5 Questions with a Growth Marketer | Meet Aaron
Today, we’re sitting down with Aaron Lu, one of our growth marketers here at Merge.
Some quick facts about Aaron?
Yes, he’s born and raised in the Bay.
Yes, he has a dog named Taco.
And double yes — he enjoys everything from woodworking to grinding League on the weekends.
Welcome to 5 Values, 5 Questions with Merge.
Hey, Aaron. Let’s just dive in: what’s your favorite part of working at Merge?
I’d have to say — everyone here at Merge is open to what you have to offer. As long as you have a well-researched hypothesis you want to test, everyone is excited to explore and test new things that are potentially very impactful for the company.
I think it’s a part of the culture here, really, where everyone is trusted to take a lot of ownership over what they do: it shows in the quality of the product and the quality of the output of the team. And I love that approach to taking on new challenges and problems.
What’s been the toughest problem you’ve had to solve so far?
Before, I had never gone through the steps of starting an entire marketing function from scratch. And at Merge, as an early marketing hire, that was my first task. It involved organizing a ton of data and configuring quite a few integrations (ironic — I know). But most importantly, it meant making sure that everything we were setting up was built for scale.
Despite that weight of responsibility, from the moment I started, Shensi [Merge’s CEO and co-founder] was like ‘The world is your oyster. The expectation is for you to take ownership over a lot of these channels you’re setting up. We trust you to do the work.’ Having that support behind me made this challenge a lot easier to tackle.
What’d you learn from this project?
Having to take on a project that was so cross-functional really forced me to align my time goals with the goals of the company as a whole. Which was really different coming from a background that was focused on siloed departments and mostly IC work.
But I’m happy to say now, many months later and with many new teammates on board, we’re able to confirm ‘hey, a lot of our systems are scalable.’ And that feels great.
What was a time when a teammate went above and beyond for you?
On the marketing side we work closely and rely on many different departments, whether it’s sales, engineering, platform, or growth.
I can think of a time when it felt like the whole engineering org really stepped up for us. One of our site projects became blocked when we discovered it would require a huge technical lift. Rather than letting it become stalled, one of our technical product managers, Quentin, stepped in almost immediately by prioritizing it in the roadmap. Elton, the engineer on the task, then turned in a deliverable that we thought would take weeks in just a few days.
And that’s just one example. In general, everyone at Merge is always willing to help where they can.
What were you surprised about when it came to life at Merge or the Merge office culture?
I’d worked at a lot of different startups before, but again I keep going back to the topic of ownership. I truly think that everybody who has been hired at Merge is really invested in making their role and their function the best that it can be. And it’s tough to find that in a lot of other places.
Now, time for bonus questions: favorite office snack?
Oolong tea.
Favorite outing?
Pickleball was really fun.
Favorite thing to do on the weekend?
Snowboarding
Editor’s Note: Aaron also is on a quest to get certified in anything he can. Seriously.
If you’re interested in joining Aaron as part of the Marketing team, or want to check out what other roles Merge is looking for — check out our careers page. We’re always looking for great people to help Merge grow.
