The Trade Desk

This company is the real deal.

I've spent many years writing software and I've worked for many companies. The Trade Desk has a very unique blend of culture, market position, strategy, and success.

The people here really like each other and enjoy the time they spend together. The company understands how important culture is to its overall success and shows time and again that the culture cannot be risked in the pursuit of other goals. There is no lip service to this here.

The engineering team has scaled very nicely using methodologies that many other companies wouldn't dare attempt: distribution of development around the world and shared ownership of all key components. There also is absolutely no benefit to being in the "home office." This is a tremendous benefit to people who do not want to live in the expensive areas where tech and the advertising world tend to congregate. People can work on any project from any location around the world. That's very rare in the world of software development.

We celebrate company successes more than individual successes (though we recognize and celebrate those as well), and there is a constant focus on doing things that make the company and our customers successful.

There is a good mix of short-term and long-term focus in development. It is so easy, in a world of limited resources and unlimited things to build, to focus only on what can make us the most money tomorrow while not planning for what's needed in six months or a year. That always leads to tons of pain down the road.

Somehow, even with all of that, work/life balance is as good as it gets. People work hard and then go home. Our office lights up around 8 a.m. every day, and nobody is ever there past 6:30 p.m. Most people in the office work a solid 8.5-hour day, and we typically eat lunch together, including two days a week when lunch is provided by the company.

tl;dr; best job I've ever had.

I really had to think about something significant here. It really is difficult to come up with something that I feel is much more difficult at The Trade Desk than other places that I've worked.

The biggest difficulty in our office is that we can't find enough engineers who are qualified to do the job and who find their way through the door.

Being from a not-so-well-known company definitely has its drawbacks when it comes to recruiting new employees.

Obviously, keep it up. We have a really good thing going. I never dreamed that buying advertising could be so interesting, challenging, and rewarding. Do what needs to be done to continue to find the best employees for every role that needs people.