I Got Corrected on My Second Day, and I Loved It
On my second day at Auth0, I got a very impactful message from upper management.
As many of you know, my first day at Auth0 was Monday, January 6th, and like the 29 other new employees, I traveled to Seattle for a week of training. That morning, in all of my excitement, I recorded and shared a video (here’s the tweet) explaining how thrilled I was to be starting. The next day, I got this.
Don’t know who Matias is? Well, he’s the CTO of the company. So here was my initial reaction.
…SHIT I messed up already! lol
But the more I read it, I realized it wasn’t negative; it was constructive, even complimentary. His comments were very telling. Here’s what I mean.
P.S. I’ll share the specifics from his post in a new article soon!
He Gives a Shit
First off, before you judge me for being too vulgar, I should clarify that one of the core philosophies at Auth0 is “We Give a Shit!“. I feel like that says a lot (in a good way) about the company.
But here’s what I’ve learned in previous companies. Very rarely do you hear about a core philosophy and get to truly experience it on day 2. This is literally the CTO of the company. Not only did he see my post, but he cared enough to respond. As part of the response, he also took the time to write a blog post to help me and others in the company.
For me, it shows that he cares, that he’s aware, and he wants to help.
This is the Culture I was Looking For
Culturally, Auth0 is exactly what I was looking for when searching for jobs. I worked previously for FedEx and Microsoft, which are incredibly large organizations. In both places, I struggled a bit with the size. At Microsoft, I felt like it was hard to make connections with other teams. At FedEx, my network was stronger, but I felt like it was hard to get clearly defined work (too many cooks in the kitchen situation).
Auth0, so far, seems like the polar opposite. Because we are relatively small (for me at least), it’s much easier to build relationships. I’ve already met the 30 in my cohort, other coworkers in the office, and several people online in Slack. Not to mention, I’ve already been noticed by my CTO :).
My first week showed me that my expectations were spot on. I joined a younger (but established) company with a modern culture and loads of passion.
Transparency
Transparency is something that people talk about, but rarely live up to. Personally, it’s something I work on constantly by focusing on three things:
- feeling comfortable receiving constructive feedback and eagerly seeking it
- feeling comfortable giving constructive feedback
- always setting appropriate expectations up front (no sugar coating)
It may not seem obvious, but to me, the comment that Matias made shows me that transparency is real at Auth0. He was clear… It was cool that I created the video, but I can (and should) do a better job at articulating what the company does in the future.
I’m always looking for feedback so that I can grow as a person and as an employee
He gave me a learning opportunity that could also be leveraged across the company.
Wrap up
Every interaction so far has lived up my high hopes, and I’m incredibly excited to be a part of Auth0. Maybe one day I can give a new employee the same positive experience that Matias gave me.