What it Means to Merakify Your Career
Or: My Journey from the Front Desk
I think all Meraki employees can agree that Meraki is a special place where the extraordinary happens daily. While we all play different roles in making this company function, every single person you talk to has at least ten reasons why they love working at Meraki. For me, one of the most important reasons I wanted to work here was the opportunity for advancement that Meraki offered. I still feel incredibly lucky that I stumbled upon the Office Coordinator posting at Meraki (when I still pronounced it Merah-kai). Even during my interviews for Office Coordinator, multiple people mentioned that the role could lead to other opportunities within Meraki, which made me realize that this company truly invested in its employees. To date, the last four front desk folks have gone to all corners of Meraki: Recruiting, HR, Support, Marketing, and now, Hardware Engineering (HW). How many other companies can boast of such diverse growth stemming from an entry-level Office Coordinator position? This environment is only possible when team leadership encourages growth beyond a traditional job description. From the very beginning, the Facilities and People Ops teams were incredibly receptive to me exploring all corners of Meraki.
The Facilities team truly believes that Meraki magic is happening here (as well as the London and Sydney offices), and they work tirelessly to make employees happy, healthy, and create a space where people can do their best work. They also encourage their team members to work on projects that excite them, connect with people in all departments across the company, and stretch beyond your comfort zone. There were multiple instances where my manager covered the front desk so I would be free to meet with someone within Meraki to talk about their career, or took the steps to ensure that I had enough time to work on the extra projects that I cared about.
I met with Morgan (Meraki’s Director of Hardware) to interview for an administrative position with his team, and although that particular position did not pan out, he contacted me a few months later and said that they were creating a compliance and graphics-based role for me that was more suited to my skillset. I had mentioned in my interview that I had a history in graphic design, and I was ecstatic that I would have an opportunity to get back into that world. I was intrigued by the compliance aspect, but honest about the fact that I had no background with that type of work. Thankfully, they assured me that it was just something I would learn by doing. The other compliance team members have backgrounds in architecture, physics, and environmental economics, so I felt confident that I could come into the role and get ramped up without prior knowledge. When it came time for me to start my new position, the Facilities team did everything they could to ensure a smooth transition.
The HW team has been incredibly welcoming, and after one short month with my new team I am astounded at how much I have learned about Meraki. Working with HW engineering has exposed me to a completely new side of Meraki and opened my eyes to how our business operates. I work closely with Cisco International, our Export Team, and our Supply Chain team to ensure that from start to finish, our products get to where they need to go smoothly. I also work on the packaging design and product experience. My new manager has devoted time each week to go in depth about all of our product history, and I will be starting an Adobe Illustrator course in a few weeks so I can further my design skills.
Plus, it doesn’t hurt to mention that we’ve celebrated a different team member’s birthday almost every week since I’ve started…ice cream cake and cheese fondue are a great way to bond! In the upcoming months I will be making a trip to Taiwan to see the factories where our products are made. Everyone on the team has been incredibly kind and welcoming, and the management have gone out of their way to make sure I feel prepared to do my best work.
Meraki is a company that genuinely invests in its employees and wants to see people grow. No matter what department you are working with, the team and management does everything they can to create an environment where people can do their work with soul, creativity and love.
Meraki is hiring! Check out our openings in San Francisco, London, and Sydney at meraki.com/jobs.
