The 5 things that surprised our newest Software Engineer.

Before starting at any new company, there are heaps of things you can research.

Take the product for instance.

We built the world’s first in-browser video creation platform and we’re on a mission to democratize access to video storytelling for all who have a story to tell. We’re all about making the video creation experience as simple for the user as possible. We reject the idea that to create amazing video you must rely on expensive equipment, complicated software and previous video production experience. In essence, our product makes video easy for everyone and we mean everyone. So it makes sense, that we are really proud of what we’ve built and love seeing how excited our engineers are about getting to work on building it out.

On the topic of engineers, our teams are filled with some of the industry’s finest. By scrolling (or stalking) through LinkedIn, you can begin to paint a picture of the wealth of talent that lies behind the platform, with clipchampions joining us from Google, SAP, Microsoft and even Facebook. Ambitious people are drawn to ambitious goals. Boiling down to us building incredible squads where everyone gets to bump heads, collaborate and share knowledge with some seriously talented individuals.

However, even though everyone who walks in our doors for the first time can already form opinions about the Clipchamp platform and maybe even the team, there’s still a lot to take in when you start someplace new. New faces. New tech stacks. New rituals.

To capture a fresh perspective on how Clipchamp looks and feels for someone starting a new role, we sat down with one of our newest clipchampions. We decided to pick his brain by asking him what surprised him the most since starting at Clipchamp a little over a month ago.

Musical Bunch

I’m not going to lie, it struck me how so many people could sing or play some kind of instrument.

With a keyboard and acoustic guitar nestled in the corner of our Brisbane headquarters, music is woven throughout the culture here at Clipchamp. Every recorded human culture has some form of music entwined in their history for the reason that it’s just a fantastic way to communicate.

After all, music is half the magic when it comes to video and that’s what we’re all about.

There’s something about creating the world’s first in-browser video editing platform that really speaks to creatively inclined people. Just happens to be that a lot of creative people are musical. Not only that, but developers and musicians tend to have a lot of similarities. For example, creating music and software are both incredible collaborative and individualistic undertakings, so it’s really no surprise as to why so many of our developers are musical.

Taking it a step further, it’s also not out of the norm to see one of our engineers strumming on the guitar come Friday afternoon or our head of product harmonising with the rest of the team.

Food, Glorious, Food

Between the very well-stocked beer fridge, snack station and catered lunches, I doubt I’ll ever find myself famished. I learnt quickly how serious everyone takes food.

Hard to blame him right? We take food really seriously at Clipchamp and it’s easy to understand why. We’re solving really challenging problems and that requires a lot of energy.

We like to think of it as,

“Kilojoules for killer problems”

More than just providing snacks and drinks, there are magical moments that happen when you go to prepare your morning coffee. Each walk to the snack station presents an opportunity to chat with our peers away from slack.

Engineering Rotations

During my first month, I got to rotate across most of the squads. I got to see exactly how my colleagues work together and the variety of projects each squad faces.

In all honesty, it was brilliant to not just see what everyone was doing, but to contribute. Each squad invited me in and prepared a set of tasks for me to sink my teeth into. Within a short time, I was able to work on everything from new motion titles to changes in the editor experience and learn more about each squads’ stack along the way.

At Clipchamp we have product-focused squads, each filled with a handful of engineers, a designer, product manager and a growth marketer. It can be a bit daunting to learn 40 plus names and faces quickly but since squads are all less than 10 people, it’s a lot less intimidating and way easier for everyone to get to know each other quickly.

Rotations are our way of introducing new faces to the truly ambitious challenges we tackle each and every day as we get closer to making video simple, intuitive and accessible for everyone who has a story to tell.

We make it a point to include rotations for our new engineers because great places to work aren’t solely about what an individual is working on but how we work together as a team.

During those first 30 days, the rotations serve as a first-hand experience to how squads work, how individuals share ideas, how colleagues communicate and especially who to tap when you need that super important thing from that super busy team doing other super important things.

Relax…just do it.

I found it was simply impossible to ignore how relaxed everyone is. It’s not just fluff, the approach to work here is super flexible. No one’s watching the clock or giving you eyes when you get in or leave the office.

If we wanted to ensure a group of people have their butt in a chair for a specified amount of time each day, we’d watch clocks. At Clipchamp, we strive to ensure the best possible experience for our users. So we don’t watch clocks — we watch what really matters, and that’s what we’re building.

We believe that to achieve our goals and ship the best possible experience for our users, everyone needs the ability to work how they work best. It’s a no brainer for us to be flexible in where and when people work.

Through being flexible and for our clipchampions to chill out, we can all simply focus on solving the days’ technical challenges and get on with what we’re working on and not have to worry about the time.

Culture

As if I wouldn’t mention it. I was trying to think of a way to address all the little things I’ve picked up, the teeny rituals that make Clipchamp so unique and I think it all comes down to culture.

I quickly learnt to play (and win) Coup, when the daily stroll down to 7–11 was for a timely sugar rush and that the beer fridge comes in handy when 4 pm rolls around every Friday afternoon. Now that I’ve become accustomed to the Clipchamp way of life, all of these have begun to feel like second nature.

Whilst individually these activities may seem insignificant, they are what brings us together. Each of our rituals has their own origin stories but what they all have in common is that they came from our team members. They have developed, morphed and new ones have transformed from ideas into reality as we’ve grown, but nonetheless they’ve stuck. Those moments to share in common interests, embrace our competitiveness and relax over a cold one or a cupcake, makes our teams stronger.

Clipchampions empower everyone to become a creator of awesome video content. Our work has a real-time impact on over 8M people and counting from basically everywhere except Antarctica. We’re transforming the way people create and we’re only just getting started! See our current opening here >> https://clipchamp.com/en/company/careers/