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Looking Back on Nine Years as a Best Place to Work

Nine. That’s the number of consecutive years SailPoint has been named one of Austin’s best places to work by the Austin Business Journal. We’ve gone from a scrappy startup to a global, public company, and it’s an honor to see that our team members continue to love working at SailPoint, even as we’ve experienced periods of high-growth and our recent IPO.

This award is even more encouraging to our leadership team, given that it’s based entirelyon employee feedback. I continue to believe that our people are our biggest asset, so this recognition certainly substantiates that we’ve created a work culture that is appreciated by the great majority of our folks.

As I reflect on our 9th year as a “BPTW” company, I’m certain that it isn’t luck that gets us on this list each year. In fact, there are a number of things that have kept our crew excited and committed over the years.

Work hard

From the very beginning at SailPoint, we had a strong commitment to making sure our people were doing meaningful, rewarding work. That’s why innovation and impact are two company values that we uphold and defend relentlessly. From the early days of building our first products designed to provide real value for our enterprise customers to the hackathons and product development efforts of our teams today, we’ve seen our fair share of hard work. We know that our crew thrives best when they’re pushed to innovate and think creatively about the identity problems we’re solving for large enterprises. Take a peek at the Glassdoor reviews of any company not doing those things, and you’ll see they’re complaining of boredom and lack of inspiration. Bottom line: people want to work hard, and they want to make an impact.

Play hard

SailPoint has instituted a number of fun traditions over the years that have created the feeling of a huge extended family, and I’ve found that it’s those events, not just trendy office perks, that keep our team productive, connected and motivated.

On any given day, you’ll find some of our crew playing ping pong or pool in the breakrooms; some have even taken it upon themselves to hold an annual tournament. There’s nothing like a little internal competition to create some office “buzz”  When the team gets to know each other outside of the daily grind, there is a much stronger outcome on the business side.

Then there’s the annual family picnic at Volente Beach, which has been a SailPoint tradition since the company’s founding. What began as us reserving a few picnic tables is now a full day of shutting down the whole park just for the SailPoint Crew.

And, as far as we know, there is no other company whose founder serves homemade “adult” eggnog to the entire company every holiday season, but my co-founder Kevin continues to serve up the most potent and delicious batches of nog each year.

Give Back

Finally, we’ve truly come to believe that a team that gives and serves together, stays together. The SailPoint team has always been oriented toward giving, but I’ve found that as our crew has grown, it’s become an even bigger part of making this 800+ team feel more connected with each other. People from all departments have bowled together, biked 150 miles together and pulled together money and donations for many causes over the years. If your team isn’t doing this, it’s not too late to start. This type of behavior is not only good for internal morale. It ultimately benefits your community and your company—a win-win situation for all involved.

Innovation, Integrity, Impact and Individuals

The common thread among all of the things I mentioned above is our ‘four I’ core values. They aren’t just words on a website or a poster on the wall. We’ve built them into our culture inside and out, whether it’s through our management of day-to-day work or the hiring process or our team’s charitable efforts. These values have remained strong pillars every step of the way.

And that’s about all it takes. Building a company that people enjoy working for isn’t as hard as it seems. It does take time and an intentional, concerted effort to keep company culture strong. However, the overall positive impact is far greater than the time or money your organization might be trying to save by simply focusing on getting business done. A team that does more than shuffle in and out every day is one that creates long-term success. So, thank you, SailPoint Crew, for being everything you do every day to build this company. We’re honored and proud that we’ve added another notch to our “Best Places to Work” belt.


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