Work(ing) at Wealthfront Josh Sulkers

Josh Sulkers is an Engineering Manager at Wealthfront. He leads one of the client-facing teams consisting of Android, iOS, web, and backend engineers. Born and raised in the Canadian prairies, he lived in various places before settling down in Seattle with his wonderful wife and adorable dog. He spent seven years with Amazon Web Services where he was both a software engineer and a software development manager before moving to Wealthfront in 2022.

What made you decide to join Wealthfront?

When searching for a new workplace, I wanted to be able to pick up my phone and use the things I was helping to build. My first choice, no question, was Wealthfront.

From the first moment I became a client around six years ago, I was instantly impressed. There’s a sense of quality to everything from the product ideas to the overall look and feel of the app that is really special. I had a feeling the people who worked at Wealthfront would be outstanding, and they absolutely are.

One of the first things I helped deliver was a simple email notification, and it was a real moment of joy to receive that email as a client. I have delivered some cool stuff at other companies over the years, but in this situation it felt very personal and made me happy.

What surprised you the most about working at Wealthfront?

There were a few things communicated to me during my interview that were still a surprise when I got to experience them.

The first was the level of impact. I’m fortunate to have worked at places that gave me a lot of influence and opportunity to make an impact, but I was surprised at how quickly I was involved in key decisions here. You truly can forge your own path, take on as much responsibility as you can handle, and feel empowered to make things better across the company.

The second was transparency. I’m a huge fan of open and honest communication, and I was pleasantly surprised at the extent of information sharing within the company. I’m often delighted at how much is shared at Wealthfront, and feel fortunate that employees get as much detail as we do.

The third was the open access to anyone in the company. This was a big shock. Within the first month, I was meeting with all of our executives, and in many cases they were providing onboarding training. I very quickly felt connected to the people across the company in a way that is very special.

What has been your favorite part of Wealthfront so far?

The people at Wealthfront rock! I constantly feel surrounded by talented, friendly, fun people. You can see everyone works hard and has high standards, but they also know how to have fun and keep things light.

What is the most valuable thing you learned at Wealthfront so far?

I’ve learned some valuable lessons in how to gracefully handle the unexpected.

2022 was an interesting year to join a financial company, and there were some highs and lows during pretty unprecedented economic times. The resiliency and adaptability of the entire company through the turbulence has been inspiring. Wealthfronters have embraced the importance of grit, rolling with the punches, pivoting and being self aware, and communicating in a way that helps us handle the unexpected very well.

With about half the company working in engineering, how do you collect and act on feedback?

Each week we ask all employees for a general pulse check (i.e. on a scale of 1–5 how are you feeling) along with one question for the week. I’ve been fortunate enough to oversee this program and have worked with people across the company on what we are curious about each week. The topic ranges from reactions to company news, to how we can improve, to rating our performance in various areas. We also toss in some silly questions from time to time just to keep it light.

I value the power and importance of asking questions and really appreciate this mechanism within Wealthfront. Getting customer feedback early and often can help ensure you’re solving the right problems and the power of getting feedback applies to management as well. It is very enjoyable to use these responses to affect meaningful change that makes everyone’s job better.

You also spend a lot of your time supporting Wealthfront’s internal education program. What is that and why is that important?

Wealthfront has a fantastic internal education program and from day one I was eager to be a part of it. It’s designed to be a set of peer-to-peer engineering-driven programs that highlight what our engineers value, the choices we’ve made over the years, and the tradeoffs of those decisions.

Any engineer can pick a topic, start up a course, and get some experience in building a curriculum. They get guidance from senior leaders and then they get to teach the material live classroom style, through videos, or through written documents. The program helps employees ramp up on new subjects and share important knowledge. It also gives our teachers opportunities to flex their teaching muscles and meet new people across the company.

I’m mostly an administrator and advocate but I also pop into classes when I can to soak up all the awesome knowledge and see people in action.

What do you want the world to know about you?

I love being a manager, and I build wicked teams.

If you’re looking for icebreakers and conversation starters I’m your typical nerd. I’m a huge TV and movie fan with a wide range of tastes and strong opinions. I enjoy tabletop board games and strategy video games but don’t play either as much as I would like. When it comes to reading I’m all about sci-fi, data science, and management. I drink way too much coffee and not nearly enough Irish Whiskey.

There’s something special about Wealthfront and I’m really enjoying my time here. If you are looking for a change, or are interested in hearing more about what we have to offer, hit me up on LinkedIn.

Interested in working at Wealthfront? Check out our careers page!

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Wealthfront offers a free software-based financial advice engine that delivers automated financial planning tools to help users achieve better outcomes. Investment management and advisory services are provided by Wealthfront Advisers LLC, an SEC registered investment adviser, and brokerage related products are provided by Wealthfront Brokerage LLC, a member of FINRA/SIPC.

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