Teamwork and Success that Isn’t Just Hype
In the book The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder, when Ed Rasala was asked about why he joined one of the most challenging technical projects he’d ever been a part of, he is quoted as saying:
I was looking for opportunity, responsibility, visibility.
When I read that quote it rang very true for me as well. I definitely wanted to spend my days working at a place that offered good opportunity, where your teams take responsibility for their work and mistakes, and where individuals were empowered and visible.
When speaking to fellow developers about what I most value at work, I phrase it as:
I want something interesting to work on, something that is important to the organization, and someone to learn from.
Enova Decisions
I thought those opportunities existed at Enova, and when I was offered a chance to work on the Enova Decisions team, I definitely found a role that satisfies all these criteria:
Opportunity / interesting to work on
Enova Decisions is one of Enova’s focused growth businesses — it’s an effort that aims to expand and diversify Enova’s sources of revenue in order to make the organization even more successful over time.
On a personal level, I love combining engineering with economic opportunity and growth, so these aspects alone make Enova Decisions worth working on. However, Enova Decisions also delves into specialties that I was previously unfamiliar with: such as analytics, machine learning, dynamic and programmatic API construction, workflow/rules engines, and A/B testing (you know, to name a few!). The inter-team and inter-departmental collaboration happening on Enova Decisions is also the best I’ve seen so far in my 15+ year engineering career.
On top of all of that, Enova Decisions is Enova’s first B2B SaaS product, which is exciting! It’s an innovative space that’s getting a lot of attention right now. Why does that matter to me, and why might that matter to you? Because there’s nothing like selling a product in a marketplace full of competition to see if you’ve really got the chops to be a competitor. While I wouldn’t describe myself as highly competitive (I don’t play or watch sports, I don’t feel the need to be create little contests with other people), I do want to come to work and feel successful. So, if I can work on a team where we compete in the open marketplace to win, while focusing on collaborating internally in order to achieve that goal, then that’s something I can get really fired up about.
Responsibility / important to the organization
When I joined the Enova Decisions team, the project was still fairly early in its life. We were preparing to launch with our first customer, we had a lot of infrastructure yet to build, and while there were many broad strokes of the architecture already decided upon, there were thousands of software and infrastructure discussions yet to be made to bring that vision to life. When I joined, Enova Decisions wasn’t a completely blank slate, but it was pretty close, and it was poised to accelerate very quickly if we could launch fast and iterate frequently.
So, combining that early stage element, with Enova Decisions being one of Enova’s focused growth products, I knew I’d found something where team members with a high level of personal responsibility could be extremely successful and valued. I’ve never shied away from taking responsibility and accountability for the success of the things I’ve worked on, and every person who works on Enova Decisions shares that personality trait. It is a true pleasure to be a part of a team!
Visibility / someone to learn from
The visibility gained from working on Enova Decisions follows naturally from the fact the Enova Decisions is one of the focused growth products at Enova. With this comes many people who want to work on it, which means that there’s a concentration of talent on the team from which to learn.
Many organizations out there will send you to conferences, do onsite trainings, and encourage you to constantly sharpen your skills. Enova does all of those things, but what many organizations lack is the concentration of talent necessary to really push you to be your best. Enova has that in spades, and there’s really no substitute for being able to rub shoulders with amazing people each and every day.
Now’s the time to join up
Want to be on a team that works well together, that embraces collaboration, that aspires to be #1 in their product space, all inside a company that wants to be tops in its industry? Then consider joining us on this amazing journey!
Let’s be honest: you can write code just about anywhere, and the nuts-and-bolts of writing code for a living (code reviews, chasing bugs, monitoring system availability, negotiating with stakeholders to set priorities) is pretty much the same anywhere you go. What’s different about Enova, and what elevates it above most other places you’re going to work is the focus on teamwork, mutual respect, and the fact that we want not only to be a successful business, but to be a winning team that produces winning products — together (have you read about our company values yet?). You won’t get that balance of ambition and team spirit at too many other places, and we’re not a Silicon Valley startup with dreamy eyes and empty promises. We’re an established, quickly moving, and quickly innovating company the believes that we succeed best when the team wins as a whole and individual team members also win within their careers.