We woke up one morning—no, we woke up many mornings—saturated with that dread of dragging ourselves back to an IT project or company or client that just didn't make sense. That squelched our insights and talent. That detoured us into meetings that had us daydreaming about winning the lottery.
As you can read at How We Got Here, we said, "Enough," and set about creating a company that builds into its very infrastructure making people with a passion for development happy at work. Imagine that.
Our Place or Yours?
Here we are, an award-winning, fast-growing company that doesn't look like most other companies. Our tribe is spread across time zones; members working on defined projects at a client's headquarters, sprawled on the floor at home with a laptop hacking away at a Rails project with Radiohead playing, or maybe hunkered down in a cafe debugging a problem that no one else has ever discovered. Yet, we're all part of a tight-knit team.
If you work with us, you're going to meet and work and laugh with some very cool people, dazzlingly brainy people, who are among the best developers in the country... and who are interested in what you think. You'll have perks that are a geek's dream. You'll be rewarded for making us better, even by saying, "This method is crap. I've thought of a way to do it faster." Applause all around. Bonus time!
We have two main teams: The WCI/ALUI side and the Ruby on Rails side. About 80% of the ALUI work is done at the client's site. The trick up your sleeve? You'll still be in contact with the rest of us. The benefit for the client? They hire you and, in a sense, get all of us, too.
The Rails side? Nearly always work wherever you want. If that's in bed with a box of cold pizza or lounging on a Greek island, that's up to you. Just stay connected.
Is This Real, or Is This Silicone?
We've all read the marketing drivel, the fluffy stuff that says "our company is great!" It's like viewing Hollywood starlets at a swimsuit competition. No matter how hard those plastic surgeons toil, you've just got that feeling that nothing is real.
At Spheric, our values are well-defined and thread their way through everything we do. We're baloney-free and can point directly to where our promises are built into our attitudes, perks, and processes:
Check out our Perks and Job Openings and then give us a ping.
"Some days I start on a project and I'm so into what I'm doing that I don't even think of it as work. I can code from any location, but even if I'm alone, I can be in constant contact through our chat system with a lot of like-minded Spheric people—we have similar views on tech stuff and most of us are really into music, too. We're a good fit. Spheric is very fast-paced, up with the latest technology, open to change. It's also really collaborative—we do a lot of brainstorming. You don't feel judged; you feel like you can be your own person. You really have fun when you're doing what you're best at every day."
Mathieu Dargavel,Rails Consultant/Developer
"Work is always exciting—so much variety and the freedom to puzzle out innovative answers. At Spheric we all want everyone to have ownership of their project, so you're really motivated to make great things for clients. In the end you can take a lot of pride in your work. We want everyone to thrive. You meet amazing people, here, too. While you're working you have a network of people across several time zones ready to jump in and help you. The people, the company culture are in perfect synch with my lifestyle."
David Chan,ALUI Consultant/Developer
Let brilliant people do brilliant work.
You'll have a Spheric log book, but that's about it—no one to micromanage you. Formal meetings are weekly (just one!), virtual, organized, and sharpen and challenge us. You work autonomously but with the rest of the team a ping away, ready to chip in an idea or answer. In a sense, you "own" your projects, so you get the kudos and the rewards.
Help each other become tech rock stars.
We start with an eight-week, three-tiered intensive training program to augment the knowledge base you bring with you. Our perks include jetting you to hot tech conferences. Our chats and campfires build each other up—think of the rest of the team as your special advisors—and we place a high priority (and reward it at bonus time) on personal productivity, networking with people outside of Spheric, and continued learning. We have yearly training intensives. We aim to make important technical contributions to the fields in which we participate—not just to become well-known, but to elevate the industry.
If work isn't fun, what's the point?
You have talent; why have drudgery? We start by hiring people who love this kind of work, and who love to live life fully. We follow up with allowances for great conferences, and shiny new Macs. We have an annual gathering—iCircle—flying everyone at Spheric to the same location, where we mix some training on the latest tech stuff with anything from paintballing, skydiving, golf, to zip-lining—you name it. And, you'll never forget our parties.
Be professionals.
No matter where we work, we behave professionally when interacting with clients. If we work at their site, we dress the part, of course, but that's just surface stuff. "Professional" to us means a work ethic that leaves clients astonished. It means delivering work on time and above their expectations. It means keeping clients firmly in the loop with our open work methods. It means that when we're done, they've got something sleek, not sloppy.
Reward networking and collaboration.
We review projects together, rotate meeting leaders, and even reward networking when we total up bonuses. We turn to each other daily to chat when we're stuck or when brainstorming would help.
Do our share for the world.
We start by valuing all people; we follow through with our green initiatives and commitment to causes and local efforts to make lives better.
Find people who love this work.
Thousands of people develop. Not all are a good fit for Spheric. We look for crackerjack coders, of course, and try to scout out the ones who'll go for our openness and desire for collaboration. We ask the all-important questions: Will this person play well with others, and does this person love programming. (Our people tend to tinker and invent, and we love when they surprise us with an app they've created on the side, just for fun.) Finally, we depend on our gut check.
Run lean. Do more with less.
We won't waste words here: We've got gobs of perks, we share the wealth, but we make every penny and minute count—ours and our clients' (and agile development is one key). That goes for our code, too: stripped clean as a whistle; a programmer's vision of elegance.
Be completely transparent. No BS.
We have a live, iterative development environment. Our clients can see what we're doing while we work. We communicate with each other openly, and every team member who wants to can see what's going on with any project (assuming the client allows access). No backroom discussions where all the real decisions are made, no hidden agendas. We kissed that goodbye when we started Spheric.
Be non-hierarchical. Have mutual respect.
We have the founders and a CEO, but you'd never know it from the back talk—we jettisoned that whole boss/employee mentality and see ourselves as collaborators, partners, team members. We pretty much tossed the titles, too. Naturally we need people who hold everything together. But, an organizational chart? Hah! Fahgeddabout it!
Work with great companies.
You'll work with Fortune 500 clients, exciting young start-ups, smart business people. Based on our great reputation, they come to us to build amazing things, or to clean up code (from previous programmers) that looks like last year's hopelessly tangled pile of Christmas lights. You'll do some fast, lean, elegant coding, work on portals that keep giants running, and create breakthrough social media projects that are the next great leap forward on the internet.
Variety, not monotony.
It's fast-paced around here, we move quickly through many projects. We often allow flexible hours and locations, team members vary from job to job, and you've always got a shot at tackling an old stumbling block in a new way.
Everyone shares in our success.
Our potential for growth, already officially recognized, is extraordinary. We share that success with RRSP matches, bonuses, and some lovely perks. We think you'll stick around, but if you ever leave, you'll want a place like Spheric on your résumé.
Reward new ideas.
We live by our own twist on the concept Never Kill A New Idea. Have a potentially great idea—anything that might add value to what we do? Add it to our Innovation Pipeline. We sift through it regularly, looking for the gold nuggets, and reward those who contribute them. Our virtual chats, too, have plenty of room for brainstorms and insights.