As we enter 2022, tech employees are still working remotely around the world. Some San Francisco companies looking to hire are embracing this trend, casting a far wider net and searching for the right applicants regardless of where they are located. And businesses asking employees to head toward San Francisco want techies to join the startup hub where companies like Uber, Twitter and Airbnb once changed the world.
For job seekers across the United States, the Bay Area’s reputation precedes it. But in order to stand out from the pack, these companies are increasingly seeking to connect with current and prospective employees on a personal level. At Chime, the fintech company behind a fee-free mobile banking app, Employer Brand Manager Dakota Betts says the best way to get the job done is to keep the humanity of employees and customers alike in mind.
“When we boil it down, we’re a group of humans creating a product that is intended to improve the lives of other humans,” Betts said. “By focusing on our members, we stay centered on what keeps us all united as people — our varying experiences, perspectives and realities.”
We sat down with employees from eight San Francisco companies to learn more about the core values driving their work and how they’ve grown into their roles. All of these companies are currently hiring, making this a must-read for active job-seekers of all kinds.
Discovery Direct-to-Consumer is the technology arm of Discovery Inc., working at the intersection of technology, entertainment and everyday utility.
Discovery Direct-to-Customer’s culture in one word: Ownership.
What made you pick that word?
At Discovery, we believe in strong ownership and empowerment of the ownership across teams. We have a talent growth process through which we grow and mentor talents into specific subject-matter-expert areas, until they can own a piece of product or tech stack and truly grow their scope and impact from there. We have also created a great feedback loop to uncover where ownership was not fully supported in the past. This usually amounts to a simple test: “Would you do something differently if this were your personal business?” If the answer is “yes,” we will look into the “why” and fix it.
What’s the coolest project you’ve worked on recently?
I took on the Events Streams team earlier this year; this is where we collect and verify our first-party customer data. It sits upstream from our data and analytics, content discovery, personalization and recommendation, A/B testing tools, and anywhere else we drive data-driven growth. As a media company, we’re transitioning from a traditional broadcast business, which was more wholesale, to a direct-to-consumer model, which is more retail, and understanding our customers is the key to our success there. I’m excited to work in this customer data area and make an impact there.
Angle Health is a full-stack health insurance carrier delivering comprehensive healthcare benefits tailored to startups and technology companies.
Angle Health’s culture in one word: Teamwork.
What made you pick that word?
When a challenge arises, everyone on different teams will reach out to contribute toward a solution, even if the issue isn't specifically in their department. When we are working on new integrations to enhance our application, members of different teams will share ideas on how to deliver these new features. This allows our company to have a collaborative environment, which is ideal when it comes to building the best tools for our team and our members.
How did the coolest project you’ve worked on recently help you grow professionally?
Working at Angle Health, I have taken on projects that involve anything with finance and accounting. This has allowed me to learn new skill sets and tools over the course of six months, more than I learned at previous roles. I have had the opportunity to find new vendors and integrations that have helped out the entire team, the opportunity to build the company's budget and process from scratch, and the chance to assist in building new policies, as well as coming up with ideas of new benefits, for current employees. Working at Angle Health has given me more exposure to finance and accounting — to the overall business — that I wouldn’t be able to receive anywhere else.
Upgrade combines affordable personal loans and cards with free credit monitoring to help customers make good financial decisions.
Upgrade’s culture in one word: Collaboration.
What made you pick that word?
The team at Upgrade is a group of technically strong and generous people. We focus on helping each other because we’re a team, and we really value that! Whether it’s taking extra time to explain something or helping a team member work through a project, we believe collaboration makes us all better engineers and colleagues.
When I started working at Upgrade and submitted my first piece of code, a colleague asked if I had 30 minutes to talk about it. He didn’t have to do that, but he wanted to help me by explaining some of the best coding practices and nuances of Upgrade’s architecture. We had a lot of fun working together in the weeks that followed, and I was proud to be part of the team when we delivered a high visibility project. I’m convinced that the main reason I was able to contribute the way I did was because he took that time to help me out.
What’s the coolest project you’ve worked on recently?
It was an integration with a third party that we use to validate digital IDs such as a driver’s license or passport picture — or even a selfie! Technically, the project was cutting-edge and really challenging. It involved interacting with many new services built by other teams. It also allowed me to dive into the infrastructure and security concerns that come with opening the door to any third party, especially as the entire flow was designed in collaboration with half a dozen other parties.
It was the coolest project to work on, because the entire team collaborated together to create the design. It was a great opportunity for the senior engineers to show the more junior team members how those processes work.
Chime is a fintech company that helps its members avoid bank fees, save money automatically, and lead healthier financial lives.
Chime’s culture in one word: Human.
What made you pick that word?
When we boil it down, we’re a group of humans creating a product that is intended to improve the lives of other humans. By focusing on our members, we stay centered on what keeps us all united as people: our varying experiences, perspectives and realities.
While we’re building our product, we’re constantly grounded in the fact that we’re all human — it’s actually one of our company values! Whether we’re encouraging each other to share our diverse opinions, participating in company culture and events, or just supporting each other through a hard time, as has been the case throughout the pandemic, I feel like we do a really good job of treating each other as humans. It’s why barking dogs and kids saying ‘hello’ on Zoom calls are more than welcome at Chime.
