Gone are the days of competing for an employer’s attention. With tech skills in high demand, it’s often up to the job seeker to decide which company they should work for. Things like team perks, professional development opportunities and flexible PTO are all taken into account when choosing the best team. Built In NYC caught up with some of the city’s top tech talent and learned what attracted them to their current teams.
No matter how skilled you are, there’s always an opportunity to learn more — and that’s what attracted Software Engineer Madeline Neumiller to retail marketing platform Bluecore’s team. She talked to Built In NYC about what specifically stood out about her current colleagues just 8 months ago when she joined.
What qualities do you look for in teams you'd like to work with?
Technology changes at a rapid pace, so when I was looking for a new job I wanted to optimize for personal growth. Bluecore felt like the kind of place where I could learn a lot — I hadn’t done anything in the cloud or worked with Kubernetes, and this was an opportunity to do so. Even outside of my normal day-to-day, I continue to learn through technical talks, books of the month and demo days.
How did you know you made the right choice in choosing your current team?
At Bluecore, I was able to create change right away. In my first few days I contributed a few changes to the code base, and in my first few months I designed, implemented, and rolled out a project. I've also been able to contribute to the engineering culture by participating in the Engineering Culture Club, which is open to all engineers.
What does your team do to make staff feel welcomed after they join?
An engineer from each team meets with a new engineer after they join. Usually the pair go out for coffee or for a walk, and it’s a great way for someone new to learn about the different projects and to meet some of the engineers not on their current team.
Director of Analytics Nitya Vyas has been a part of cloud platform Turbonomic’s engineering team for the past 8.5 years, and credits the team’s open communication as one of the main reasons she joined. He explained more on that, as well as why he’s stuck around for so long.
What qualities do you look for in teams you'd like to work with?
Beyond looking for a team with a strong skillset, I look for individual members who see challenges as opportunities. A team full of strong communicators is also important — people who are able to discuss ideas and have conversations with managers.
How did you know you made the right choice in choosing your current team?
My team prioritizes communication and listening, primarily through one-on-one discussions. It’s important for a manager to understand the team’s development and motivation. I also love seeing how everyone on the team is open to lending their expertise to others within the company, and how they further their own development and enablement.
What does your team do to make staff feel welcomed after they join?
We typically match up new employees with a buddy on their team — someone they can go to with questions and help in getting set up with all of the necessary tools. We also have our daily standup meetings and celebrate together with team outings whenever possible.
Software Engineering Manager Jimmy Hernandez has been with freight logistics company Transfix for over a year, and explains that everyone’s willingness to help him when he first started inspired him to pay it forward. He explained how he’s learned to invest in colleagues’ growth the same way they invested in his.
What qualities do you look for in teams you'd like to work with?
I look to see if the team is constantly asking, “what is the most impactful thing to work on and when should it be worked on?” There is only so much time in a week, month, quarter, etc. — I want to know how the team ensures the right trade-offs are made.
How did you know you made the right choice in choosing your current team?
I primarily worked in mobile development before joining Transfix as a backend engineer. Navigating the new technologies and feature set was intimidating at times but so many people were helpful in getting me up to speed. Since then, I’ve continued to learn a lot from people who know way more about different parts of the stack than I do. The team really invested in my growth and taught me to invest in the growth of others as well.
What does your team do to make staff feel welcomed after they join?
We’ll typically host a happy hour when new members join. We break the ice over a few games of Codenames!
