Cultivating a Tech Culture

Stop trying to attract tech talent with ping pong tables. After hundreds of interviews with top tech professionals, I can tell you what actually matters: 👉 Meaningful impact on real problems 👉 Clear growth trajectories 👉 Autonomy with accountability Tech talent wants to know: "Can I make an impact here?" "Will my work matter?" "Can I grow without leaving?" The perks that grab headlines are rarely what retain exceptional people. Companies spend thousands upgrading break rooms when they should be upgrading their communication about company impact. Try this instead: 1. Document and share specific examples of how technical work affected business outcomes 2. Create transparent growth frameworks that don't require moving into management 3. Give ownership, not just tasks - let people solve problems, not just implement solutions Your most powerful recruiting tool isn't your benefits package - it's your existing talent telling authentic stories about their impact. What's the most meaningful aspect of your company culture that attracts top talent? The answer might surprise you. #TechRecruitment #TalentRetention #MeaningfulWork #TechCulture #CareerGrowth

Building an Engineering Culture That Thrives Through Constant Change Tech is moving faster than ever - AI, cloud, security, compliance, you name it. But the hardest part isn’t picking technologies. It’s building an engineering culture that can keep up. After leading teams through modernization, cloud moves, and now AI initiatives, I’ve found that the cultures that thrive share a few key traits. 1️⃣ Change Is Part of the Job, Not a Disruption Teams that see change as a nuisance fight it. Teams that see it as normal design for it. Practical ways to normalize change: Frequent, small releases instead of big-bang projects Regular architecture reviews Time explicitly reserved for experimentation and refactoring 2️⃣ Hire for Adaptability, Not Just Skill Stacks Today’s “expert in X” can become tomorrow’s bottleneck if they can’t adapt. What I optimize for: Curiosity and breadth, not just depth Comfort with ambiguity Collaboration over lone-hero problem solving You can teach a new framework. You can’t easily teach mindset. 3️⃣ Documentation Over Hero Culture If your architecture lives in one person’s head, you don’t have resilience—you have a risk. Good documentation: Speeds onboarding Reduces repeated mistakes Makes cross-team work possible Lets you evolve systems without fear It’s not bureaucracy. It’s scale. 4️⃣ Psychological Safety = Higher Velocity High-performing teams aren’t the ones that make zero mistakes. They’re the ones that: Surface risks early Admit issues quickly Challenge decisions regardless of title If people are afraid to speak up, innovation stalls. If they trust the environment, they move faster. 5️⃣ Ownership of Outcomes, Not Just Tickets The best engineers don’t just close JIRA tickets—they care about results. Give teams: Clear business context Visibility into impact (metrics, customer feedback) Influence over design and architecture When engineers own outcomes, they don’t wait for permission. They lead. ⚖️ The CTO’s Real Job Being a CTO is balancing innovation vs. stability: Too much innovation → chaos Too much stability → stagnation The win is a culture that experiments safely, modernizes intentionally, and always ties technology choices back to long-term business value. Bottom line: Tools and frameworks will keep changing. Your real competitive advantage is an engineering culture that can evolve faster than the technology around it. What’s one cultural shift you’ve seen make the biggest impact on your engineering team?

Are you still hiring for cultural fit? This might be a reason you miss out on great talents! Searching for talents organizations are often focusing on finding candidates with a cultural fit. But what if this approach is actually limiting your tech team's potential? Instead of cultural fit, you might want to consider cultural contribution. The distinction between cultural fit and cultural contribution is subtle yet crucial for building truly innovative technology teams. Here's what sets them apart: 🟰 Cultural fit emphasizes conformity to existing norms and practices, often leading to unconscious bias in hiring decisions and potentially screening out candidates who could bring valuable new perspectives to your organization. ➕ Cultural contribution focuses on how candidates can enrich your existing culture while staying true to core values, encouraging diversity of thought and fostering an environment of inclusion. This distinction is particularly vital in tech, where diverse perspectives directly impact product development. When your tech team represents various backgrounds and experiences, they are better equipped to identify blind spots in user experience, challenge assumptions in system design, and create more inclusive solutions. Remember: technology meant to serve everyone should be built by everyone. So how can you identify the key indicators of strong cultural contributors in tech during an interview? These contributors ➡️ demonstrate deep understanding of your company's values while articulating clear ideas about how their unique perspective could enhance your culture and products. ➡️share concrete examples of times they have introduced new approaches or challenged traditional thinking in previous roles, showing both innovation and diplomatic skills. ➡️ ask thoughtful questions about your culture that reveal genuine interest in understanding and contributing to your organization's growth. 💡 Here is a tip for your next tech interview to identify a cultural contributor: Instead of asking "How would you fit into our culture?" ask "How would you contribute to and help evolve our culture?" The answers might just reveal your next game-changing hire. #TechTalents #DiversityInTech #CorporateCulture