Finally, at its core, my work is about humans. As a talent organization, we help people find new jobs, and our employment brand’s mission is to share Chimers’ stories. After all, we’re all people behind the Chime app and we’re connected to the work we’re doing — and to the people we’re doing it for.
What’s the coolest project you’ve worked on recently?
My favorite recent project was a cross-functional video to highlight reaching one thousand Chimers — at the company, internally, as well as externally — showing our growth and the people behind the app. I loved collaborating with Erin Opperman, a creative director at Chime, as well as dozens of other Chimers who were interviewed for the video or collaborated on the production and post-production process.
I had to step up as a leader to contribute to the vision for the video and manage all parts of its execution, bringing many stakeholders together and working toward a common goal. I was able to partner closely with and learn from the creative team. It was insightful to learn about the creative process and come to agreements about the work with Erin and her team. I managed a large budget and resources for the project, from inception through to distribution. Most of all, I learned about the importance of working together toward a shared mission — whether that’s our broader company’s goal or a milestone along the way, like this project.
Mynd is a tech-enabled real estate company on a mission to create happy homes and healthy investments by making single family rentals (SFR) as accessible and effortless as other types of investments.
Mynd’s culture in one word: Team-first.
What made you pick that word?
“Play team-first” is one of our core values, and it’s critical to our business. Real estate investing is very cross-functional, as we deal with physical assets, complex processes and people. Our company and software can touch an investor, vendor, resident and our internal ops teams all within one single process, such as turning any given property for a new resident. Since our processes and product are so complex and cross-functional, playing as a team has to be front and center. We all try to exemplify this value daily and celebrate it in our Slack channels, company meetings and one-on-ones.
What’s the coolest project you’ve worked on recently?
I lead the product, design and research teams. Given the complexity of our business and cross-functional dependencies, having a clear product vision is important to aligning the company. I led an initiative recently wherein I wrote the company’s product vision materials and partnered with every product manager and designer to document their respective vision, which fed into the company’s overall product vision. We had visions across leasing, residents, buying, growth and other departments all connecting back to our purpose as a company. Then, we published these visions to the entire company to get feedback, comment, debate and ultimately align on our overall guiding principle, our North Star. This was by far the coolest and most challenging thing I’ve done at Mynd and in my career. Professionally, I had to think big and small simultaneously. I had to align us from the executive level down to core ops managers. It was highly cross-functional and took exceptional communication to execute.
WeaveGrid’s mission is to drive rapid decarbonization in global transport and power sectors by intelligently connecting electric vehicles to the grid.
WeaveGrid’s culture in one word: Scrappy.
What made you pick that word?
We’re a small team with great dedication to our mission, and we work hard to find elegant solutions to the important problems we face in decarbonizing transportation. No one is ever too busy to help one another, and the team is great at sharing complementary skills to make everyone better.
What’s the coolest project you’ve worked on recently?
As we move forward with different partners, we’ve been working on growing a scalable, extensible platform. The planning for that has been rewarding and encouraging as we build our product for the future.
With 150 million monthly users across 19 million active communities, called servers, Discord has grown to become one of the most popular communications services in the world.
Discord’s culture in one word: Autonomy.
What made you pick that word?
This was one of the biggest aspects of the company culture that drew me to Discord. Combined with our philosophy of upside-down leadership, individuals are able to have significant influence on what we prioritize and develop, leading to greater overall impact. Recently, my team has developed a metric frameworks in both new and ambiguous product areas. By providing the entire team with context, clarity and guidance, individuals were able to own this end-to-end. At times, there were differing opinions from stakeholders and leads. However, the team was empowered to push for what they believed was important, given the overall goal of what we were trying to achieve. They did not simply have to acquiesce to opinions of those more senior. This allowed the team to own the outcome and push forward a project to completion.
How long have you been with Discord, and what professional growth or development have you seen in that time?
I’ve been with Discord for almost six months. In that time, I’ve grown in my ability to navigate highly ambiguous and complex areas. This hasn’t happened in a silo, as I’ve had great support from my manager, peers and team. Taking a first principles approach to problems and opportunities, as well as prioritizing excellent communication, are the keys to being successful at Discord.
Identity management startup Truework provides a way for banks, apartment-rental agencies, and other companies to check the employment details of an applicant in a quick and secure manner online.
Truework’s culture in one word: Resilient.
What made you pick that word?
The engineering team is empathetic, recognizing the hard work we’re all putting in and encouraging mutual support as we work toward our goals. Our team resonates most with our value of “designing the future.” This year, we have lofty goals to double the size of our department. We’re excited to talk to a diverse array of candidates who bring unique prior experiences to Truework.
What’s the coolest project you’ve worked on recently?
I’ve been covering for the head of engineering, as they’ve been out on paternity leave, and so I’ve had 14 direct reports. It’s been a fantastic learning experience and a great way for me to get to know everyone in the company. As a manager, it is nice to know that you can rely on your engineers to take care of the code but be available to back them up when needed.
