SoundHound

I'm a woman and an engineer, and I've been at SoundHound for 5 years.

Before SoundHound, I had had experiences working in software engineering that made me not want to go to work again the next day. There would be a lot of drama and unhealthy conflict in my team and throughout the organization, so my days were filled with tense silences.

When I joined SoundHound, there was a quality in the work which was ineffable to me for a while. All I knew was that "this is how it should be." Everything felt sane and right.

What this looked like was that timelines took into account people's other commitments, people were encouraged to rest when they were sick, and, during meetings, all were encouraged to participate.

I've never worked with such a diverse group of engineers in all my life, and I think this kind of culture is what makes this possible and enjoyable.

Years later, I was reading a book to understand what I was seeing, and I now call it an organizational approach based on radical civility.

It's not uncommon for:

• colleagues to share encouraging notes for each other
• executives to apologize or open up about something difficult
• people to know about others' families, backgrounds, illnesses, histories

There's space to be human, and human dignity is paramount.

It's not perfect, but it means a lot to me, and I hope SoundHound will be around for a long, long time.

If I measured my success by the uptake of a certain process or technology, I would be frustrated. I don't see change being effected because of pure technological merit, but a combination of tech goodness and management support, which often is based on the readiness of the organization.