Giddy anticipation for the holidays, renewed optimism for the new year and the invigorating bite of cooler weather — there’s a certain magic in the San Francisco winter air.
As the tree at Pier 39 is adorned with twinkling lights and Scoma’s fills with gathering friends, San Francisco’s tech scene creates its own winter wonderland. Built In San Francisco has curated a list of eight noteworthy companies gearing up for a flurry of growth.
These San Francisco companies bring good to the world in their own ways, but all eight have put time and effort into their people-first benefits — and each one has its eyes on a stellar 2024. Grab a toasty mug of cocoa and learn more about what San Francisco’s tech winter wonderland has to offer.
Featured companies
What Render does: Render is a unified cloud that developers use to run apps and websites. The company recently closed a $50 million series B investment round.
THE PERKS
- Flexible work schedule
- Free daily meals
- Home-office stipend for remote employees
Who Render is hiring: While jobseekers will find plenty of opportunities at Render, the company is currently focusing on bringing in developers and engineers. Software engineers, backend designers and related roles are in high demand.
What Philo does: Philo offers an entertainment-focused streaming service nationwide. The San Francisco company also has offices in New York and Massachusetts.
THE PERKS
- Company sponsored family events
- Wellness programs
- Pet friendly
Offering options: “We have always placed a high value on in-person collaboration, but we also recognize that the world has changed in the past few years,” CEO Andrew McCollum told Built In San Francisco in May. “As a company, we want to give people the flexibility to choose the way of working that will enable them to do their best work, and we want to support both hybrid and remote as first-class experiences at Philo.” Philo has adopted a “remote control” policy that allows most employees to elect to work remotely or hybrid on a quarterly basis.
What Embroker does: Embroker, founded in 2015, provides commercial insurance services for businesses.
THE PERKS
- Generous parental leave
- Employee stock purchase plan
- Mentorship program
New leadership: In July of 2023, Ben Jennings became Embroker’s CEO after spending four years as the company’s chief revenue officer. He will manage the continued rollout of ONE, a new Emrboker tool that harnesses AI and machine learning to generate customized insurance products.
What SendBird does: SendBird’s advanced conversation platform powers engagement in apps over chat, voice and video.
THE PERKS
- Family medical leave
- Team based strategic planning
- Company equity
Creating connections: Teams at SendBird are building a powerful chat API that keeps teams from working in isolation. “Sendbird’s products facilitate and foster human connection, which ultimately helps companies to achieve or exceed their metrics targets and ensure positive business outcomes,” Enterprise Account Executive Narayan Mani recently told Built In.
What CrowdStrike does: CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity company founded in 2011, utilizes a cloud-native platform that protects endpoints, cloud workloads, identities and data.
THE PERKS
- Adoption assistance
- Paid volunteer time
- Mentorship program
Who CrowdStrike is hiring: Whether you're looking for a career in analytics, cybersecurity, engineering, sales, design or elsewhere, you’re sure to find ample opportunities at CrowdStrike. The well-known company, with a workforce of 7,500 employees, currently has nearly 125 open positions.
What Carbon does: Carbon manufactures and develops 3D printers utilizing the Continuous Liquid Interface Production process.
THE PERKS
- Commuter benefits
- Mean gender pay gap below 10 percent
- Pet insurance
Encouraging authenticity: “[Carbon’s] PR-IDE ERG sponsors educational events all year round," Special Projects Supervisor Augustine Alvarez told Built In last June. “We like to bring awareness in various ways throughout the year, highlighting National Coming Out Day, Transgender Awareness Week, Worlds AIDS Day, LGBTQIA+ History Month and many others.”
What Discord does: Discord is a voice, video and text chat app designed specifically for gamers. It has more than 150 million monthly users.
THE PERKS
- Commuter benefits
- Lunch and learns
- Paid sick days
Powered Up: Discord has come a long way since friends Jason Citron and Stan Vishnevskiy created a simple way to connect over a shared passion for video games. Today, Discord users send each other more than 25 billion messages per month. The platform recently raised $500 million at a $15 billion valuation and has brought in a total of $982.6 million since its inception.
What Cruise does: Cruise is a self-driving car company headquartered in San Francisco.
THE PERKS
- Dedicated diversity and inclusion staff
- Recreational clubs
- Partners with nonprofits
On the bleeding edge: “My team designs and builds a host of ‘infrastructure as a service’ tools to ensure we’re making it easier for every engineer at Cruise to develop and operate their service in the most reliable, efficient and scalable way possible,” Senior Director of Software Engineering Deena Donia told Built In. “One of the tools we develop and use daily is release automation, which ensures efficient, predictable and automated cloud service rollouts and rollbacks.”
