Docusign

After having spent years at a gigantic software company, I greatly cherish the influence and scope of work that I have now at DocuSign. It's about "just right" size, where you have support and a full set of corporate services like IT, HR, facilities, etc., but small enough that when you see a problem that needs addressing, you can very often become a champion to solve that issue without having to check with 20 people first. You end up solving the problem at many or every level in which it needs to be addressed, which is incredibly rewarding.

DocuSign is also a fairly flexible work environment for engineers, coming up with creative schedules, processes, and locations for you to achieve your goals.

Finally, DocuSign is very exciting right now because our new CEO has been on board for just long enough to really have a grasp of everything and is starting to make the big moves we hoped the company would make for its future. Will we IPO soon? Don't ask me, but it sure seems like we've been closer than ever in the 3+ years I have worked here.

Finally, it is a company that cares about its employees and the communities in which we live. They have a matching gifts IMPACT program for nonprofits, plus continually add better and better benefits to support all sorts of workers with different abilities and life constraints. Recent changes to family leave, for example, were very generous. Diversity and gender equity are more than just checkboxes on a list here. They really seem to mean it.

Being split between Seattle and San Francisco headquarters still has some division in ways teams work, their style, process, and leadership. I think with new leaders, these things are starting to be ironed out, but it has caused a slowdown in the delivery of some key things, in my humble opinion.

We do need a way to motivate some employees (cough cough) who were brought into the company at a valuation that years later is about the same as it is today. Other companies can offer stock options or grants in a way where the employee can really count them as part of their overall compensation. But until some sort of event happens, DocuSign just cannot compete on this part of the compensation package, and those of us with a lousy strike price don't seem to stand to benefit that much.