Creating a strong startup culture from Day 1 is essential. One of the startups I mentored was struggling with high employee turnover. The founder was laser-focused on rapid growth but overlooked the importance of culture. We had a heart-to-heart, and I shared a story from a consulting project I worked on with a tech company in Singapore. This company had a phenomenal culture where every team member felt like part of a family. They had regular team outings, transparent communication, and a practice of recognizing achievements, both big and small. Inspired by this, the startup founder started making small yet impactful changes. They initiated weekly team lunches, where the team could relax and bond over a meal. They also adopted an open-door policy, encouraging employees to share their ideas and concerns freely. Celebrating milestones, no matter how small, became a regular part of their routine. One memorable example was when they celebrated a project milestone with a surprise team outing. The team felt appreciated and motivated, which reflected in their work. The impact was profound. The team became more cohesive, productivity increased, and turnover rates dropped significantly. A positive culture isn’t just a feel-good factor; it’s a competitive advantage that attracts top talent and keeps them engaged. A strong culture is the glue that holds everything together, especially during tough times. It’s what keeps the team united and focused on the common goal. It’s about creating an environment where people love to work, where they feel challenged, and where they can grow both professionally and personally. #CompanyCulture #Leadership #StartupSuccess #TeamBuilding

The best workplaces aren’t designed. They’re spoken into existence. Words create culture faster than policies ever could. Early in my Stanford tech leadership career, I led with what I thought mattered: → Migration deadlines met → System implementations flawless → Performance metrics green Enterprise technology transformations are unforgiving. But I learned that psychological safety builds better systems than fear ever could. ⸻ The shift started with one simple practice. In our staff meetings, we each shared one mistake we made that week — and what we learned from it. When I made mistakes, I saved them for those meetings too, so the team could see it was okay to talk about them openly. That simple act changed the room. It wasn’t about airing mistakes — it was about normalizing reality. No one is perfect. No project is perfect. What we build is always an imperfect mix of people, process, and priorities. I wanted my team to see that — to focus on amplifying what’s working instead of obsessing over what isn’t. And when mistakes happen (because they always do), I didn’t want them to lose days, energy, or confidence over it. It’s okay. We’ll fix it. We’ll move forward together. ⸻ Then the language started to change. Instead of: “The deployment window is non-negotiable,” I asked: “What do you need to feel confident about this timeline?” Instead of: “Why didn’t testing catch this?” I said: “What can we learn to strengthen our process?” Instead of: “This performance is below standard,” I offered: “Let’s figure out what support you need to succeed.” ⸻ A few weeks before a critical go-live, my team offered to pull an all-nighter. I told them I’d rather delay the launch than burn them out — that I’d take full responsibility with leadership. Their response? “Janet, we’ve got this. We want to see this through.” Not compliance. Commitment. Not fear. Ownership. That’s when I knew culture had shifted. Because when people feel safe, they stop hiding mistakes — and start solving them. They don’t just show up. They lead. If your team trusts you enough to admit mistakes, you’ve already built something rare. That’s the mark of real leadership. ➕ Follow Janet Kim for more stories on leadership and career transformation. ——— How I help leaders I draw on 19 years in Stanford tech to help mid-career and senior professionals: ✅ Clarify their leadership brand ✅ Build confidence and presence in high-stakes rooms ✅ Prepare for promotions and new leadership roles

As an engineer, I thought focusing on 'culture' was BS. But it clicked when I took Brian Halligan's class at MIT - he told us 'culture is how people make decisions when you're not in the room'. Now as a founder, this is the most important thing I can focus on. When building Medplum's Forward Deployed Engineering team, I obsessed over one question: "How do I enable FDEs to make the right calls independently?" Here are our 6 commandments - 1. Develop Customer Empathy: We assume positive intent, period. It's shocking how this simple mindset shift has elevated our customer relationships and sets us apart from our peers. 2. Present Expertise: Our engineers aren't order-takers – they're trusted advisors. We've had customers completely pivot their technical approach based on our team's confident (but humble) guidance. 3. Keep the Ball in Our Court: This one's a holdover from our Palantir heritage of being ruthless about outcomes. We never "wait" on customers. There's always a proactive move available, even if it's just documenting three potential paths forward. 4. Leave Zero Ambiguity: Everything is written down. Everything. It seems excessive until that one crucial detail saves a project from derailing three months later. 5. Build Resilience: We embrace chaos as the default state. Multiple customer relationships, defensive coding, redundant processes – they've saved us countless times. 6. Continual Improvement: The most powerful value. Every repetitive task is a future automation opportunity. Our team's velocity compounds monthly. The results? As a company, our customers constantly tell us that we're their most dependable vendor - with them through thick and thin. Thanks Brian! https://lnkd.in/gV5hnuRQ

