Before you close the final chapter of 2021, take a moment to reflect. What’s on the horizon of your career? Where do you want to go or grow in the new year? How will you get there? With just under two months left this is the perfect time to look into new potential employers or explore the world of tech in a more hands-on way.
But first, consider the characteristics of your best-case-scenario employer. Perhaps you want to seek out a company whose mission you click with. If you value connection, then the company culture and the people you could potentially be working alongside might be the deciding factor. Or maybe you care about how employees are supported through thoughtful benefits and opportunities for professional growth.
No matter your priority, these four local companies are on a hiring spree and they’ve got your wishlist covered. You could be exactly who they’re looking to start a strong Q1 with.
What they do: From healthcare and academia to boardrooms and living rooms, Zoom is keeping the world connected securely and seamlessly through innovative video communications. While their foundation was built in video, they’ve been developing products that can keep up with our growing need to connect both professionally and personally. Zoom Apps, Events and Community are just a few of their latest connectivity solutions.
Notable perks and benefits: Zoom takes pride in listening to its employees when it comes to benefits. As it stands, they have a number of volunteer-friendly policies in place, including: paid volunteer time off, opportunities to volunteer in the local community and partnerships with nonprofits. The focus on helping others even carries over into the company culture, where The Happy Crew — a group of global volunteers — lives the company mission of delivering happiness, internally.
View from the inside: Community is an important piece of the Zoom puzzle — especially for their developers. Software engineer BJ Zamites has an insightful take on what makes it so great. “If you have an opinion about anything — user experience, project direction, something technical — it’s well-received in our Zoom tech community. I haven’t heard any organizational excuses about why we can’t do something. Whether or not we implement or build something is solely based on substantive disagreement, backed by data and what is best for the end user.”
What they do: By uniting genetics and technology, Invitae is making it their mission to bring comprehensive genetic information — an important facet of everyone’s medical past and future — to mainstream healthcare.
Notable perks and benefits: Mentorship, lunch and learns, and cross functional training are just a few of the many professional development benefits Invitae offers. Their pet friendly office — complete with a stocked kitchen and game room — is there waiting for its employees returning from PTO or sabbatical.
View from the inside: When handled thoughtfully and intentionally, conflict can be a healthy way to boost open communication. One of Invitae’s talent team members, Sylvia Arifin, notes that their value of “radically honest communication” leads to more productive conversations. “When we communicate in a clear and direct way while owning what we say, we get to the heart of the matter so much more quickly,” she recently told Built In “We have a sense of urgency in our mission, so this is important to us. Not only does practicing healthy conflict allow us to be high-performing as a team, it also makes it natural for us to be radically honest and transparent with the people we serve as clients.”
What they do: Unity is creating and operating interactive, real-time 3D (RT3D) content — and they’re doing it with passion and collaboration. From architects and automotive designers to game developers and filmmakers, Unity is on a mission to help creatives bring their imaginations to life.
Notable perks and benefits: Not local to San Francisco or hoping to lock in a remote position? Unity offers both relocation assistance and a home office stipend for remote employees. Going beyond their $100 fitness subsidy and health insurance through Aetna and Kaiser, mental health benefits are also an option.
View from the inside: As Unity pursues major growth goals, their VP of global recruiting, Amber Hayes, is focusing on the future. One particular challenge she’s looking forward to tackling is improving the candidate experience: “Given our rapid growth over the last year, we’re looking at how we can take some of the remote interviewing and onboarding processes that were adapted in 2020 and build them into our long-term hiring strategies. We are looking at how we can use our own real-time 3D platform to enhance our online candidate’s experience.”
What they do: HashiCorp might have their head in the cloud — but with good reason. Their infrastructure software offers a suite of tools that allows organizations big and small to automate and streamline their operations process. And earlier this summer, they cracked the top five on Forbes’ Cloud 100 List.
Notable perks and benefits: A collaborative culture is key at HashiCorp, where employees participate in group brainstorming sessions and team-based strategic planning. Lines of communication benefit from the open door policy, and employees are known to be friends outside of the office. And mental health benefits are offered in addition to dental, vision and health insurance.
View from the inside: The future looks bright and ready for growth at HashiCorp. Even as the company expands, employees stick around for the long term for the culture. Andy Manoske, principal product manager of cryptography and security, credits his tenure to it: “The company’s focus on building an internal culture of respect, kindness and passion toward collaboratively solving hard problems with the open source community remains fundamental to how we operate. The same mission and culture that excited me to join when HashiCorp was a few dozen people continues as we near a few thousand.”
