Walking through Shutterstock’s office in the Empire State Building, you can hear an old Weezer song coming from CTO Marty Brodbeck’s standing desk, which is situated alongside his team. An engineer by training, Brodbeck often rolls up his sleeves and works with his team to see their ideas through.
"It's one thing to be an ivory tower leader, and another thing to actually drive strategy and work with the teams on execution," said Brodbeck, who also strives to help his people see their work in context. "One of the biggest things that I've learned is that you want your engineers to understand that every piece of code that they're writing has an impact on the customer."
We sat down with Brodbeck and discussed his in-the-trenches leadership approach and why the company still feels "startup-y."
SHUTTERSTOCK FOUNDED: 2003.
EMPLOYEES: 900 people across the globe.
WHAT THEY DO: Provide creatives with an online marketplace for content, including photos, videos and music.
WHERE THEY DO IT: In a sun-drenched office in the Empire State Building.
WHO THEY DO IT FOR: Editors, marketers and designers all over the world.
OTHER OFFICES: Denver, Montreal, London, Toronto and San Mateo.
IDEAL CANDIDATE: Experts who are passionate about what they do and eager to work collaboratively to deliver results.
What led you to Shutterstock?
Marty Brodbeck, CTO: There were a lot of reasons. First was our founder and CEO Jon Oringer, who is one of the most passionate people I know. Just to see his continued drive and passion for making Shutterstock an incredible company was contagious. The second was the opportunity to have an impact on building out the Shutterstock platform. We’re working on some really interesting problems. And third, I just love the vibe of the place. You walk in and feel the openness and infectiousness of everybody working together on creative ideas.
How is working here different from any other place you've worked?
Brodbeck: This is probably one of the only times in my career where every morning I wake up and get excited to go to work. When it comes to technology companies, your Googles or your Facebooks in Manhattan, I don't think there is a better place to work than here. I would put us up against anybody, in terms of culture, technology challenge and management and leadership.
As a leader here, I set strategy and direction, but I also get to work intimately with employees. Our engineering teams are broken up into small units of five to seven developers, and that allows them to be nimble and flexible. We do 45 to 50 releases per day, which is still very startup-y. At the same time, there's a level of governance that we put into those releases. We ensure that nothing breaks the larger Shutterstock ecosystem while we're serving our millions of customers.
How has your leadership style evolved over the years?
Brodbeck: As an engineer, it's easy to be caught in the trap of being the smartest man in the room, or always having all the answers. As you grow, you find that your job is not necessarily knowing all the answers, but figuring out a way to get to the right answer. In that sense, my style went from being really self-conscious and self-aware to understanding that, in order to scale out and be effective, I had to get my work done through others. That’s why I like to think of my role as more of a “chief collaboration officer.”
What’s your greatest challenge as a “chief collaboration officer?”
Brodbeck: In my own experience, nine times out of 10, the problems that you run into aren't technical ones — they're communication problems. We like to make sure that people have good communication skills. That is probably the single most challenging thing when scaling out capabilities or platforms, particularly with multi-site engineering organizations. Not all of our engineering teams are in New York — they're spread out all over the world — so communication and the ability to articulate problems or ideas is critical.
How do you motivate your team?
Brodbeck: I’m actively engaged in their work. It's one thing to be an ivory tower leader, and another thing to actually drive strategy and work with the teams on execution. One of the biggest things that I've learned is that you want your engineers to understand that every piece of code that they're writing has an impact on the customer. Giving them clear line of sight is important.
We also regularly reward our team members for a job well done. Every six weeks, all departments come together and recognize someone who made a fantastic call in working through a project.
What qualities do you look for as you’re hiring?
Brodbeck: I always ask a candidate to talk about the most meaningful project that they worked on and the impact that it had on the company because it teases out a couple of things. One, their enthusiasm for working on something that’s meaningful to the outcome of a company's goals, and two, their storytelling capabilities. It’s all about how they're going to balance and blend with the team.
Why would an engineer want to work at Shutterstock?
Brodbeck: It’s an engineer's dream to work on some of the stuff that we're currently working on: automating our content pipeline using machine learning, coming up with a new framework for front-end development and scaling our API-enabled business. People are empowered to make decisions on their own, and they’re allowed to fail — in fact, we advocate for it. We drive innovation through the whole company, so failing fast is necessary. And we do all of this while having fun, whether that means blasting Weezer, playing games in our game room or getting together outside the office.
