Love is in the air this month, and not just for those in relationships. For tech professionals at six Chicago companies, their passion for what they do — and desire to create and optimize impactful products and solutions — is palpable.
According to one Moov Financial tech team leader, there are a host of reasons to be enthusiastic. “There’s so much to love about Moov, which is why passionate people thrive here,” said Manager of Software Engineering Eric Allen. “We work alongside highly-skilled and equally passionate teams, and we get to build something that’s never existed before.”
These companies are taking on significant projects that demand new hires. But what does it take to join the team?
Finding a compatible match isn’t as simple as swiping left or right. But their tech leaders are prime sources for discovering what they’re looking for in candidates.
At greentech company Invenergy, candidates’ expertise is a crucial factor, but not the entire equation. “Our team is seeking individuals who bring some ingenuity and innovation to the solutions that we deliver,” explained Director of IT Infrastructure Brice McDowell. “Being able to think about new ways to solve problems is central to how Invenergy operates.”
Read on to learn about the exciting future projects and growth opportunities that await new hires at six companies. Who knows — you might find the perfect match.
More than 30,000 leading brands rely on Sprout Social’s all-in-one social media management platform to gain data-driven insights into their marketing and create deeper connections with their audiences.
What’s one character trait or skill set that a successful candidate should have to land a spot on your team?
The engineering culture at Sprout is structured to enable agility and increase innovation and productivity. It also empowers teams to work cross-functionally while emphasizing autonomy. We look for talent with an equal balance of strong technical skills and outstanding collaboration, which are core to how we engineer and key to our growth and success.
We work together across teams, learning and teaching each other as we build world-class products. We embrace everyone’s perspectives and experiences because we know that by collaborating with our coworkers, we’ll reach a better conclusion than we would have on our own. Collectively, we can create results of greater magnitude, and we’re looking for engineers who are excited by that prospect.
Collectively, we can create results of greater magnitude, and we’re looking for engineers who are excited by that prospect.”
What’s the biggest project your technical teams are planning for 2023, and why is it important for the success of the business as a whole?
At Sprout Social, we are building software that is made to last. Our customers rely on us to effectively collaborate and engage with their customers across social networks. We continuously strive to optimize our cloud-hosted infrastructure and platforms for scalability, speed and stability, as we currently process more than a billion social messages daily for more than 34,000 brands globally.
As our customers’ needs evolve across the breadth of our product suite, we are focused on finding ways to mature our tech stack alongside them and reduce the cognitive load on our product teams. This year, we’re working on a unified shared data persistence and canonical data model project that will reduce divergence and redundancy in our platform, ultimately supporting our rapidly growing number of customers. This will unlock a plethora of new product opportunities, allowing our teams to focus on what our customers need most.
How would you describe your tech team culture in a single word?
“Multi-faceted.” Our culture is bold on the outside, albeit nurturing at the core. Sprout cultivates a safe, inclusive and nurturing environment to promote the career growth of our engineers. Our engineering culture has blossomed over the years on a strong foundation of diversity, harmony, equality and resources. We believe in creating space for creativity and innovation while empowering and supporting engineers to solve hard problems together for our customers.
Greentech company Invenergy is a developer and operator of sustainable energy solutions, including wind, solar and natural gas power generation.
What’s one character trait or skill set that a successful candidate should have to land a spot on your team?
Aside from bringing expertise in their respective technology disciplines, our team is seeking individuals who bring some ingenuity and innovation to the solutions that we deliver. We are a fast-growing company where we leverage several environments of on-premises and cloud platform technology, and being able to think about new ways to solve problems is central to how Invenergy operates.
What’s the biggest project your technical teams are planning for 2023, and why is it important for the success of the business as a whole?
We have many large projects planned for this year, but updating our core underlying systems of hardware, software and other components that make up Invenergy’s technology backbone is one large undertaking for the team. Infrastructure lifecycle replacement and platform upgrades were slowed to a large degree during the height of the pandemic. We are now ramping up again. Ensuring that we provide dependable IT infrastructure platforms and the right service levels across the board is crucial for us to continue to move forward with new business initiatives while addressing the risks associated with aging platforms.
How would you describe your tech team culture in a single word?
“Dedicated.” Our technology team is dedicated and driven and shares this attribute within all areas of the department as well as the company. We demonstrate a shared vision and drive to provide the best solutions that we can to help Invenergy move forward with its goals to deliver clean energy. We balance a lot of competing priorities and deliver solutions that scale to keep pace with current and planned company growth.
We drive to provide the best solutions that we can to help Invenergy move forward with its goals to deliver clean energy.”
Moov Financial is a payments platform that enables businesses to conduct financial transactions from a single API.
What’s one character trait or skill set that a successful candidate should have to land a spot on your team?
Working in a startup requires passion, but I don’t mean the overused corporate definition of the word. For Moov, passion isn’t about exhibiting constant excitement or possessing some bottomless reserve of enthusiasm. Instead, it’s the daily practice of combining something that makes you happy with something you’re good at. Moov is the perfect space for passionate people because we have autonomy over our work and career growth. This makes it easy to build your workday around joy and expertise.
Moov is the perfect space for passionate people because we have autonomy over our work and career growth.”
I credit Moov’s leadership for building a culture that offers countless opportunities to find happiness.
For example, we have complete trust to do our job; we’re encouraged to challenge the status quo; we receive praise and recognition for our contributions; we work alongside highly skilled and equally passionate teams; and we get to build something that’s never existed before. There’s so much to love about Moov, which is why passionate people thrive here.
What’s the biggest project your technical teams are planning for 2023, and why is it important for the success of the business as a whole?
