Before Lisa Harp interviewed at Segment, she already had a job offer — from a much larger tech company.
She was prepared to accept the offer, but after interviewing with Segment, a San Francisco software tech company, she changed her mind. Why?
“The people,” Harp, Segment’s head of product operations, said. “Every person I met was intelligent and kind, and they seemed generally jazzed to be there. After receiving the offer, several interviewers emailed me and offered to have follow-up conversations to help with the decision.
“That really sealed the deal.”
It also helped that she believed in the work that Segment was doing. Similarly, that’s how Julia Ama found herself working at Tinder. Like many people, she was familiar with Tinder, but what really attracted her to the company was the ability to make an impact on women.
“Tinder is placing an emphasis on improving the female experience alongside its goal of sparking new connections and matches,” Ama, a product manager, said. “There’s a necessity for gender equality in all aspects of society. I’m excited to bring another female voice to the product organization and work toward that goal of having women feel comfortable and excited about participating in the dating app journey.”
Below, we highlight seven tech professionals who wound up at these hiring companies.
What they do: Veeva’s cloud software enables the life sciences industry to bring new therapies to market faster.
As a tenured employee, what has been the biggest reason you’ve stayed at your company so long?
The number one reason is the people I work with on a daily basis. They are built into every fiber of the company at all levels. They challenge, inspire and encourage me to be part of the ecosystem that values hard work, innovation and teamwork. Another reason is being able to contribute toward developing products that are used by customers to improve and save patient lives. It gives me a sense of pride to make that difference.
I take pride in working for a company that is at the cutting edge of innovation...’’
What excites you most about where your company is headed?
What excites me most is the underlying company ethos of how it values innovation throughout the lifecycle of developing and building products. You can see how it’s embedded in the company culture. I take pride in working for a company that is at the cutting edge of innovation, which is reflected in the products we develop and build. I am excited about where the company is headed as we move to other industries beyond life sciences that can benefit from our products.
What they do: Udemy’s online learning platform helps individuals, businesses and governments gain skills to compete in today’s economy, in topics like programming and data science.
What was the deciding factor for you when you accepted your job at your current company?
At the time, Udemy’s mission “to improve lives through learning” was a big motivator as I was weighing offers from two other organizations. Udemy has a tangible impact on people’s lives, people like myself who grapple with traditional learning environments and accompanying expenses. After speaking with staff members in critical roles throughout Udemy, I was convinced it would be a fulfilling and challenging opportunity.
Finding a balance that allows us to stay on course, securely and cost-effectively, is an exciting challenge.’’
What excites you most about where your company is headed?
Our business is experiencing accelerated growth. It is my role to help the leadership team understand our shortcomings, how weaknesses can be exploited and the impact any of these shortcomings will have on our customers and roadmap. Finding a balance that allows us to stay on course, securely and cost-effectively, is an exciting challenge. But having the opportunity to expose our platform and new features to individuals and businesses globally, and hearing how their lives have improved, is the greatest reward.
What they do: Segment, a customer data platform, helps companies capture first-party customer data.
What was the deciding factor for you when you accepted your job at your current company?
While interviewing at Segment, I received a competing offer at a much larger tech company. I was prepared to go with the larger company, but one thing swayed my decision toward Segment — the people. Every person I met was intelligent and kind, and they seemed generally jazzed to be there. After receiving the offer, several interviewers emailed me and offered to have follow-up conversations to help with the decision. That really sealed the deal.
A rapidly growing company needs great product development and release processes to be able to scale effectively and grow efficiently.’’
What excites you most about where your company is headed?
Looking to the future, two things excite me the most: the market opportunity and my team’s ability to help Segment scale to meet that market opportunity. Now that Segment is part of Twilio, a cloud communications platform as a service, the growth opportunity is enormous. The combination of one of the leading customer data platforms with one of the leading customer communications platforms allows us to capitalize on this trend.
A rapidly growing company needs great product development and release processes to be able to scale effectively and grow efficiently. Many more people have input and are impacted by decisions. Repeatable processes help ensure the right people are brought together at the right time to do the right things. My team helps make that happen.
