Over the course of a tumultuous year, where many companies had to pivot to an almost entirely remote workforce, we have learned the importance of developing a great work culture that goes beyond a beautiful office and fully stocked kitchen. We wanted to find out what makes a company's culture truly great, even throughout challenging circumstances.
We went straight to the source and heard from over 500+ submissions from companies all around the US in the Timmy Awards this year. These Los Angeles companies' submissions showed that they are going above and beyond to create the best possible environment for their employees.
LA's Best Places to Work
Pledgling
At a Glance:
2020 has shown us that collective action and social impact is no longer a “nice to have” for brands. However, the technology to execute giving programs has not caught up to today’s standards. Pledgeling’s mobile-first, livestream-primed technology has made virtual giving campaigns not just possible, but also exciting, for donors and nonprofits during COVID-19. They are launching a major partnership with Zoom as Zoom's first ever app for donations.
Top Perks, Benefits or Stand Outs:
Working for a great cause, flexible workhours
What Employees are Saying:
“Pledgeling has an amazing team with vast experience in both the technology and impact spaces! I've learned so much in my time here. In addition to a positive environment and great team camaraderie, the work done every day at Pledgeling is truly inspirational.”
TutorMe
At a Glance:
TutorMe is a revolutionary online education platform that provides on-demand tutoring and online courses. We believe there are more teachers in the world than are actually teaching so we want to empower more people to learn from each other. Our platform enables thousands of tutors to share their knowledge with students around the globe. Whether you need help with high school algebra or you want to learn how to program in Python, we have a perfect tutor for you. At TutorMe, we want to change the way you learn.
Top Perks, Benefits or Stand Outs:
Learning opportunities, free learning opportunities
What Employees are Saying:
"The TutorMe team strives to level the academic playing field by providing affordable, quality, online support to all students regardless of location, time, ability, school they attend, or resources they have available. TutorMe aims to make academic dreams a reality for all."
Thrive Market
At a Glance:
Thrive Market was founded in 2014 with a mission to make healthy living easy and affordable for everyone. As an online, membership-based market, Thrive delivers the highest quality healthy and sustainable products at member-only prices, while matching every paid membership with a free one for someone in need. Every day, Thrive Market leverages innovative technology and member-first thinking to help their 900,000+ members find better products, support better brands, and build a better world in the process. In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Thrive Market is providing access to healthy groceries nation-wide.
Top Perks, Benefits or Stand Outs:
Company equity, transparent leadership and strategy, close knit team
What Employees are Saying:
“After I left my last job, I worked really hard to find a company that I could feel good about working for, while also feeling respected as an employee. And after working at Thrive Market for a year, I can honestly say it’s one of the best companies (if not the best company) I’ve ever worked for.”
SADA
At a Glance:
SADA is a global leader in cloud technology services whose solutions help its customers tackle their biggest business challenges. SADA's wide range of products and services include Infrastructure modernization, productivity & collaboration tools, application development, data analytics, cloud security and asset management to name a few.
Top Perks, Benefits or Stand Outs:
Robust D&I Programs, Professional Development, Unlimited PTO, Remote Work Options
What Employees are Saying:
“At SADA, we are continuously looking for ways we can support our community to build a more equitable and inclusive company and society.”
Xos Trucks
At a Glance:
Dedicated to making fleets more efficient, we build state-of-the-art electric commercial vehicles at a much lower operating cost. Developing cutting edge technologies for medium and heavy duty electric vehicles—like step vans, box trucks and vocational vehicles—our mobility solutions exceed anything on the present market. Capable of transporting products with greater reliability and simplicity, Xos electric trucks are designed in the most environmentally conscious manner possible.
Top Perks, Benefits or Stand Outs:
Tight-knit team, positive culture
What Employees are Saying:
“It may be a wild world out there right now, but Xos is home. The people, the passion, the got-your-back feeling. At the end of the day, most startups are born out of a great idea. But only the best ones unlock the true power of success within.”
