From many offices, one people

I’m one of the few people to have worked with an intern who later became the founder and CEO of two other companies I’ve worked for…including unitQ.

unitQ the product is the missing link in our customers’ user feedback loop. So it should come as no surprise to learn that the people who work for unitQ the company are strongly linked together.

Our team spans the globe, so we have a number of small offices, and many of us work remotely. Often, this can pose a challenge to keep teams aligned and have group cohesion. But we’ve managed to build out a strong, unified culture with a singular mission.

Like most tech companies these days, Slack’s and Zoom’s digital tendrils help keep us connected even though we’re physically apart. Regular all-hands meetings and updates over Slack keep us all in the loop and focused. 

Move fast, break things

But it’s more than how we do the work. If our mission is to help our customers understand their users in real time, then we need to understand ourselves very well. We do that by encouraging personal growth among the team, wherever we are. It starts with our hiring, where we have a “No A*****e” policy. And it shows — while we have a bit of a “move fast, break things” culture like most Silicon Valley startups and small companies, we do it nicely, and we look out for each other.

And the personal growth continues with a weekly series of coffee chats between two or three coworkers, which started from a suggestion by one of my colleagues, Ryan Rillera. A Slackbot randomly chooses two or three employees to meet up for a quick coffee break each week, so we can all get to know each other a little better without necessarily talking shop or having it be about work. 

Some of my first chats were with colleagues in the Philippines, right around the time typhoon Rai struck there, affecting many of our team members who lived nearby. Then last spring, I shared virtual coffee with team members in Ukraine, and learned how they were handling living and working in or near a war zone.

Third time’s the charm

This is my third time working with our Co-Founder and CEO, Christian Wiklund. We first crossed paths at VMware, when he was but a bright young intern. Then I helped write some very early marketing content for Skout, a social media company Christian founded with Niklas Lindstrom, who is now the Co-Founder and CTO of unitQ.

I reprised that content role a few years ago when Christian was first launching unitQ, this time reviewing our initial website. When Christian called me two summers ago offering a full-time role, I jumped at a new chance to formally work with him again, as well as with Niklas and our Creative Director Mark Seidler, who is also another VMware and Skout alum. 

A couple years ago, during the first summer of the pandemic, I moved my family from the Bay Area to Sacramento, about a two-hour drive away — not counting traffic — from unitQ’s Burlingame, Calif., home office. It’s impossible to commute to the headquarters south of San Francisco from here on a regular basis. But I’m lucky enough to have the resources and support from my team that I need to work remotely full time.

I also have to schlep my son between two schools every day, so I’m very thankful to have the flexibility to work my schedule around that.

It’s so fulfilling to work in an environment that gives us so much room to grow — wherever we are.

Pete Bratach is unitQ Documentation Manager