When people think of Metal Toad, they immediately think of technology thought leadership and a strong devotion to education and outreach. That reputation is undeniably true, but what most people might not realize, however, is that Metal Toad is a place for ideas.
I started working at Metal Toad a few months ago as a project manager. You might assume that I came from the tech industry, maybe one of the many digital agencies in Portland, but the Metal Toad way is a little less linear than that. More than related experience, Metal Toad cares about people and ideas. When it came to growing their amazing project management team, they saw potential in a marketing manager that worked in an energy efficiency non-profit whose experience with web development was (and still is) a lame board game blog built from an out-of-the-box Wordpress template.
Going through the interview process, it was clear from day one that passion and confidence carried far more weight that familiarity with GitHub or knowing what a commit was. Metal Toad is as unafraid of disruption internally as it is externally, so it shouldn’t have been a surprise to me that an organization that eschews policy in favor of assuming its people are trustworthy adults, would look past my web naiveté in favor of something a lot less quantifiable: fit.
That tradition of hiring people for their passion and fresh perspectives has paid dividends in a workforce that genuinely feels like family. The project management team in particular is a passionate group with a wealth of diverse experience to bring to the table, and there’s no bigger supporter of open communication and creative problem-solving than Vice President of Engineering, Tony Rasmussen. He’s fond of reminding us that we wouldn’t have signed on with a place like Metal Toad if we wanted rote, unchanging process that didn’t evolve at a rapid pace. He’s right, of course. We may have different personal and professional backgrounds, but we all embrace change enthusiastically, always looking for ways to leave our marks on this wonderful organization.
Metal Toad is many things, but to me it’s something truly special: a place where smart, passionate individuals can collaborate to do amazing and beautiful things. In a place like this, a good idea supported with a little bit of passion and confidence can move mountains.
Who wouldn’t want to work in an environment like that?