Company culture is not words on the website. It's how people feel on a Sunday night. Simon Sinek once said: "Customers will never love a Company until the employees love it first" And research confirms that 👇🏽 The 100 best companies to work for beat the market by 3.36X (FTSE Russell) That's why when I work with companies on their brand strategy, it's also about their culture. How do we cultivate a strong culture? Here are 7 components: 1/ Purpose ↳ WHO do you serve and WHY? ↳ Why do you exist beyond making money? ↳ This is where everything should emanate from. 2/ Principles ↳ Start with a set of 3-5 core values ↳ Define key behaviors for each ↳ "Encourage quiet people to speak" vs. "Inclusion" 3/ Systems ↳ Audit process and technologies ↳ Change any to encourage using principles ↳ Want people to be ok with failure? Reward it. 4/ Stories ↳ Capture examples, actual behaviors ↳ Write them as stories to exemplify principles ↳"Jack saw his team struggle and he stayed to help" 5/ Lexicon ↳ Collect phrases that are unique ↳ Use them to live the principles, start from leadership ↳ Netflix uses "sunshining" to air a mistake 6/ Traditions ↳ How does the company purpose come to life? ↳ Create an event people can participate (not required) ↳ Nasa has an annual pumpkin carving contest! 7/ Artifacts ↳ The most easy to spot and most tangible ↳ What can be a physical embodiment of a principle? ↳ Medtronic gives mission medallions to each employee When you cultivate a culture people can thrive in, it will attract the best talent and the best customers. It starts from the inside out. Agree? Make your mark, live your legend 🤘🏽

Almost all companies today are software companies. This means that attracting and keeping good developers is mission critical. So how do you build a strong dev culture? Follow these key steps: 1) Have a clear mission. Do developers really understand and believe in the mission of the company and its product? If not, it's hard to recruit them and to keep them around. The mission doesn't have to be grandiose but it needs to be clear — with real impact on end users. In Harness' case, we want to improve the developer experience for the 35 million software developers around the world 2) Reduce toil. Too often, developers held back by outdated processes and a lack of tools. Instead of spending time on the creative (and highly rewarding) work of solving problems with code, they're spending time on administrative and busy work like waiting for builds to get done or approval to go forward with the next stage of a code change. The right platform can make a huge difference. Continuous integration/continuous delivery (or CI/CD) tools have become table stakes among high-performing engineering teams. AI and machine learning are taking this to the next level. 3) Continue to challenge them. Developers enjoy solving hard problems. If they don't feel challenged in their role, they're more likely to start looking for something tougher and more stimulating. It’s crucial to keep finding technical challenges that put them to the test. Developers are the driving force behind tech advancement. Like all highly-skilled professionals, they care about compensation. But in my experience, these larger cultural considerations are just as important.

AI transformation isn’t just about technology. It’s about culture. I’ve seen it over and over: A brilliant AI strategy fails not because the tech didn’t work… but because the culture didn’t support the change. Healthy work cultures don’t happen by accident, they’re built intentionally. They have traits like: ✅ People feel safe to speak up ✅ Leaders lead by example ✅ Mistakes are treated as learning opportunities ✅ Work-life balance is respected ✅ Transparency is the norm These aren’t just nice-to-haves. When you’re introducing AI (or any major change), these are your success factors. Because without psychological safety, trust, and clarity… 🔹 Teams push back 🔹 Leaders hesitate 🔹 Momentum stalls When culture is strong, transformation feels less like a threat, and more like an opportunity everyone wants to run toward. If you’re leading change, ask yourself: Does my team’s culture look like this list? Or do we have some work to do before we bring in new tech? Strong culture is the foundation for smart AI adoption. Without it, even the best system can fail. 🔄 Repost if you agree culture comes before technology. 👋 Follow me for more insights on blending AI with the human side of business. Image Credit: Unknown