[Editor: Part of our ongoing series about company culture, written by employees of the company. AppNexus—who is building a regional office in Portland—kicked it off. Next up is Portland startup Switchboard. Sound like an awesome place to work? Switchboard is hiring.]
Switchboard is about community
On the Switchboard dev team, we like the internet. We don’t want the internet to feel isolating. We spend our days thinking of ways to make the Switchboard corner of the internet as engaging, human-friendly and non-creepy as possible.
It’s remarkably rewarding to be at a small enough enterprise that one can think of a good idea, code it and put it into production within a few days.
We aren’t working to make bank on an exit to Google or Facebook or Obama or whatever. We’re working to build a sustainable company with a product that makes peoples’ lives better.
The majority of the Switchboard team’s day-to-day tasks are self-driven, independent projects. So a reason to “collaborate” is also an excuse to do something fun together. We hold meetings in the sunshine on the roof. We discuss new features between ascents at the rock climbing gym.
In some ways (alright, in many ways), the dev team is a little weird. Not bad weird, mind you, but certainly a bit off-kilter. Every community needs its unifying factor though, and here we’re a collection of odd ducks (who like gifs).
We don’t think that we are the average tech startup on the block, but that being said, we still value food and beer as much as the next early-stage company in Portland.
E.g., Beer and Pancakes are a thing. They happen on Friday mornings. Nong is an institution. We visit her on Mondays.
In other words, Switchboard development is a lot like this:
For more information, visit Switchboard. To see Switchboard in action, visit the Portland Startups Switchboard. Want to work for Switchboard? They have a Front End Developer role open.
