Culture Checklist

What’s unique about the Perpay brand?

Perpay’s mission is to help people better manage their financial situations. They do this by providing a financially healthy option for consumers to access products or engage in experiences that otherwise wouldn’t be available to them.

Perpay is solving broad issues of financial access and inclusion that affect a large number of people through the pathways of microlending, consumer finance, and e-commerce. Their focus is purely on their customers.

What is the team dynamic within the office?

At Perpay, they try to foster collaboration whenever possible, and do that by keeping their organizational structure flat and cross-disciplinary. Anyone can have a conversation or introduce an idea at any time, there are no silos.

Perpay also works to foster an entrepreneurial spirit at the individual level. At the end of the day, they’re a product-focused company, and like to say that everyone on team is a product owner. They’re building a tool that makes an impact on so many people, and believe the best way to do that is to get input from every one of their team members — from the ones who talk to their customers to the ones writing the code. Everyone’s perspective is important.

What qualities does Perpay look for in technical candidates?

While most of their systems and microservices are written in Python, they truly prefer talented polyglots that have an insatiable will to learn and create. At Perpay, they’re not afraid of trying new things and are more concerned with finding great problem solvers that will find the right tools for the job.

They’re most interested in a candidate’s mentality and experience — especially if it is one of delivering solutions that are well designed, reliable, and highly scalable. They work in a fast-paced startup environment where efficiency and iterative approaches are critical. This makes it extremely important to find candidates who communicate well and understand the theory, design patterns and implementation details that go into delivering a solution.

How about candidates overall?

They’re looking for people who are naturally curious, self-directed and interested in self-improvement. Everyone on the team is eager to learn, excited about what their working on and is doing their own research about the industry, like reading up on consumer credit and the greater microlending environment.

One thing they value about their team is diversity of experience. Perpay has built a team with all kinds of different backgrounds: finance, engineering, operations, non-profit... even chemistry.

Additionally, because of the work they do, candidates need to have a sense of empathy. A team member can be an amazing problem solver, but in order to be a good fit they need to keep a human element to everything they do. Data can certainly help find an answer, but empathy will often lead to deeper insights.

What is special about the office space itself:

The Perpay team found an empty warehouse space and completely designed it from scratch themselves. They sourced the materials, designed the layout, picked the desks, etc.

The aesthetic was inspired in part by the Navy Yard: brick walls, lots of metal, glass, lush plants, colorful rugs and cool lamps. It’s a really unique space: comfortable work areas, full of light, with unexpected textures and accents.

It really speaks to way Perpay approaches things as a company in general: they’d never designed an office before but that didn’t stop them from taking it on with enthusiasm.