UpKeep Maintenance Management
At a Glance:
UpKeep was founded in 2015 by our CEO, Ryan Chan. The CMMS he used while working as a process development engineer in a manufacturing plant was too complicated, so he learned how to code and created the first version of UpKeep. Today, UpKeep is a team of 100+ people from around the world who are dedicated to making maintenance software easier to use and adopt.
Top Perks, Benefits or Stand Outs:
Unlimited PTO, company equity, matched donations
What Employees are Saying:
“UpKeep has been named one of 2020's Best Places to Work by Inc. Magazine — and for good reason. From our recruiting, to our onboarding, to company culture, we truly have cultivated a workplace environment that cares about the people we hire, treat them right, and train them to treat other people right.”
PeerStreet
At a Glance:
We support private lenders who make loans to real estate entrepreneurs, who then rejuvenate aging homes. Not only does this create local jobs, but it also improves neighborhoods and local communities by reversing the decay of aging housing across the United States and creating desirable opportunities for new families, renters, investors, and lenders.
Top Perks, Benefits or Stand Outs:
Fun work environment, purposeful work, inclusive culture
What Employees are Saying:
“The workplace culture is great, there is a lot of time spent making sure peoples day to day experience is the best it can be and the office socials are amazing. Everyone is very friendly and helpful.”
MomentFeed
At a Glance:
MomentFeed works with many of the largest multi-location brands to help them get found when consumers are searching for nearby businesses online and often on their mobile phones. For a company with a vibrant culture in the heart of Santa Monica, and clients that rely heavily on foot traffic to drive revenue, it’s been an interesting year to say the least.
Top Perks, Benefits or Stand Outs:
Highly engaged team, culture focused on innovation
What Employees are Saying:
“The Engineering team is a bright and talented team that is eager to take any challenge head-on. The inquisitive nature of the team facilitates great conversation centered around the desire to grow and succeed.”
Pipe
At a Glance:
Pipe is changing the way companies with recurring revenues access capital to grow their businesses, by providing an alternative to taking on debt or dilutive capital. Pipe has achieved this by not only creating a completely new, tradable asset class - the recurring revenue stream- but also building the exchange on which these highly valued assets can be bought and sold by institutional investors and banks.
MoveCU, Inc.
At a Glance:
MoveCU is a financial services company focused on bringing simple, powerful loan-shopping technology to the credit union industry. MoveCU innovates user experience, online lead generation, and loan application technology to allow credit unions to compete in the nationwide marketplace without significant marketing costs or technology investment.
Dentulu
At a Glance:
The dedicated people at Dentulu Inc. have been working incredibly hard these last three years to revolutionize the way that the public gets dental care. theirproducts include the Dentulu app, Dentulu Provider app, and Dentulu Workplace app, which collectively foster an innovative dental environment for both patients and professionals. Dentulu wants to shed light on the fields of Teledentistry and Mobile Dentistry and bring them into the popular eye. They believe that these two services are the future of dentistry, and that through them EVERYONE can have access to high-quality dental care, regardless of socioeconomic background, pre-existing conditions, or physical access.
Esports One
At a Glance:
This platform is tackling a big problem: fantasy esports has relied on game publisher’s APIs, which can be turned off at the whim of the publisher. With an engineering team built of MIT and CalTech Grads, Esports One launched with a different approach. Their computer vision and machine learning solution gobbled up more than 2.3 billion data points from more than 100 million League of Legends players over 10+ years. As a result, their system delivers predictive insights with a 90% accuracy rate within the first 10 minutes of the start of each match. For users, this delivers a competitive viewing experience, where fans can watch a live fantasy game while simultaneously receiving supportive data points in real-time.
Top Perks, Benefits or Stand Outs:
Flexible hours and choice to work from home or in-office, worldwide team
What Employees are Saying:
“The company is open to new ideas, great people work there, and creativity is often rewarded.”
