Skytap recently made headlines as one of Business Insiders’ “51 startups to bet your career on in 2018,” news that comes on the heels of widespread media coverage for our Series E funding from Goldman Sachs. Media publications understand, and have clearly articulated, the size and urgency of the cloud challenge we’re solving. The need for a better path to cloud for traditional applications is clear. We believe Skytap is that way forward.
But how did we get here? How are we building a company capable of solving such complex and pressing technology challenges?
A few years back, our CTO, Brad Schick, said:
“Cultures will change over time as we grow, but established values of a deep customer focus, respect, and technical excellence’ drive that change.”
Brad’s words speak to both our continuing evolution, and the core of who we are. Since our inception eleven years ago, our employees have been organically creating a culture defined by their passion, technical excellence, and desire to succeed as a team. It’s one of the primary reasons we’ve made it this far. Yet just because we valued a healthy workplace culture in our early days, doesn’t mean we’ll have it easy going forward. As we put plans in place to double and even triple the size of our workforce, our recruiting and HR teams—and our entire executive team—must understand, as Marshall Goldsmith says, “what got us here won’t get us there.”
Our management team knows that motivational words on walls aren’t enough to sustain a supportive culture that can both attract and retain top talent. We have the product-market fit, an ambitious roadmap, and an expanding ecosystem, but we need, as our CEO says, to be “intently focused on scale and execution.” And we must execute without losing sight of the core values Brad spoke to, no matter how much we scale.
Staying true to who we are as we grow, change, and add hundreds of employees is no small feat. Our long-held commitment to accountability across the organization will be absolutely critical to success. Each new hire must be empowered to own their role and their impact — and see examples of this same commitment all around them. We need existing and new employees to be active ambassadors of diversity and inclusivity, so we can continue building a company worthy of our employees’ commitment.
If Skytap sounds like a company you want to be a part of, we’re hiring across all segments of the business. I’ll share more specifics on what we have to offer—and what you can expect—in subsequent posts. For now, I’ll leave you with three of our key characteristics:
- Our values have stood the test of growth: You won’t find Brad’s articulation of “deep customer focus, respect, and technical excellence” on any plaque in our headquarters, but you will find these principles in each Skytap employee.
- We’re more than a startup: We’re still relatively small—about 200 employees—which means we’re able to be very agile in everything from decision-making to our customer, and even market, responses. Our size also means an individual can make an impact right now, today. Now is the time to be a part of our growth, not in some ethereal sense of the greater team, but in being able to make a tangible, shareable, and day-to-day impact. We’re also more than a decade old, have established go-to-market partnerships with IBM and VMware, and have over $100M in funding, giving us more stability and substance than earlier-stage companies.
- Our technology solves hard challenges: We have more than ten patents for a differentiated cloud service that makes modernizing the thorniest of traditional applications much easier. Our NPS scores trend well above average. We have hundreds of enterprise customers and we’re playing an instrumental role in how they compete in a digital economy. You can see our product’s impact in our business growth, and being driven throughout our organization—from engineering shipping new features, to our professional services team delivering tailor-made blueprints our customers can internalize and use to drive success.
Great people build a great company. We want to be a great company. So, we need amazing people to join our mission. Are you in?
You can learn more about our current career opportunities here.
