Joining the Appian Engineering team during a global pandemic

By: Jim Sheafer

I’m Jim, and I work in Engineering at Appian as a Manager of Software Development. I started working at Appian just over a year ago on March 3, 2020 — right before the pandemic hit. 

Given the timing of when I started working here, it’s been a unique first year of work to say the least! As such, I wanted to take some time to describe what my experience working at Appian has been like to date for others who might be considering joining the Appian team.

Starting a new job during a global pandemic

 Appian made the decision to shut down our head office on March 12, 2020 — just nine days after I started. I wasn’t even out of training yet! 

I have been working remotely from home ever since. In a company that puts so much emphasis on culture and being together this was a HUGE decision that to me was the right call. It showed that I had just joined an organization that truly cared about  employee health and well being. 

Appian leadership further showed that they cared by making sure that employees felt comfortable and well equipped to work from home. They made sure we all have the tools we need to be productive, including a laptop, keyboard, mouse, headset, and monitor for our in-home workspace.

 The Engineering team onboarding and training experience

Learning is very important to many companies, but Appian makes a real commitment to employee growth. 

My first couple of weeks on the job was like a class on how to use our product. This was my full time focus. During this period I literally had no other work training. To start off, we learn what our customers learn and by the end of training we build a real business process automation.

From there, I went on two and three day rotations with different Engineering teams to learn how they worked. During this time I wasn’t just observing, I was coding and making real production commits. I got to see, feel, and DO exactly what my team and direct reports go through everyday. 

This helped me to really prepare for my managerial role, since I gained  first-hand knowledge of the processes my direct reports were using. That was a really great experience as a new manager. 

Ongoing learning and development is a priority here

One really unique thing about Appian for me is how committed the organization is to not only customers, but to each individual employee and their overall success.

One great example of this in my opinion is “Learning Time.” Learning Time happens every other Monday, from 1 to 4 pm. During this window there is no coding, no agile meetings, and no reviews taking place. Instead, everyone is focused on individual learning activities or meeting with different groups to learn together. I’ve had the opportunity to take home-grown courses, classes over video conferencing, and several LinkedIn Learning courses, just to name a few.

I’ve never seen a company set aside that much structured time for learning and it makes it so easy and habitual to expand on what we know.

In addition, another sign that the company is focused on growth is that we have a formal mentorship program that actually works. Early on in my tenure here, I was assigned a mentor to show me how we do things at Appian and guide me when I have questions. We meet once a week, just like my one-on-one meetings with my manager.

Even our formal review process is geared toward employee growth. We do written reviews every quarter instead of once per year. That gives each employee feedback on areas of merit and improvement quickly so that successes get bigger and improvements happen quicker

How Appian helps avoid employee burnout

Appian knows that employees can get burnt out, particularly over the last year as we’ve all spent hours in google meetings and working from home with our families around. As a result, the company puts a strong emphasis on work life balance. 

An example of this is our flexible working hours., which helps accommodate our different life priorities and working styles. After all, some of us are early birds and some are night owls. Some people on the team have kids, while others  have part-time school responsibilities to balance. Our flexible work hours make sure everyone can balance out their work lives as they see fit.

We also don’t accrue vacation or even set a limit — while leave requests are managed,  leaders make sure that everyone is taking vacation. I took three weeks in 2020 and wasn’t even here a year yet. 

In addition, the entire department participated in a hackathon for two full days last year. We worked on different ideas on different teams. Appian even paid for dinner during this virtual hackathon. And since we don’t have access to the usual free snacks in the break rooms, we got a couple of care packages full of healthy snacks — it was like getting care packages from mom while in college!

All in all, I’m very happy with my decision to join Appian. The focus on employee well being, growth, and work life balance here is higher than I have seen at any company in my career. It’s made the entire experience of joining a new Engineering team even during a global pandemic a very positive one. And good news: our team is growing! I personally need more people for our team. Interested? Ask me your questions or search our job postings!