“Having an influence in the company makes work more meaningful”

Dante Federici, software engineer at the startup Datavore Labs, talks about choosing the startup world instead of corporate and culture.

During my interview with Sanjay, CTO at Datavore, I got the opportunity to talk to his co-worker Dante Federici to get another perspective.

Hi Dante! Nice to meet you and get another perspective now that I’ve talked with Sanjay. So name one thing you really like about working in a startup.
Well, I like that you get to know everybody on the team quickly. I’ve been in two startups so far and part of the onboarding experience was getting coffee and lunches with people on the team to get to know them. There was a really strong focus on working together and getting to know each other, but also being friends out of the workplace. It doesn’t really start and stop at the job, but I know a lot of startups are closer to that type of thinking where at the end of the day you go home and do your own life. I like that there’s more to it than that in the startups I’ve worked in.

What do you do at Datavore in terms of getting to know each other?
Once all the work is done we go and do team outings and stuff like that. Sometimes we go to a bar and have a drink together. Sometimes we get some food ordered in and play a game or something. Maybe once or twice a month we do a board game night thing. It was pretty similar in the other startup. That whole work hard, play hard thing and that the business always comes first but once you’re through the work you get a relaxing and bonding moment with the team.

How do you view the culture at Datavore?
It’s that work hard, play hard culture. And that’s because we have so much work to get done. We’re a small team with diverse talents — part design, part engineer, part sales and business. We move quickly and work hard, and like to unwind with the same intensity. As a team, we enjoy games (video, board, sports, any of it), drinking, nature, and we’re animal lovers — we even have a couple office pets: Jay and Silent Bob the bearded dragons.

So culture seems to be a social thing — like beer and games?
Yes, I’d say so. At the other startup I worked at we’d get together almost every evening and have some beer and play some board games like Dominion or Smash Brothers on the Wii. As a team, we would be competitive and cooperative with each other when appropriate.

What does the word culture mean to you?
I feel like it has a lot to do with expectations in terms of what interests you expect everyone around you to either share or be willing to listen to and enjoy. Since a lot of people in the company come from a financial background I notice that that industry has a culture around deadlines which shows when it comes to being on time to meetings and things like that.

How do you work with the culture at Datavore?
It’s very hard for me to articulate culture. I feel it’s quite broad and vague — as a small team, we each contribute part of ourselves to the work space during and after hours. For me, I try to introduce as many games as I can. I find the cooperative and competitive nature of games helps a lot to pass the time and to get to know each other

Alright. I’m curious to know what you thought of the hike you went on.
I really enjoyed it and we did a good job separating work and vacation. Jake (CEO) and Sanjay (CTO) are both definitely my bosses so I don’t think coming back from the trip I treat them any less different but it’s nice to get to know them on those other levels.

I’d also say that there’s a lot of trust involved in the types of activities we did, especially climbing. You trust that your belayer keeps you safe while you climb and trust that people manage to set up a good anchor so everyone doesn’t fall off the mountain. So in that regard you gain respect and an appreciation for people and being able to work together to achieve something. That’s something you wouldn’t get in an office because you’re not usually exploring the person and the relationship you have in that setting.

Why did you choose to go work for a startup instead of a corporation or a traditional company?
Well, I think there’s a long boot up time in bigger organizations. You need to go through all this training before you’re established, and that usually takes a long time. Then when you’re established the odds that you leave are much smaller since the next job requires that long boot up time again. In a startup it’s much more hard work in a shorter amount of time and having multiple hats. You can try out things because things need to get done and you might not have someone that have that specific expertise. That gives you a bit of a leeway to test things out but it’s also a bit stressful since you’re pushing yourself.

So having the freedom to test new things out without expectations is a thing that drew you to the startup world?
Yes. People can’t expect you to produce high quality work on something that your training isn’t in but someone has to do it so you just have to try it out. In a bigger corporation there’s someone with a specific title who would do the job. It’s an established channel of problem-solving. It’s a lot more ad hoc in a startup, the channels get created as the issues arise.

Sounds to me like you’d like to be able to influence the company you’re working for.
I guess so. I mean I definitely enjoy the fact that I have a stake in the company, that’s a very meaningful part of it. You get to influence the potential direction of something that could be very big because you don’t have a set way of doing things yet as a startup. Making an impact makes it much more personal and easier to take pride in the work that I put in. But also the multiple hats thing again, being able to get a lot of experience and learn about a lot of different things.

Thank you for your time Dante! Where can people go to find out more about Datavore Labs?
Thank you! People can look at our website to find out more about Datavore Labs.

I’m researching culture building in startups for my MA in Digital Media Management at Hyper Island. For more info: http://bit.ly/building-startup-culture