Life at Plotly: People & Culture Blog #13
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to work at Plotly?
In this blog series, we will provide insight into the daily experiences of working at Plotly. We have interviewed team members from various departments, including Engineering, Customer Success and Solutions, Sales, and Professional Services, to give a comprehensive view of Plotly. Through these interviews, you will learn about the individual journeys of our team members at Plotly and their current roles and responsibilities within the organization.
Why did you choose to work at Plotly? What made us stand out?
Before coming to Plotly, I’d worked in the data prep space for over 5 years. I’ve always been a very visual person, so the idea of working at a company focused on visualization and telling stories with data was really exciting to me. I also had several then-former colleagues tell me that Plotly was one of the best companies they’d ever worked for, so joining the team was a no-brainer!
What would you say to someone who was considering Plotly as a place to work?
At Plotly, you have a chance to work with a fantastic team — consisting of people from all around the world — on a wide variety of interesting projects. For me, being part of the team at Plotly has been really valuable for learning how to collaborate effectively across time zones and across continents, particularly because we’re a remote-first company. In short, if you want to work with cool people on cool projects in a remote-first environment, Plotly will be an awesome place for you!
What advice would you give to someone new joining Plotly?
Since Plotly is a remote-first company, you won’t be face to face with your colleagues on most days. Being productive in this kind of environment requires a proactive approach to communication. Reach out to as many people as you can, especially outside your team, to establish lines of communication early on. It’s easy to limit yourself to just interacting with members of your immediate team, but you’ll get so much more out of your experience here if you take the time to get to know as many people as possible!
Reaching out to someone doesn’t have to be explicitly work-related, either. Have a 30-minute virtual “coffee chat” with someone, join a virtual social hour, attend a lunch-and-learn, or post pictures of your pets in a Slack channel! There are so many fun ways to get to know the people here as people, and not just as coworkers.
What is your favorite Plotly memory?
My favorite Plotly memory (so far!) has been visiting the Montreal office and going out for karaoke afterwards. Lots of people said they were on the fence about singing, but we ended up having a dozen people join us! While it’s great getting to know people remotely, having experiences like that makes it so much easier to get to know one another and build strong relationships.
In a few sentences, what do you do at Plotly?
It’s almost a cliché to say this, but it’s true that no two days are the same as a sales engineer at Plotly! I’m one of the first technical points of contact for people who are exploring Plotly and Dash Enterprise. My responsibilities include giving product demos, answering technical questions, and understanding and explaining how we’re different from other solutions, to name a few.
Put another way, my job is to be a communicator. I need to be able to effectively convey what our product does and how it works to people from a variety of backgrounds with different levels of experience. I also need to coordinate with every team within Plotly to relay the feedback that we’re hearing in the field. I love speaking with so many people, both internally and externally!
What is your favorite part about working for Plotly?
I’m going to cheat a little bit here and share two of my favorite things about working at Plotly! First and foremost, it’s a treat being able to speak with people every single day about the challenges they’re trying to solve and how Plotly could help. I learn so much about what’s going on in the world from speaking with our customers! I also love being able to work with such an amazing team. Every person I’ve met at Plotly, without exception, has been incredibly kind and supportive. I know that whenever I need help, I can count on everyone to have my back.
What is the most significant thing you have learned while working here?
The most important skill I’ve learned during my time at Plotly is how to work efficiently in a remote setting. I’m a huge extrovert — a year and a half ago, you would have found me in an office every single day. Even though I’m not physically in the same place as most of my teammates now, I’ve still gotten to know them and am able to collaborate with them. Being physically apart also makes it that much more special when we do meet up in person!
What are your proudest accomplishments so far during your time at Plotly?
My proudest achievement so far at Plotly has been leading a workshop at the Open Data Science Conference (ODSC) in Boston. There, I showed a room full of people how to create applications using Dash Open Source. I love meeting people and teaching, so leading a workshop like that was really fun and fulfilling for me!
A close second has to be making my costume for Plotly’s Halloween contest. My brain is always thinking of puns, so when I started thinking of fun data-viz-related ideas, the first thing that came to mind was “g-raph”/giraffe!
Where do you look for inspiration?
I’m inspired by people who strive to make the world a better place. My hero growing up was Fred Rogers, who dedicated his life to making everyone feel special, loved, and accepted. We should all strive to be just as kind and helpful to one another!
How do you see Plotly evolving in the next five years, and how do you see yourself being a part of that change?
I see Plotly evolving in the coming years to be even easier to use for both technical and nontechnical users. We’re already seeing technologies like large language models that are fundamentally changing the ways in which we interact with technology and lowering the barrier to entry for many different types of tasks.
Plotly has big plans for how to incorporate technologies like this into our libraries, and we’re always considering how to make our products as easy to use as possible. As a member of the sales organization, I’m excited to continue speaking with the people using our software so I can share their feedback and help our team build the best product possible!
What is your favorite activity outside of work?
My favorite activity outside of work is playing Pokémon GO. It’s been a great way for me to make new friends and explore new places I otherwise would have never seen!
What’s your go-to karaoke song or favorite music genre?
I have several favorites for karaoke! “Bye Bye Bye” by NSYNC, is my favorite opener, and I love anything by Linkin Park, especially “Numb”. “Dream On” by Aerosmith is a great way to end the night — people love the high notes!
Interested in joining our team? View our open positions!
