A Month of Creating One Less Stranger
Some thoughts on my first 30 days at Airbnb.
Sometime in early March, I sent a message to a recruiter from Airbnb asking about some potential opportunities. To be honest, I was only half-expecting a response. After a series of very fortunate events, I’m now reflecting on my first month as a member of the team.
If you ask any of my friends, they’ll tell you that I’ve always been skeptical of corporate hype. Since I started my professional career, I’ve avoided falling in love with a workplace, almost to a fault. Part of it was my own immaturity, part of it was not feeling connected to the product or service I was working on, and part of it was the natural irreverence instilled in me from years of stage dives and high fives in the punk music scene.
Within the first few minutes of my start date, I noticed my previous feelings on workplaces shifting. Now, 30 days in, nothing has changed — still wide-eyed, still in love. I have so many thoughts on this past month, but I want to try and distill them into a few main points. Aside from the mission, the following are what I’ve found most special about Airbnb so far.
Humble People, Inspiring Ideas.
As expected after the first series of messages with my brilliant recruiter, everyone who works here is incredibly passionate, hard-working, self-motivated, and incredibly creative. The amount I’ve learned just from sitting in on meetings, taking part in critiques, and watching the design process unfold has been monumental for my personal growth. I’m constantly inspired by both the “blue sky” and day-to-day work of our teams. When I first learned about the backgrounds of my team members, I was a bit intimidated. People have masters degrees from great schools, work experience from innovative companies, etc. However, after a just a few minutes of intros and chatting, their humility was quite visible. Designing good experiences is as collective a process as can be and everyone acts selflessly to ensure we release the best work. Check out Airbnb’s Core Values (Be a Host, Champion the Mission, Every Frame Matters, Be a “Cereal” Entrepreneur, Simplify, Embrace the Adventure) for more insight into the people. Culture and values are key here and its very apparent from Brian Chesky’s thoughts.
Transparency & Clarity
Many companies and leaders sometimes struggle with transparency and clarity. When employees are unsure of what’s going on with executives, investors, and other teams, its really easy for them to feel lost and unsure of whether or not their work matters. Airbnb has done a good job of making sure employees feel deeply connected to the company and mission. The founders speak candidly with employees at all-hands (sidenote: the lack of “fluff” is very refreshing), regularly recognize various team efforts, and provide tangible and concrete goals for us to work towards. After only a month, I’m already able to see very clearly how my projects will contribute to those goals. I think part of this is because we’re still relatively small in comparison to other bay area giants, but also because the company culture that promotes this has been so meticulously designed.
Significance of Design
As a designer, you always want to feel like design and design thinking are valued at your workplace. Historically, design has taken a back seat to engineering at larger technology companies. At Airbnb, design has a seat at the table in a really meaningful way. In fact, all disciplines have a seat at the table - as they should. The culture at Airbnb is such that everyone respects what everyone else does. Engineers, PMs, and data scientists all give design feedback and thoughtful suggestions. Feedback from a variety of minds is arguably the most important ingredient in crafting a good experience, and when everyone at the company knows design is important, we all invest in understanding it. Also, it doesn’t hurt that 2 of the 3 founders are designers.
Puppies
Life is actually a dream right now. There are adorable pups everywhere in the office all the time and most do not object to tummy rubs.
The past month has been a whirlwind. The commute has gotten longer and my time at home has gotten shorter, but I’ve never been happier with where I’m spending my time.
For more information on our work, upcoming events, etc, visit the Airbnb design blog.
