Giant Swarm “Operator Week”

Getting our hands dirty in order to learn

We just finished the closing ceremonies of our Internal “Operator Week” Hackathon.

Everyone in the company got a chance to build an operator. The overwhelming feedback was that we all learned so much and had a lot of fun.

To focus on Operator Week, the company basically allowed us to clear our schedules of “real work.” For one whole week, 42 of us worked exclusively on this. While we instinctively know that the knowledge gained helps us do our jobs better in a big way, the benefits cannot be directly tied to any short-term results. They won’t make the company any money tomorrow.

This is an investment. A big one.

This reminded me of Giant Swarm’s job description when I was in job-hunt mode. It said, “Learning is mandatory and fun at the same time.” I realized that the Hackathon was exactly that. Learning that was mandatory and fun.

Moreover, I realized that everything on Giant Swarm’s career page is, gasp, actually true!

• Internal Hackathons - we love to challenge ourselves!
• Choose the hardware you like the most!
• Family first - we have more kids than employees!
• Join our team at conferences all over the globe!
• 2 Off-Sites per year

As a Product Owner, one of the things I first asked upon joining Giant Swarm is, “What makes us different from our competitors?”

Nowadays, it seems like everyone is saying that they are a managed service and that just like us, they take care that “everything is up-to-date and running securely and reliably at all times.”

So what makes us different? For our clients, the answer is…

We actually do what we say we do.

In the same way, every startup talks about their culture as caring for people, their families, allowing people to learn… From appearances, every company is equally beneficial and fun to join. It’s difficult to choose. But from my experience, either by talking to actual employees or worse actually joining a company, it’s very rare for a company to actually do what they claim to.

I’m barely two months in, but I’m very happy to say that Giant Swarm actually does what it claims to…

For our customers, and for our people.

Do you want to learn more about what Giant Swarm can do for your business? Get in touch with us today.