Gong’s Unique Culture? It Comes Down to 7 Things
I joined Gong as EVP of R&D in January 2020, after many years in the cybersecurity industry, both at startups and large corporations. As a relative newcomer from a different ecosystem, I’ve had the unique opportunity to observe the Gong culture and identify what makes us tick as a company — what makes us different and what helps us get the work done, all while enjoying the ride.
Here’s what I’ve found:
1. We work in pods.
And no, I don’t mean quarantine pods… Even before the pandemic, our R&D and product management teams were broken up into pods consisting of an engineering team lead, two to six full-stack engineers, one product manager, and one UX designer — in other words, about six to seven engineers for every product manager.
Even as we grow, each unit is self-sufficient and dedicated (though we’re all, of course, ultimately working on the same product). Each works independently to satisfy its segment or customer, and within pods there’s a feeling of cohesiveness and concentrated team efforts.
While their pods are tackling features and bringing them to life, Gong product managers and data analysts are the keepers of the data. They’re responsible for collecting data on actual customer usage and interactions, measuring their success, and comparing notes with pods working on other features, so as a company we can make decisions strategically.
And when we want to launch a new feature, we simply create a new pod, which rallies around a single idea and remains focused on the particular customer needs it is seeking to address, ensuring more successful delivery.
2. We have a very strong but small QA team.
Our R&D team is made up of about 100 people. Most companies our size would have about 20 to 25 QA testers. We have three — not because we don’t care about QA (obviously), but because we believe deeply in giving our engineers responsibility for and ownership over their work.
This manifests itself in two ways. First, Gong engineers know that most likely, no one is going to check their work and that it’s up to them to check that all the t’s are crossed and the i’s are dotted. Second, by eliminating that extra QA step, which often ends up being a bottleneck, we give our engineers the ability to get the code they wrote into production and, more importantly, into real customers’ hands, in as little as half an hour.
In fact, thanks to our dynamic “manual continuous deployment” process, as we call it, in 2020 we were able to push code to production 9,337 times!
What we’ve found with our engineers is that when they’re responsible for something and it’s up to them to get it done, they enjoy the work more and experience a greater sense of reward from seeing it actually go up and be used.
Do things go wrong sometimes? Do we have bugs? Of course. But just as our engineers can push code to production quickly, they can just as easily push fixes. The result: Happier engineers who have autonomy and responsibility and feel trusted.
As for QA, they’re not stuck cleaning up other people’s work; instead, they’re responsible for meaningful “big rocks” stuff, too, like system tests, frameworks, and automation.
3. We don’t have infrastructure teams.
Most companies like ours have infrastructure teams that are responsible for bigger, strategic thinking when it comes to R&D efforts. There’s often a certain aura surrounding these infrastructure teams — they’re thought of as the most talented people, and other people want to join because of the prestige, rather than having to work on day-to-day features.
The problem is that infrastructure is, well, infrastructure. Even the most robust bicycle frame won’t get you anywhere without wheels.
What often happens is that infrastructure teams end up with a serious case of navel-gazing, becoming so focused on the infrastructure that they not only build layers of excessive complexity or superfluous functionality, but also create huge backlogs. And while they’re busy strategizing the shape of the frame, the paint, and the seat, the product teams have no choice but to forge ahead with their own wheels.
Of course, we can’t just ignore infrastructure, so what we’ve done is get rid of the infrastructure team, replacing it with a shift system — shareable e-scooters, if you will. Gongsters from different teams or groups come together for shifts on infrastructure projects or features per the guild’s guidelines. Shifts last one or two weeks and are allocated on a quarterly basis. A dedicated management team oversees the shift planning, including gathering people and defining their roles, and Gongsters can volunteer based on the shift’s task or features.
Even though participation is completely voluntary, we’ve found that most team members do volunteer — and love it. They get a chance to step away from their regular responsibilities for a week or two, challenge themselves with something new, and see things from a different angle, without having to context switch on a micro level and all while continuing to work toward the same overarching goal.
On average, we spend about 25% of our time on infrastructure, and while the planning is certainly more involved than just having a discrete infrastructure team, we’ve found the rewards to be far greater.
4. We actually help each other (as cheesy as it sounds).
Early in my career, I found myself turning regularly to someone on another team for feedback and assistance. At a certain point, he asked me to quantify how much help I expected to need going forward so he could get permission — because (surprise, surprise) helping me meant that his own personal deadlines were taking a hit.
At Gong, one of our operating principles is “Win as a team.” We truly believe that one person’s successes are meaningless if everyone else is lagging. The way we’re able to win as a team is by working together and not just with each of us running in our own lane. Walk the office (pre- and hopefully post-COVID, of course), and you’ll see people huddling together trying to work something out or jumping out of their seat to walk over and help someone else with something. If deadlines suffer a bit because of it… Let’s just say no one’s asking for permission.
In fact, a new hire recently approached me and shared that she’s found the feeling of collaboration to be even stronger at Gong than at the seven-person startup she left, despite being a much larger team and company. Boom.
5. We huddle.
Speaking of huddling… Here’s a practice that I brought from my previous company (where we called them “arch-boards” because #corporate): Back when we were working in the office, people would just grab a room and “huddle” to discuss a new feature or idea. The door was (literally) open, and anyone could join.
In the Zoom era, huddles have gone remote and a little less impromptu: we hold them once-twice a week, and while we often invite specific people to present particular features, huddles appear on everyone’s calendar, and anyone can join and participate. We don’t always reach a consensus about the topic at hand, but we leave rank, company tenure, and ego in the waiting room and engage in open, fact-based discourse, with exceptional feedback and constructive criticism. The result is not just better designs, but also smoother communication among our team members.
6. We use Gong.
Our customers rave about Gong as a sales tool, but it also does a ton of heavy lifting internally. With the exception of private calls, all of our calls get recorded, uploaded, and analyzed in Gong and stored in a library, where anyone can access them, whether they missed something or need a refresher. Plus, we can tag, share, and comment to draw other Gongsters’ attention and stay in touch.
Do you need to use Gong for your internal meetings? Not at all (though I may know someone who can hook you up if you’re interested 😉). With the increase in remote work over the past year, video conferencing recording and transcription has become a lot more common. In our experience, though, there’s real value in making these files accessible and available to all (or most) to keep everyone on the same page, and it’s especially easy to do with Gong.
7. We don’t fall in love with our ideas.
Just over a year ago, we were operating under the assumption that salespeople sat in swivel chairs together in a big room. Six months, one year, or five years from now, everything you read here (or most of it) could be moot. We know we can be wrong, and that nothing is set in stone. We try to keep that front and center, constantly questioning and challenging and not letting ourselves get too comfortable with anything. (Ahem, maybe we’ll actually need an infrastructure team and more than three QA people someday…)
Data plays a huge role in how we make decisions. We collect data and information wherever we can, so we can assess how to move forward, evaluate, and make changes. And we constantly gather feedback from our customers and learn from the industry, our peers, and other companies, too.
All of that together is just a small peek into what makes Gong unique and Gongsters love Gong. (Oh, and did I mention that we’re hiring?)
