HubSpot

I've worked in the software industry in the northeast for more than a decade, and while I've been successful, there's always been something missing. At HubSpot, I feel like I've finally found what I've been looking for (take that, U2).

I know that sounds like a big statement, but everything I've seen in engineering aligns so perfectly with the values I've practiced and preached, from the top of the stack to the bottom. I don't want to bore you to death with an essay, but here are some of the things that really stand out:

• The technical talent on the team is amazing. I've worked with brilliant engineers in the past, but the consistent level of intelligence, capability, and competence here is impressive.

• The passion the entire team gives and the pride they take in what we're doing is such a motivator and inspiration. I've read the same stuff you have about the 'cult'; it couldn't be farther from the truth. This is hard-working people taking pride in what they've accomplished.

• The lack of bureaucracy and process is so refreshing. It's focused on Just Effing Doing It instead of endlessly debating and needing sign-off from eighty-nine different levels. This can definitely take some getting used to because leadership is largely just sketching a very rough outline, and everyone else is not only filling it in but erasing the lines and redrawing as they see fit. It can sometimes feel like we're veering around a bit, but leadership does a fantastic job of catching that just as it's beginning to show signs of a problem and correcting it.

• I didn't realize how much the politicking at my old company was affecting me until I came to a place where... well... it doesn't happen. There's a real lack of kingdom-building or ladder-climbing; instead, it's very much a bottoms-up mentality with a focus on what you've done and not how well you play the game.

• Competence and excellence are recognized and rewarded. It's not about who you know or what group you're in; if you do awesome stuff, it's seen and celebrated. I was so tired of needing to brown-nose to get ahead. Here, I've told my boss to his face he was wrong, or that I disagreed with our leadership, or that I was going to do something and didn't care what he thought, and rather than being smacked down, I was thanked for pushing for what I knew was right.

• The culture here is absolutely fantastic. There's a commitment to employee satisfaction that they really do take seriously. There are regular satisfaction surveys, we have people dedicated to making it an enjoyable place to work, the company's very willing to spend money on things that could be considered frivolous, like team lunches or trivia nights, and any tool you need to do your job better is essentially yours. I'm not naive enough to think that this is all altruism, but it definitely feels like the company cares about us as people. And what's more, that belief and focus is practiced and felt at all levels, by everyone here.

I know that all this sounds too good to be true or like I'm a soulless shill, but I couldn't be happier with my decision to move here. If you're looking for a place that dispenses with the crap, does awesome things, hires amazing talent, and treats its employees with respect and kindness, you could do a hell of a lot worse than HubSpot. I'm looking forward to many more years here.

This isn't a place that caters to passivity. If you're looking for a lot of hand-holding, or you need structure in order to be successful, then this really isn't for you.

Our entire philosophy is based around small, very technical, autonomous teams, and that requires those teams to be extremely self-driven and self-directing.

There's plenty of help if you ask, but if you're expecting someone to give your formal requirements, document the steps you should follow, or shepherd you through your day-to-day, you're going to be sorely disappointed. We want passionate, driven, opinionated people who aren't going to sit back and let someone else make all the decisions.

Our lack of structure and process is almost a negative, and I'll be the first to admit we probably need a little bit more. We're growing rapidly, but we don't do an amazing job of defining defaults that lead people to the right solutions, which means every new tech lead or engineer has to figure a lot out for themselves. I think we could stand to do a better job structuring things (just a tiny bit more!) so that people fall into success more easily.

My biggest advice to management is not to lose the culture, autonomy, and bottom-up mentality as we grow bigger.

I've worked in companies that are in the same position HubSpot's in now, and they wound up losing their 'soul' in pursuit of growth.

It's going to be tempting to look at the bottom line and think we can increase it by spending less on employee satisfaction or providing more top-down direction, but if we do, we're going to fall into the same trap as those other companies.

We need to preserve the passion, the freedom, the happiness, and the commitment we have, and that only happens through conscious attention.