A letter to future Norinauts
Written by Norinauts Giovanni Sornatale & Christianne Taylor
At Nori, we firmly believe in the power of bringing people together to solve challenges we see in the world around us. We’ve worked hard to build a workplace that fosters honesty, creativity, entrepreneurial spirit, and of course, collaboration.
When you join the Nori team and become a Norinaut, you enter a community built on much more than great perks (although we do have those too!). Each Norinaut is one of a special collective that seeks not to be right, but to get it right while working on climate solutions.
Rooted in this collective are Nori’s core values that guide our mission, our work, and the bonds built between us. These values can be summed up with HALAC. What’s HALAC? An acronym for the following:
- Honesty above all else
- Assume best intentions
- Limit work in progress
- Act with the end in mind
- Continuously improve
HALAC acts as the foundation for our culture, our decision making, our hiring, our creative process, and just about everything else we do here at Nori.
Recently, some Norinauts sat down with us for an open and honest discussion about why they decided to join the Nori team, what they enjoy about our culture, and what keeps them energized while working on our mission. Included here are a few of the common threads we found:
We want our work to be impactful.
For instance, whether we loved our previous workplaces, or found ourselves frustrated with bureaucracy at large corporations, we all wanted to join a team working together on something bigger than ourselves. Climate change solutions certainly fit that bill!
Amie Corso, a software engineer and blockchain enthusiast, shared this when asked why she applied and accepted our offer. “I applied to work at Nori because it seemed like the most perfect confluence of several things that I care about and am passionate about — climate change being my top global concern, combined with blockchain technology being a philosophical passion, and agriculture being something that I’m interested in, so I couldn’t even believe that Nori existed as a company.”
This is a marathon, not a sprint.
Through these talks we also started to get a sense of what some Norinauts think of HALAC and the values we keep in mind. For example, Norinaut and Frontend Engineer, Dave Martinez, explains why Limit Work in Progress is his favorite value.
“Limit work in progress is the big one for me. Coming from a place where there were so many different things happening at once, there was always pressure to deliver, and to move onto the next thing. We didn’t have the opportunity to make big changes that would have paid off in the long term. Here at Nori, I think we are thinking long term, we’re thinking of quality work, and I think those things are most important to me.”
There’s freedom to create and learn daily.
While it’s great to understand how our values attract and resonate with our employees, we also wanted to understand how the team feels about working for Nori on a day to day basis. It’s no secret that Nori is tackling big problems, and because a solution for climate change has never been created before, there is no blueprint! That’s why we work so hard to foster individual thought and creative freedom in every Norinaut’s work. This is something that has kept Richie Farman, Nori’s first hire and longest tenured employee, going for 4 years!
“This is the world’s best opportunity to work on something fun and challenging. There is never a shortage of interesting problems to work on… You’re never really doing rote or menial things, and that has to do with how nascent and new what we’re doing is. It’s exhilarating! And scary.. But I guess that’s what makes roller coasters fun! Yet, at the same time it’s surprisingly low pressure. Nobody is expecting you to do it right the first time. You don’t feel like you let people down when you don’t do something right the first time.”
Balancing work, play, and well-being.
It brings us great joy to see such a wide range of energies and talents woven together in our shared workplace culture. Ultimately, the culture comes down to the people. Nori is a group of fun loving, curious, motivated individuals who strike the unique balances between work and play, seriousness and fun, and simplicity and complexity. Nori’s co-founder and Head of Demand, Alexsandra Guerra, sums this up perfectly when choosing the words she uses to describe Nori’s culture.
“Love… and appreciation. I think people appreciate each other here, and I appreciate them. I think there’s a lot of joy here. And all of that’s balanced with a good amount of tension, and goals we want to hit, and ambitions to do that.”
Are you a mindful, creative, and collaborative spirit? Join us.
With these insights in mind, Nori is excited to grow the team! We have lots of exciting things in our pipeline and a number of roles to hire for, with more to come. If you feel like anything you’ve read fits the bill for what you’re looking for in a career, mission, and culture, we encourage you to apply and hope you’ll one day join us as a Norinaut.
View our open roles on our Careers page, and get notified about new job postings when you sign up for The Nori Wrap, our weekly newsletter.
