Product Manager, Griffin

My son's just started school, and because of his autism doesn't deal well with any after-school clubs. Griffin gives me the flexibility to collect him from school and spend time with him in the afternoon, then continue on with work in the evening after my wife gets home.

Everyone at Griffin works hard, but there's a strong focus on avoiding burnout. We have access to company-covered therapy through Oliva, and no-one bats an eye if you have to take a 'mental health day' against your (unlimited) sick leave to decompress now and again, rather than it coming from your holiday allowance.

I joined Griffin in part because I wanted to help others grow, but also because I wanted to be surrounded by highly intelligent and knowledgable people who I could learn from. That's absolutely been my experience here. I am happy to be considered the expert that people go-to in many areas, but I'm learning new things from others and improving myself every week as well. Often the person helping me and the person I am helping are one and the same, just in different areas.

It was really hard to choose which 3 things to highlight in this endorsement - I chose nice people because the founders really lead by example on this. The emphasis on kindness from day one of the interview process means that this is a common value amongst all staff, which makes for a warm, collaborative work environment. My job is quite isolated by nature (even before WFH), but I never feel alone due to the frequent background communication on Slack

When Griffin say they offer flexible working, they MEAN they offer flexible working. This is by far the most employee-friendly job I've had, and it is the first where I've genuinely been judged on my output rather than on hours behind the screen. Trust is the default position at Griffin, and there is an understanding that sometimes life gets in the way of work. There's also no stigma around taking sick days, including mental health days.

The founders are very protective over the culture at Griffin. Communication is open and Exco minutes are shared across the company on a weekly basis. There are weekly 'office hours' with both founders, we have regular all-company meetings where the CEO speaks candidly and answers questions, and in 2021 we had the first of (what will hopefully be) our annual offsites. I think everyone at Griffin knows and believes in the company values.

People at Griffin really listen when you make suggestions or provide feedback - I think because we hire people who are kind and thoughtful. The environment at Griffin empowers even the most junior members of the team to propose changes, from components of analysis to ideas to promote company culture. The result is a clear feeling that anyone can make an impact.

The people at Griffin are genuinely a delight. There is always care and concern when someone is ill or otherwise struggling. People tend to approach situations with empathy first. The team is also super interesting, with niche hobbies and experiences that they're all happy to share - we have fortnightly lightning talks especially for this. It's really easy to feel a lot of affection for my colleagues.

One of my favourite things about Griffin is the opportunity to learn by working on a range of complex areas, with brilliant people. In my first year at Griffin I got to work on my project management skills, get involved in credit product development, learn a heap about banking regulations, capital and liquidity management, and financial modelling, and more. Everyone is so happy to take you through their areas of expertise, with a focus on making it easy to learn.

The most striking thing for me about joining Griffin was that the culture as described on the website is EXACTLY what you experience as part of the team. You can feel the values resonating through all your interactions.

The respect and trust between every member of the team is incredible. I feel so comfortable here and such a strong sense of belonging, even though I don't have a typical background and am not a majority demographic in tech.

Positive, reinforcing feedback is woven into every interaction - people celebrate each other's wins and express appreciation and gratitude for each other's work literally every day.

Appreciating each other is a core part of Griffin's culture - and that isn't limited to big wins or concrete outputs, people take the time to recognise when a colleague has helped them think through a difficult problem or picked up the ball on an annoying task.

Griffin is super-obsessive about culture - our core values don't just sit in a static document, they're present in day-to-day work and shape everything we do. I love working at company where there is an explicit emphasis on always being kind and thoughtful.

Our founders believe that high-functioning people do their best work when they have a lot of autonomy. We're also transparent by default, which means that everyone has access to all the context and information they need to make good decisions. It's empowering to know my colleagues at all levels trust me to make good decisions.

At Griffin we have regular "all-hands", weekly "office hours" with the CEO and CTO, and a transparent and inclusive communication style on Slack and Notion.

The entire leadership team at Griffin inspires confidence, not just because of their high levels of experience, but because of how kind and thoughtful everyone is.

Griffin wears its values on its sleeve, and the leadership team try to live up to the values every day.

Both founders (the CEO and CTO) are very clear on the culture they want to cultivate at Griffin, and all the senior staff are 100% on board with that (Especially Maria, the VP People), which feeds on down. People check up on each other to ensure burnout is not setting in. Folk are encouraged to take sick days when necessary (for both physical and mental health reasons), including when not sick themselves but needing to care for a sick child or similar. These sick days are not limited. The company pays for weekly virtual lunches should people wish to participate, and has an allowance to pay for staff-decided social events when we are able to meet up in person. Griffin also allows remote workers to purchase 4K monitors, high-end office chairs, and standing desks on your company card, so you can make a comfortable work space at home. If you'd prefer to get out of the house, there's also the option to use our account with a group of co-working spaces across the UK at Europe.

My manager at Griffin is the VP Engineering, and he is _excellent_. We have weekly 1:1s, and that can be catching up on what I've been doing/interactions with other teams, details into the engineering plans going forward, or discussions about what I want for career development and progression within Griffin and how we can go about getting me that. He's very supportive of what I have achieved here and the level of work I have put out, working in a team which is currently only me. Becuse of the last point, he's also ensured I get involved with the other teams so that I don't feel isolated.

I am definitely a fan of Clojure, so getting to work in a company where nearly the entire codebase is that is brilliant. My role is infra-leaning, and getting into CDK for our IaC on AWS has also been really interesting. The system itself, while not a microservice _yet_, follows design patterns that will make it very easy to break up when that becomes necessary, with each component already communicating via Kafka and running containerised on Kubernetes.

Full stack Clojure, combined with event sourcing makes this a cutting edge place technology wise.

Fully remote, across European countries. Work schedules are also very flexible, as long as you are present at critical meetings, it doesn't matter if you start at 6 or 9. Several colleagues take hours long breaks in the afternoon to spend time with their children, and make up the time in the evening.

Executive team meeting minutes are public within the company. Roadmaps and plans are communicated regularly, and for example fundraising and customer leads are told to everybody.

The team at Griffin are solving some hugely complex problems whilst creating an exciting and collegiate atmosphere where everyone is always learning something.

What I'm working on at Griffin have been the most challenging and rewarding projects of my career to date.

Griffin is deliberate in its efforts to maintain transparency and openness across the business.

Across the various disciplines, not just engineering, Griffin has managed to assemble a group of people the likes of which I've never come across before. We're still small, and it's great to be able to see across the company how good the expertise and experience is. Hugely uplifting!

The culture at Griffin is a very important part of its ethos. I think without the openness, how approachable people are throughout the organisation and the way that leads to a thriving and productive environment Griffin wouldn't be half the company it is.

I came in not new to Clojure, but by no means a seasoned pro. My goodness what a learning curve it's been, together with our chosen architecture on top of that. Then there's the road map for building a platform completely from the ground up. It's an incredible effort and great fun to be a part of.

For me, the culture at Griffin is the real point of difference. We have a great team solving some really interesting problems, but its the way we work and interact that makes Griffin unlike anywhere I've worked before. Culture is very much a living thing here that is seen and discussed constantly, it's refreshing to have it front of mind in everything we do, as opposed to a tick box exercise. Autonomy and trust to let our team work like grown ups is a key part of our fabric, honestly it'd be a massive waste if we hired the people we did without giving them the space and freedom to do their thing.