In 2021 and 2022, Moov focused on building a solid foundation for our payments platform. In 2023, we’re fine-tuning our resiliency and reliability while expanding our tech stack to meet our customer needs. In fintech, payments providers tend to specialize in one aspect of money movement, whereas Moov’s single API orchestrates the entire money movement story from start to finish. Instead of going through multiple intermediaries and vendors, we’ve built direct connections to all the major card brands, The Fed and The Clearing House. We also became a U.S.-licensed acquiring processor and issuing processor, which is quite the feat. So in 2023, on the user side, we’ll continue delivering high-quality experiences for the software companies adding payments to their products. On the infrastructure side, we’ll continue expanding our payments platform and adding functionality — which is really exciting to both new and existing developers.
How would you describe your tech team culture in a single word?
The entire culture at Moov is best described as all-encompassing. Not only does it offer all the perks you’d want as an employee, but it’s also woven into everything we do. From day one, our leadership team prioritized culture over all else. They focused on what employees actually want while working in a fully-remote company. This includes trust, freedom, transparency, ownership and kindness — which are all engraved into our company codes. In every decision the organization makes, whether it’s small, like which swag item to make, or larger, like which feature to build, our core values guide the way.
We welcome radical transparency for sharing ideas, progress, wins, obstacles and frustrations. We’re given ultimate trust and autonomy in our role. We openly share knowledge and help each other. And our leaders recognize the importance of dreaming big, saving space for creative exploration and failing fast in order to build something incredible. Because of our all-encompassing culture, we are not only free from conventional corporate barriers but we’re encouraged to push our work to heights we’ve never achieved before.
Waltz Health is a technology startup that uses AI-driven marketplaces and new tools to rethink the pharmaceutical supply chain.
What’s one character trait or skill set that a successful candidate should have to land a spot on your team?
As we continue to grow our teams, I’m looking for candidates who come from various backgrounds and expertise. One thing I always look for and try to measure throughout the hiring process is the candidate’s ability to be a self-starter. I’m looking for team members who can set and achieve goals, work independently and take initiative to get the job done.
In addition, the willingness to adapt to the changing needs of the company is critical. At Waltz, we are a young company that is growing very fast, both in our internal teams and in the clients we support. Waltz is a place for those who can jump in and learn quickly. Those who do will thrive!
Waltz is a place for those who can jump in and learn quickly. Those who do will thrive!”
What’s the biggest project your technical teams are planning for 2023, and why is it important for the success of the business as a whole?
2023 will be a year filled with product innovation, client launches and internal infrastructure build. We have a ton of work underway that we will continue to focus on throughout the year to ensure we support our teams in their initiatives.
Specifically, we have a number of different projects identified to ensure the team can iterate and add new product features faster. We also hope that our projects will help reduce the cognitive workload they experience!
It’s very important that we learn from user feedback and add features to our products quickly to ensure good client and consumer experiences. As such, we have major projects ahead of us in a few areas, including, but not limited to, automation, security and disaster recovery.
How would you describe your tech team culture in a single word?
If I had to pick one word, the word would be “inclusive.” Being a part of a team means working with people who come from different places, have different backgrounds and experiences and may ultimately think differently than you do. We embrace our differences as well as the unique perspectives our internal and external stakeholders bring with them. The only way you can learn from others is when you accept them whole and soul. Ultimately, that is the strength of our team.
CSC Corptax is a B2B software development company that provides corporate tax departments worldwide with technology-based tax solutions.
What’s one character trait or skill set that a successful candidate should have to land a spot on your team?
When I interview candidates for a software engineer role, I look for two things. I try to assess whether the candidate has a solid knowledge base in the technologies they’ll potentially use with us. Secondly, I gauge their enthusiasm for programming and their interest in learning new technologies. In this field, it’s always important to learn something new!
What’s the biggest project your technical teams are planning for 2023, and why is it important for the success of the business as a whole?
We have several projects and new products requiring various skills. One of our primary goals is to improve the user experience for clients on our support website. We also want to move more content from our desktop application to the web. We constantly work to provide intuitive and comprehensive answers for our customers.
We constantly work to provide intuitive and comprehensive answers for our customers.”
How would you describe your tech team culture in a single word?
“Collaborative.” Most projects we take on involve collaboration and coordination between multiple departments and across functional software development teams. This ensures we deliver the best help to our customers in a timely manner.
AdAction is a mobile app marketing platform that helps provide premium demand to publishers worldwide.
What’s one character trait or skill set that a successful candidate should have to land a spot on your team?
At AdAction we have a (virtual) open-door policy where any teammate of any level can work directly with senior management and up. Our most successful candidates would thrive in this type of environment, demonstrate a desire and ability to be collaborative, and really contribute to the team and product in ways that they could add value.
What’s the biggest project your technical teams are planning for 2023, and why is it important for the success of the business as a whole?
2023 will be an exciting year for AdAction. We’ll be launching a new greenfield mobile app to the market, and our team is currently underway architecting, developing and otherwise supporting that effort. We plan to grow our team throughout 2023, and many of our new hires will work on this new product or as backfills for teammates from other products who have shifted there. This new product, while it could support itself, will tie together a few other cornerstones of our business and stands to really benefit from our positioning as an industry leader in mobile app growth.
We plan to grow our team throughout 2023.”
How would you describe your tech team culture in a single word?
“Flexible.” In our remote working environment, we have — and are always improving on — our working agreements, which try to optimize contact time and maximize the focus time of all of our technologists. This enables our teammates to accomplish their priorities when and how it suits them best.
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