ease, we still have limitations when rendering that data. We started digging into solutions, and after some proof-of-concept work, we landed on where we wanted to go. We now leverage the computational power of browsers today and abstract our view layer into a subset of data. This technique allows us to display massive lists with low overhead. I love the ability to overcome problems like this, and our engineering team is primed for these sorts of obstacles.
What’s one thing that makes your company culture special?
In addition to our deep commitment to fostering a culture of inclusivity, transparency, creativity and belonging, we have a history of asking for frequent feedback and being open to creative internal career growth. It has been fun to support employees’ passions and skills transferring across functional groups, while seeing the success it has brought them and the company as they pave unique career paths across Zayo.
Employees regularly have the ability to ask questions and provide solutions in multiple forums including company all-hands meetings, where we solicit questions and comments; regular functional town halls; quarterly engagement and pulse surveys; open forums; zConnects with direct and skip-level managers; task forces; steering committees; employee resource groups; internal and external effortless surveys; and opportunities to join zChats with senior and executive leadership to discuss specific business topics or anything that is on your mind. We not only do an excellent job of asking, but we also listen and use the data to find solutions and process improvements, identify gaps or risks, improve training and experiences, and learn from each other.
We have a history of asking for frequent feedback and being open to creative internal career growth.”
What’s the coolest project you’ve worked on recently, and what did you enjoy most about it?
We have had an exciting year. I’m most passionate and proud of leading the relaunch of our six employee resource groups. This program has been the most rewarding experience I have had at Zayo over the years due to the colleagues it has allowed me to connect with — and I have learned tremendously from their diverse perspectives. I have also seen leaders from all levels of the organization step up to have difficult, honest and vulnerable discussions, resulting in more supportive and enhanced community involvement.
However, the most fun project I worked on this past year involved our Zayo Next Generation initiative. We started by working on our foundation and structure, then implemented a new operating model, ambition and strategy to help us continue to scale the organization, which led to the fun part: evolving our culture. It’s been engaging and inspiring to work with colleagues — all of whom come from different levels of the company with their own diverse thoughts and backgrounds — through focus groups, surveys and small working sessions to evolve our values, operating norms and culture as a whole.
What’s one thing that makes your company culture special?
Tipico curates a culture of freedom and responsibility. The company honors this by trusting every employee with unlimited vacation time, flexible work schedules and remote working options. This level of freedom creates a culture where people feel encouraged and rewarded to share ideas and speak openly without fear of repercussions. Everyone’s opinion is heard, which builds a sense of unity and community — we’re all in this together.
Everyone who walks in the door has the power to leverage their creativity.”
What’s one company resource that has really enhanced your experience as an employee?
We closed last year with a “unique feature” workshop across all departments to give employees the opportunity to talk with each other and affect the company’s roadmap for 2022. There was an open board for ideas made available to everyone upfront to encourage active participation and ensure that everyone came prepared, which is key for a great workshop. The outcome was more than 100 ideas, tangible initiatives on our roadmap, plus collaboration and knowledge shared in an interactive way. Such activities remind us that everyone who walks in the door has the power to leverage their creativity at Tipico.
What’s one thing that makes your company culture special?
I love that at Suited Connector, we are always allowed to experiment and test out new ideas. Starting in an entry-level position, I thought I might not have much say in our strategy. But within my first weeks, I had the opportunity to contribute my approach with new tests I generated by myself. There were a few failures with those tests, but I was given a chance to prove my ideas. The best part was when the SuCo team helped me understand what went wrong in the tests and supported me to build new ones based on what I learned. This opportunity to own my approach has continued to expand; now my ideas are adopted by other parts of the business too.
I love that we are always allowed to experiment and test out new ideas.”
What’s the coolest project you’ve worked on recently, and what did you enjoy most about it?
The most remarkable project I worked on recently was a complete redesign of our user experience. From the start of this project, I loved working with our user experience team to identify pain points for our users, transferring an idea from my head into reality with our design team and working alongside our engineering team to launch. This project was great because it forced me to think outside of the box and connected me with new parts of the business — and the results greatly affected performance.
What’s one thing that makes your company culture special?
Our culture is unlike anything I have experienced in software sales. Throughout the entire company, everyone is eager to help with deals — from marketing and success all the way up through our co-founder and CEO, Ivan. On numerous occasions, our UK-based co-founder and chief strategy officer, Bo Pedersen, has joined deal calls well before and after his working hours because of the executive relationships he wanted to foster to help the deal progress. The mentality of winning and losing as a team is not just something we say, but it’s something we act on.
The mentality of winning and losing as a team is not just something we say, but it’s something we act on.”
What’s the coolest project you’ve worked on recently, and what did you enjoy most about it?
I am currently working on an opportunity with a large and recognizable U.S. brand. Throughout the entire sales cycle, I’ve been empowered to work with our product marketing team to create unique content offerings tailored toward current events affecting the dynamics of their business. It has been awesome to see how flexible we are as a company and how aligned we are with the prospect’s business. This team effort has allowed us to earn trust and build relationships throughout their entire C-suite.
