Sky-high career growth in a grounded community
How two engineers have grown their careers with a sprinkling of the Meraki Magic
Suzanne Kiihne and Alex Taipale are proud members of the Cisco Meraki engineering team, but they don’t fit the mold of the stereotypical Silicon Valley engineer. They both majored in the physical sciences, rather than computer science; neither of them came to Meraki having worked at a handful of tech companies; and they are women in an industry still dominated by men.
Neither Suzanne nor Alex have let any of these factors stop them from finding success at Meraki. They’ve embraced their passions for attacking challenges, making an impact, and thinking outside the box.
In this second post in our “Women Behind the Magic” series, hear Suzanne and Alex’s thoughts about why working at Meraki is unlike working at any other tech company, and how joining a community of like-minded problem solvers has made them better engineers.
Cisco Meraki: What drew you to Meraki? What attracted you to work here?
Alex Taipale: I was referred here by a friend who I played Ultimate Frisbee with who had a glowing review of Meraki. He really enjoyed working here and he found the projects interesting and challenging. He said there was a good work-life balance, that people had hobbies in addition to being passionate and smart engineers. And I really enjoyed meeting everyone that I interviewed with — they all seemed down to earth and I felt like I would be a good fit.
Suzanne Kiihne: The startup I was working for basically folded overnight, so I was looking for a job. I ran into Meraki on LinkedIn and saw open positions for what I wanted to do. The people I talked to while interviewing were very smart and very thoughtful and had put a lot of time into the process. They weren’t just asking me iOS questions, they were thinking more broadly about me as someone who could contribute across the business.
Meraki: What does your programming environment look like? What programs and languages do you use?
Alex: I write a lot of JavaScript using the React and Redux frameworks. We’re always trying to investigate and experiment with new frameworks and new ways we can develop web application code. For example, we’re exploring GraphQL as a possible data API for our front end code. We haven’t integrated it into production yet, but are experimenting with it in our development environment.
Suzanne: Primarily, I work on the Meraki dashboard, a large Rails web app, and use my web development skills there. I use Ruby as my main programing language. We use JavaScript as well on the front end for the dashboard, and for the data storage, we use Redux. For the iOS app that I work on, I primarily use Swift, although we also have some legacy code in there that’s in Objective-C and we have an integration with a library that’s in C itself. We use Gerrit for code review. I also contribute to an Android app which we are rewriting in Kotlin.
Meraki: How would you describe the overall engineering culture at Meraki?
Alex: It was clear to me when I started here that engineers are valued as smart problem solvers and that we don’t put people into a box. We’re problem solvers first, and scoped engineers second. There’s also this idea of a blameless post-mortem; when an issue crops up, like a bug is pushed or something unexpected happens, we write up a retrospective on what happened. We have a culture where everyone is able to contribute to that conversation. Our leadership consistently and intentionally takes time to reflect on our culture and our systems and think, “Is there a way we can do this better? What can we change?”
Suzanne: I love learning new concepts and having technical discussions with people. If you see me at the Meraki coffee bar, you’ll probably catch me talking about some technical database or an issue in code. What’s great about Meraki is that the people around me are very open to having those technical discussions, to sharing their knowledge, and being friendly about it.
Meraki: What’s the dynamic like between different members of the engineering team?
Alex: I think that being healthy and supportive is a big part of our culture. There’s this expectation that if you have a question and you go to ask someone for help, they will take the time to really go through it and help you out rather than brushing you off or sending you a half-baked response. And whenever you work on something, there’s no fear that you have to make that work known. People will see and recognize and call out your accomplishments.
Suzanne: People really come together. Even during my interview, there was a clear understanding that no one knows everything. We don’t know everything about networking, we don’t know everything about web development, and we don’t know everything about the latest, coolest tools. But we can all learn it by sharing our knowledge and learning from each other.
Meraki: How is working on the engineering team here different from other companies?
Alex: In Meraki Engineering, we do a lot of work directly with customers; that’s not just the job of product design. When we’re working on a feature we’ll sit in on calls with customers. It’s pretty cool to sit there and listen to someone talk about an annoying problem that they have. In the back of your mind, you’re thinking, “I can solve this, I can actually tackle this and make this person’s daily workflow so much easier.” So I think that’s a really empowering thing to feel — it’s cool to hear feedback from customers that what you’re doing is helping meet their needs.
Suzanne: I agree. There’s definitely an empowerment piece to working here. As engineers, we’re encouraged to change teams, you can even shift in and out of management positions, and I haven’t heard of that in any other engineering organization. You’re often told, “OK, you see a problem that you want to solve on the engineering side? Go build something.” That’s a startup mentality that you don’t often see at larger companies.
Meraki: What are some examples of ways that Merakians come together to build community and solve problems?
Alex: For me, one of the amazing things about working here is how tight-knit the Meraki community is, and I don’t just mean the engineering department. I’m part of a few extracurricular clubs here at Meraki. One is the Ultimate Frisbee club, which is a great way to meet new people as well as to get some exercise. I’m part of the Women of Meraki leadership team, which has helped me meet people in different parts of the organization. I also go on rock climbing trips with coworkers, volunteer, get involved in different group chats about subjects that I’m passionate about, like biking…it’s really a great, supportive community to be a part of.
Suzanne: In the Meraki dashboard, there’s this “make a wish” box where people can enter whatever they want, and their requests are sent directly to the engineering team. One time, one of my colleagues received a request that said, “I want to be a princess.” We all laughed at it, but what he did next was great: he actually ordered a tiara online and had it sent it to the customer. This to me is the Meraki Magic. As an engineer, my job isn’t just about solving technical problems. At Meraki, I’m also bringing a little magic to our customers’ lives.
Meraki: How has working at Meraki made you a better engineer?
Alex: Because we’re a group of curious, passionate engineers, we’ve found ways to work together and make each other better. I’ve been a part of a couple of paper groups over the years, one for backend engineering and one for systems design — they’re basically book clubs for engineers where we read and discuss academic papers. I think having opportunities to step up and have my voice heard and have a critical role to play in some developmental program or some piece of the technical stack has inspired me to become a better engineer and a better professional.
Suzanne: There’s something else I want to call out that’s pretty special. Let’s be honest, it’s not all fun and games, and there are challenges. Employees here come from different backgrounds and different experiences, and issues do arise. What’s special is that when there are issues, the goal is to support one another, to be empathetic, and to work towards creating community. And that goal has been supported by my managers, all the way up the line. It’s clear that Meraki as a whole really values that sense of a community, of empathy. That’s core to the Meraki culture, at least for me.
Alex: I’ll add to that. The leadership really does prioritize learning and work-life balance. If you want to take a day every week to just work on projects that are going to push your technical depth and help you understand something more deeply, they are 100% behind you and will make that possible for you. Their focus and their understanding of work-life balance makes it really sustainable to keep working here for a long time and not feel burned out. I feel like I have time outside of work to develop other skills that may or may not play into my professional life, but that are important to me as a person.
Cisco Meraki is always on the hunt for talented engineers to join our team, whether at our San Francisco headquarters or at one of our other offices across the globe. If you’re eager to be part of Meraki Engineering and work alongside Suzanne and Alex, check out our jobs page!
