Crafting Engineering Values at Inspire
Inspire has undergone a lot of changes in the past year. As our number of subscribers have grown and we’ve expanded to new markets, our employee count has multiplied. Understandably, our engineering team has also grown. We’re now bi-coastal with smaller cross-functional teams. Because we gain enjoyment and fulfillment in the work that we do, we’ve worked to distill the values of our engineering work culture and what makes our time at Inspire meaningful.
Why should we have engineering values?
In our day-to-day lives, through different aspects of our identity, we subscribe to many value systems; it’s how we, as individuals, exist in a society and guide ourselves in different environments. We all have different lives, we work in different locations, and have very different experiences, but values bring us into alignment on the expectations from our actions. Within Inspire as an organization, our values are what aligns us to a common goal.
Values also have many practical purposes. They can be an aid to help inform who is hired or promoted, how to give feedback, and how to engage in one’s own work and communicate with the team. Useful values accomplish several things; they express opinions of the organization, describe the best attributes of the team, and provide a gateway for new members to become part of the team atmosphere.
Values are not a catch-all, but they do describe points of emphasis of the group. For example, Mark Zuckerberg emphasizes that engineers should “move fast and break things” i.e. action above all else. The same value would not be part of an aerospace company which operates conservatively and where safety matters most. Values should capture the essence of the team; the features of a group that are quintessential.
Our engineering team is committed to the notion of shared responsibility and individual empowerment. Every member brings something unique to the company. Because Inspire’s goal is cultivating a brighter, more sustainable, energy future, the engineering involved exists at the convergence of energy, technology, and sustainability. At Inspire, employees are known as avengers. An avenger lives by five simple principles: Study It, Coach It, Live It, Own it, Crush it. To accomplish this, we align around the following common values and goals:
Study It: Providing America with clean energy is a complex engineering feat. It requires us to explore the boundaries of what we can accomplish, and dig deep to understand the “Why” Keeping a learners mindset, we look to experiment and learn through iteration. — What we do crosses several domains thus no one is an expert of everything. We understand this and value learning, experimentation, and the scientific process.
Coach It: One person alone cannot solve the problems we face. Instead of focusing on ourselves, we look to elevate those around us. We value mentorship, helping others, and being sensitive to the needs of those around us.
Live It: Transforming the way society consumes energy begins with ourselves. We’re members of the service we provide and are users of the products we develop. In order to advance the mission of clean energy, we all have to act as luminaries of the work that we do.
Own It: To get great work done, you have to love what you do. As engineers, we should find joy in the work we choose to do. Every squad, project, or relationship, … it’s our responsibility to love it or change it.
Crush It: We only have one planet that we can’t take for granted. With climate change, everyday that passes without action increases the danger to our planet’s overall well-being. As engineers at Inspire, we’re obligated to be stewards of the environment and change the way America obtains clean energy.