Audio Design Desk
At a Glance:
Audio Design Desk is an audio workstation you can play like an instrument. Using an A.I. called Sonic Intelligence™, the program can pay attention to the types of sounds a user responds to and, over time, will start pushing sounds to the user that the program thinks they’ll like. Because Sonic Intelligence also carries an embedded sync point, users can perform their sounds using their QWERTY keyboard while watching video, and they can then replace their sounds with alternates at will. This happens instantaneously and with personalized, professional results, and the experience is magical.
Top Perks, Benefits or Stand Outs:
Highly collaborative team, free access to the software, company culture focused on education
What Employees are Saying:
“Working at Audio Design Desk means you get to have a part in leading the sound design revolution. An idea you share in our weekly Zoom call can easily end up in our software or on our website by the next meeting.”
The Bay Area's Best Tech Managers
A company can only be as great as it's leadership. Managers and leadership can make or break a company, and they are at the forefront of creating the best places for technologists to work. A stand-out manager leads their team through unexpected territory, inspires performance, and ensures an inclusive and productive team culture. We couldn't share the best places to work in the Bay Area without highlighting the award-nominated tech talent leading the way for their teams and companies.
Peter Artmont, Director of Product Management | OWNZONES Entertainment Technologies
How do they impact the company?
Peter has always had a passion for promoting career development. As a manager in the Media and Entertainment Technology space, he’s acquired a wealth of knowledge and experience throughout his professional career on both the Film and TV Production side of the industry as well as the Media Technology side. Peter is very systematic with his approach to management and ensures that every facet of the organization has a strong foundation before tackling more intricate issues. He ensures that everyone has the knowledge and the tools to complete their job with confidence, and is always pushing for everyone to learn more.
What are their employees saying?
“Peter’s work ethic is both admirable and energizing; he leads by example and inspires his teammates to strive for excellence. He is the first to publicly applaud his team members and provide specific feedback on what they have done well. This ever-flowing feedback loop gives his team members the confidence they need in order to continue to produce great results and to look toward their peers as both models and resources for improvement.”
Liam McCallum, Chief Product Officer | Loop Media, Inc.
How do they impact the company?
As our Chief Product Officer, Liam has been instrumental in our growth this past year. Under Liam’s leadership, the product team has created the best music audio and video player on the market. In the last year alone, we’ve seen rapid adoption of our Loop players across our most popular B2B partners. Yardhouse, Margaritaville and Texas Roadhouse all have Loop players installed in hundreds of their own chains. On the content partnership side, Liam was pivotal in helping us close our 2020 partnerships - these include a partnership with Huawei, Plex TV, Gas Station TV (GSTV) and Tivo.
What are their employees saying?
“Liam and his product/tech team inspire innovation through leading by example. We are at the cutting edge of audio/video players precisely because of the Loop player envisioned and created by Liam and his team."
Ihar Heneralau, CEO | ICVR
How do they impact the company?
As you all know, 2020 has been a very challenging year and many businesses had to shut their doors. At ICVR, we suffered as well and we lost many projects due to COVID-19. Between late March and early April, Ihar took the challenge and pivoted our approach to the market. 5 months later, ICVR has shifted from a work-for-hire tech studio to an IP-holder studio with 4 new IPs (mobile game, VR game, two immersive 3D world platforms) and under his guidance, I was able to get us into the TV & Film industry to introduce a new Virtual Production tool that allows TV & Film studios to get back to work safely during and beyond the COVID-19 era.
What are their employees saying?
“He's not only knowledgeable and experienced, but he's a great leader than inspires me and our 45 employees to not only do our best but to challenge ourselves and develop new skills on a daily basis. He taught us to look at problems as opportunities to innovate and create solutions ahead of the curve.”
Working at a company that you love being a part of every day is a goal for most tech professionals. These LA companies have gone above and beyond to ensure their employees feel as close to that every day as they can. If you're looking for an experience like that in your career, check out the list of open jobs from some companies like these.
Looking for a new tech role with a great company in Los Angeles? Contact a local job market expert today.
Interested in learning more about these companies or even signing on for next year's awards? Visit our Timmy Awards website for more information. Don't forget to join us for the ceremony on October 29th to unveil which companies will take home an award to recognize their incredible work place!