What they do: Primer, an artificial intelligence company, builds machines that can read and write, automating the analysis of large datasets.
As a tenured employee, what has been the biggest reason you've stayed at your company so long?
I joined Primer to solve the most challenging problems at the intersection of natural language processing (NLP) and product with such a talented group of people. More than three years in, that same purpose remains and is stronger than ever.
At Primer, we take great pride in understanding the day to day of analysts so that we can find ways to leverage NLP algorithms to reduce the amount of repetitive effort needed to parse through large volumes of unstructured textual information and data. It’s exciting to be able to tackle new problems every day and have a clear positive impact on how our customers make decisions with the tools we build.
We have been growing rapidly over the past few years, and it still feels like we’ve only just started.’’
What excites you most about where your company is headed?
We have been growing rapidly over the past few years, and it still feels like we’ve only just started. We are at a unique time in history with the recent advancements in natural language understanding capabilities, coupled with exponential growth in the volume of textual data that humans simply do not have the time to digest. I am thrilled to be part of a team that is pushing the boundaries of commercializing such technologies and emerging as a leader in this space.
What they do: Tinder is a dating app that was introduced onto a college campus in 2012. Since then, it has been downloaded more than 340 million times and is available in 190 countries and in 40-plus languages.
What was the deciding factor for you when you accepted your job at your current company?
When interviewing at Tinder, I was drawn to the company for two main reasons. The first was the product itself — a dating app. The psychology of dating, and how it’s influenced by social and cultural dynamics, has always fascinated me. It requires more than your regular understanding of a product and it’s always evolving. The second was the team. I could tell there was a really positive energy and drive across all disciplines. From management to individual contributors, to engineers to designers, everyone seemed invested and passionate about the company, the users and the product.
Tinder is placing an emphasis on improving the female experience alongside its goal of sparking new connections and matches.’’
What excites you most about where your company is headed?
Tinder is placing an emphasis on improving the female experience alongside its goal of sparking new connections and matches. There’s a necessity for gender equality in all aspects of society. I’m excited to bring another female voice to the product organization and work toward that goal of having women feel comfortable and excited about participating in the dating app journey.
What they do: Redwood City-based Personal Capital is a fintech company that combines technology tools with fiduciary advisory services, delivered virtually and directly to the consumer.
What was the deciding factor for you when you accepted your job at your current company?
During my interview, I had lunch with everyone on the mobile team. Everyone was funny and friendly, and they told me that they loved my take-home project solution. After, I continued with a couple more interviews, but it didn’t feel like I aced them. Personal Capital gave me an offer anyway. Instead of just moving on after a not-so-perfect interview, the team took the time to get to know me. Also, the fact that I received an offer despite being a recent graduate meant that they were willing to invest in me. I accepted the offer right away, as I knew the team must have really seen the value in me and I was confident I would enjoy working with everyone.
...the fact that I received an offer despite being a recent graduate meant that they were willing to invest in me.’’
What excites you most about where your company is headed?
We have been working toward making the codebases for our mobile apps more modular. It will give us an opportunity to find ways to make our code more robust and reusable.
What they do: ServiceNow develops a cloud computing platform for managing IT needs and digital workflows at scale, ensuring entire organizations are in a position to succeed long-term.
As a tenured employee, what has been the biggest reason you’ve stayed at your company so long?
I’ve been here for about seven years now. I think the thing that makes ServiceNow different is the community and the environment. We do Thanksgiving and we hang out after work. And it’s not just about our team — it’s really about ServiceNow in general. Even though we are a big company, we are all intertwined.
We get to express ourselves through our code because what makes ServiceNow different is that we’re not just spinning the wheel.’’
What excites you most about where your company is headed?
We get to express ourselves through our code because what makes ServiceNow different is that we’re not just spinning the wheel. We’re innovative. I don’t feel like I’m just stuck in a pigeonhole. We work with so many different technologies, and to have them actually interact with our platform is kind of amazing by itself.
