Looking to spice up your monotonous work-from-home routine? How does starting a new career with a company that prioritizes professional growth sound?
Katie Wade, a technical support engineer at Rapid7, said that the security software company’s cohesive culture helped her grow professionally because it allowed her to collaborate with different teams and stakeholders. “Being able to work with people outside of just the support organization helped me gain valuable insight into other organizations of the company,” Wade said.
Similarly, working at artificial intelligence and machine learning company Gradient AI has allowed Recruiter Rachel Smith to spread her wings professionally and hone in on her skills as the company’s sole recruiter. “I’ve grown professionally because I’ve had to flex my muscles on making independent decisions and think through ways to build a recruiting function for a company, not just a team,” Smith said.
Built In Boston caught up with Wade and Smith to learn more about their company’s culture and how the work they’re doing has helped them grow professionally.
What they do: Security software company Rapid7 helps organizations reduce vulnerabilities, monitor for malicious behavior, investigate and shut down attacks, and automate routine tasks.
Rapid7’s culture in one word: “Cohesive,” Technical Support Engineer II Katie Wade said. “I chose this word because I believe it illustrates Rapid7’s culture at a high level. We really focus on delivering the best experience by teaming up internally versus trying to handle everything within our individual organizations.
“In support, for example, we constantly team up with not only other support teams but our account teams and engineering teams to deliver the best client experiences that we can. In situations where it’s clear a client could benefit from additional training or enablement, support will loop in the account team as well as customer success engineers to help the client understand how best to use the software. We encourage working as a cohesive unit to deliver results.”
We really focus on delivering the best experience by teaming up internally versus trying to handle everything within our individual organizations.”
The coolest project Wade’s worked on recently and how it helped her grow professionally: “One of my biggest projects here at Rapid7 has been the C3 process, which allows account teams (specifically customer success managers and customer advisors) to request prioritization on support cases,” Wade said. “This process helps coordinate case movement through the support organization and the customer success organization.
“This has really helped me grow professionally, as it allowed me to collaborate with several different teams and stakeholders. I was able to understand different parts of the client experience as well as the day to day of our customer success team. Being able to work with people outside of the support organization helped me gain invaluable insight into other organizations within the company.”
What they do: Using its proprietary artificial intelligence and machine learning solutions, Gradient AI helps the insurance industry achieve its claims and underwriting objectives.
Gradient AI’s culture in one word: “The word ‘dynamic’ best defines the culture, people and products we have,” Recruiter Rachel Smith said. “We are lucky to have a great group of people across teams — and the country — who genuinely like working together to build products that solve big problems for our clients.
“Being dynamic extends to everyone having a voice and all ideas being heard from any team member, which allows roles and responsibilities to expand as you evolve as an employee. Dynamic also extends to the lively nature of our team, which used to be Mario Kart every Friday during lunch (when we could all be in person) and now is company-wide trivia while we all work from home.”
We are lucky to have a great group of people across teams — and the country — who genuinely like working together.”
The coolest project Smith’s worked on recently and how it helped her grow professionally: “As the company’s sole recruiter, I’ve had the opportunity to work on a number of cross-functional projects varying from scaling our hiring processes to growing our brand and developing DEI initiatives that are important to our core values.
“Since then, I’ve implemented an application tracking system, built out our Glassdoor and other career sites, and partnered with InHerSight, a career platform tailored for women to review, rate and match with companies based on their ideal working preferences. We foster an all-inclusive environment and it was important to myself and Stan, our CEO, to showcase that to our employees. We have some exciting projects in the works from myself and current employees to continue our DEI education!
“I’ve grown professionally because I’ve had to flex my muscles on making independent decisions and think through ways to build a recruiting function for a company — not just a team.”
