According to lead architect Sujan Kapadia, prospective employees should ask themselves one question: “Who can I be at Chariot?” Because at Chariot Solutions, a tech consulting firm located in Fort Washington, professional and personal growth is a cornerstone of the culture.
If he were a software architect at a different firm, Kapadia says he may have been limited in the impact he could have across the organization. But at Chariot, he has the resources and time to attend conferences like OSCON and UberConf, learn new programming languages such as Scala, speak at conferences, run workshops and write blog posts. That’s because Chariot is a company that emphasizes a “culture of constant learning,”and its employees are motivated to share knowledge and grow together.
Just look at the walls of their lounge, covered with framed tee shirts from “Chariot Day.” At this annual internal conference, employees share side projects and interests ranging from Arduino hacks to meditation techniques. The event underscores the company-wide dedication to learning.
Chariot’s customers bring them in to solve their most challenging problems, guide their teams on new initiatives, and provide expert technology advice. Their engineers work with a wide variety of technologies and solve an even wider variety of problems. They enjoy unique challenges and are not afraid to roll up their sleeves and learn new technologies.
Chariot engineers have provided solutions in areas such as energy usage forecasting, video-on-demand streaming analytics, real-time GPS to road network mapping, mobile applications for home security/automation and clinical trial data management.
Chariot is looking for engineers who are passionate about technology, possess the drive to learn and feel a need to “move the needle.”
"Chariot enables you to grow in the way you like. We have a lot of senior-level people that don't need a whole lot of management, and I think that works well here. If you’re the type of person that’s self-managing and can take on that responsibility and make good decisions, that fits in nicely with our culture."
Rod Biresch"It’s a culture of constant learning and that’s highly motivating. Being in an environment where my peers are speaking, running events, presenting their side projects, even writing books, inspires me to do even more. There’s never any pushback when we ask for time or resources to learn something new."
Sujan Kapadia“Chariot is investing a lot of time and resources into doing [ETE], and they’re not really doing it to make a buck. … We’re doing it specifically because we want to learn. … We’re expected, outside of ETE, to go to a conference once a year, which is really different from other places I’ve worked in where you often had to fight and justify to go. You just send an email to notify the client and Chariot, and that’s all the bureaucracy you deal with.”
Dan BoykisWhat opportunities do engineers have to learn and grow at Chariot?
Passionate engineers willing to learn and grow will have plenty of opportunities at Chariot. In addition to working on interesting projects, you can speak at conferences and meetups, help plan the Emerging Technologies for the Enterprise Conference, and be involved in the company's strategic planning efforts.
How much impact can I have on Chariot's success?
At Chariot, your ideas are given a platform. From the time it was established, its direction has come from its employees. As CEO Michael Rappaport will tell you, the only reason Chariot is where it is now is because he listened to his original team members. There are many CEOs who claim an open door policy; at Chariot this is truly a reality. Their decisions to get into mobile application development, expand into the Internet of Things and open a training practice are just three examples.
Is there a work-life balance at Chariot?
Chariot is committed to employee happiness. They make every attempt possible to balance client commitments with employees' individual needs. Chariot's “people-first” mentality is one of the reasons CEO Michael Rappaport attributes to its repeated listing as the number one Top Workplace at Philly.com.
What's a good sign that I will fit in at Chariot?
According to Rappaport, "if you aren't learning, you aren't happy".. You should have a strong motivation to 'get under the hood' and solve problems for your clients, and be compelled to share your knowledge with others. Their employees work directly with clients, so soft-skills play a strong role.
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