Culture.
It’s a word we prescribe often to so many facets of our lives; food, fashion, history, art, beliefs, location, identity. But what do so many of these individually defined topics have in common at their root? A sense of community, by sharing knowledge between one another.
Brazilian novelist Paulo Coehlo once said, “Culture makes people understand each other better.” And when it comes to today’s collaborative world across borders, education, business industries and more, Coehlo’s words certainly apply.
Company culture within an organization develops the same way – out of a shared basis of ideas, values, common goals and understanding for the teammates around you who build an internal community. And like other cultures, tight-knit collaboration and supportive practices are important aspects in order to truly thrive.
That’s why Built In NYC sat down with six (now-hiring) tech leaders putting an emphasis on maintaining a strong company culture for the success of their teams, and the ambitious yet achievable goals on the horizon thanks to their collaborative efforts. Looking for a new role? Your perfect match could be below.
Fidel is a financial infrastructure API, making it easy for developers to build real-time, frictionless and engaging user experiences on top of payment cards.
Culture is key: “I recently joined Fidel – a company that offers financial infrastructure APIs that help developers build real-time experiences around the moment when a user’s payment card is swiped, dipped or tapped,” Rininger said. “One of the deciding factors for me when accepting a position at Fidel was the culture. Throughout the interview process, I could see Fidel invested in their teams to not only make sure each individual was the right person for the role, but also that they were excited about the future of the company and its technology. Everyone I spoke with was passionate about what the technology could grow into and the potential value it has for consumers and businesses around the globe.
On top of that, Fidel puts an enormous amount of effort into making sure all colleagues feel heard and valued. Working remote can be challenging; however, Fidel has launched initiatives to make sure we all stay connected, from weekly game night, regular happy hours and additional one-on-one check-ins. Despite joining during the middle of a pandemic, I’ve been able to get to know my peers on a personal level, thanks to Fidel’s efforts.”
Limitless endeavors: “What excites me the most at Fidel are the untapped possibilities for our technology. New ideas pop up all the time and our leadership encourages us to explore these potential concepts and thinking. I’m excited to watch these ideas be brought to life and see how our technology continues to grow with new features and use cases.”
Taptap Send is a money transfer app created to serve immigrant communities by helping them send funds to friends and family back home in other countries.
A people-first focus: “I’ve been at Taptap Send from the beginning, starting over two years ago with about a dozen people and just two engineers.” Kasper said. “Back then I was drawn in by a scrappy startup where I could have a lot of ownership over a product I believed in. Those are still things I enjoy, but a big part of what’s kept me here is the people. We were very intentional about establishing our culture early on, and you can see the fruit of that effort in our amazing team – it’s a unique blend of humility, curiosity, desire to make the world a better place, and talent to get things done. I’m especially impressed that we've been able to maintain that character with the incredible growth we’ve had over the last couple of years.”
Scaling exponential growth: “Right now we have a lot of the types of problems you want to have at a startup – problems created when you’re successful enough to outgrow the initial version of your systems. Expanding to serve more communities means scaling our technical systems and refining the product to meet the needs of those new customers. Those sorts of challenges are really exciting opportunities for growth: for the company as a whole, for our engineering team in particular, and also for me as an individual. I’m excited to take that on and see how far we can go.”
Lively is a telemedicine company that brings the direct-to-consumer model to the world of hearing aids.
On joining the company: “There are a few big reasons,” Petrov said. “We create a service for real people – every feature matters by making our customers happier and their lives easier. My colleagues are experts in their fields and I’m always learning a lot from them. It is also exciting to solve challenges with modern technologies.”
Endless possibilities: “Becoming the best telehealth company requires a lot of engineering work. We are working on some big things and I look forward to launching some of those new features soon and continuing to grow our engineering team.”
Galileo provides users with immediate access to a team of physicians who specialize in personalized healthcare. Patients are able to connect with their own team of doctors to ask questions, keep up to date with chronic care and even renew prescriptions.
Matching the mission statement: “There were a couple of deciding factors when joining Galileo,” Ioannou said. “I deeply resonated with Galileo’s mission of revolutionizing the accessibility of healthcare while increasing quality. Galileo’s approach of combining telemedicine with in-person care is truly the future of healthcare.
The team is lean, experienced and rapidly ships quality products. Tom Lee, the CEO, is a doctor by trade and previously founded Epocrates and One Medical – multibillion-dollar healthtech companies.
Galileo is at an inflection point of exponential growth, supported by some of the best technology investors. We’re on track to multiply our patient base by 10 in 2021. I’m excited to see the impact we’ll have in the coming years!”
Future industry impact: “I am excited about a couple of core activities: building our patient base and expanding our footprint in proactive care. With more patients come more patient data to generate insights for people to lead healthier lives. Being able to reach out to Galileo users with medical insight is also huge. For example, if we notice a patient with diabetes has severe blood sugar spikes, we can recommend they to go to a hospital before the issue becomes worse.
Galileo is solving a challenging problem that has a meaningful impact on people’s lives. Every day, I’m motivated by the countless patients sharing how Galileo has improved their quality of life and am excited to bring that to everyone. The work that we’ve done building a solid foundation and the world-class team that we’ll continue to assemble will help us achieve this scale.”
Clyde is a product protection platform that’s designed to help companies drive revenue. The company works with organizations of all sizes to add extended warranties and accident protection into their existing workflows.
Strong internal support: “I have stayed at Clyde for the past 2.5 years for a few reasons: the people, the product, and the growth,” Dubow said. “The people at Clyde are the main reason that I work at Clyde. Everyone is incredibly smart, thoughtful, hardworking, empathetic, and overall nice. The pandemic has made life stressful as is, and we have a great support network that allows for working hard while also valuing mental health. The quality of talent we have brought in since I started in 2019 is incredible and has led to huge developments in our product, big sales win, increased customer performance, and the list goes on.
Secondly, I am confident that the product and vision we are building are best in class. We build everything in house as opposed to buying obsolete systems to ensure we can provide our customers and their customers with an optimal experience. We constantly win sales based on the quality of our product, and our roadmap will allow us to continue to provide a top class offering to merchants.
The third big reason that I have stayed here is the growth of the company. We have grown headcount and revenue substantially since I started and continue to grow based on the two reasons listed above.”
Success through customer satisfaction: “I cannot wait to continue to grow the sales team and company as a whole in the immediate future. We are in an amazing position with a top-of-the-line product, amazing sales team and a market eager to add product protection. We are going to listen to our customers to iterate and expand upon our current offering so that we can ensure that we are building what the market wants.
The sales team has lofty goals and my day-to-day job is managing the midmarket team. I work closely with my team to coach them so that they can improve as well as join meetings and add value as an executive representative of Clyde. I cannot wait to continue to help our customer base understand the value of our product to both them and their customers and to set ourselves up for success once we are able to partner. The beauty of our product is that we are only successful if our customers are successful, meaning that once the deal closes the real fun begins.”
Cedar is a healthcare financial technology platform that aims to empower consumers to easily and affordably pursue the care they need. Cedar’s platform is equipped with modern intelligence, enabling a better and more transparent healthcare financial experience for consumers.
On accepting the role: “During the interview process, everyone was super friendly and seemed to really care about the company,” Fann said. “By the time I was done with the interview process I felt like this was a group of people I could really look forward to working with on a daily basis.”
Engineering the future: “I’m really excited about the amount of growth the company has seen, especially in the engineering department. I really want to find ways to help the company onboard new engineers and help shape the company culture going forward.”
