A rapidly growing company with a great culture, and a few typical start-up aches and pains
Gut am Arbeitgeber finde ich
No company is ever perfect - but roadsurfer tries very hard to create a great place to work, and has assembled an intelligent, fun team.
Verbesserungsvorschläge
We shouldn't assume that everyone wants to go camping when recruiting. Beyond that, we need more focus on executing - many things that seem relatively uncomplicated can take very long to get set up.
Arbeitsatmosphäre
We have a culture of treating each other with respect, trust and honesty, and I find that this is lived from the highest level of the company. For me, a veteran of numerous startups and other companies in Munich, none has had a better culture than roadsurfer.
Kommunikation
Communication is friendly and informal, but often somewhat chaotic. At times I have learned about decisions that affected my department late or through indirect channels. We also need to work on our meeting culture - although the overall structure of the meetings is good, they often lack energy and focus (see Lencioni's Death by Meeting).
Kollegenzusammenhalt
I have yet to meet anyone at roadsurfer I wouldn't want to work with, or wouldn't enjoy meeting socially. If someone asks for help (even with non-work related matters) in Teams, there are usually multiple responses.
Work-Life-Balance
There may be departments that have a problem with work-life-balance, often related to the seasonality of the business, but software development is able to work in a balanced way, with very rare deadline pressure. For Office IT it could be another story, spring brings a lot of pressure setting up new stations, and new equipment for the annual flood of new employees that has to be installed.
Vorgesetztenverhalten
We have an explicit leadership code at roadsurfer, which I would say closely relates to the ideals of Management 3.0. Leaders are coached and receive feedback from each other and from their team members; that said, we need to work more on our feedback culture, there are no tools in place to facilitate this.
Interessante Aufgaben
What could be more interesting than building new, diverse software teams at a rapidly growing startup? And my impression is that other departments are fascinated by their contributions to the company's growth and success. I never have the feeling that people are just punching a time clock. When I took my two "collaboration days" last fall at the Munich station I was impressed by the energy, commitment and esprit de corps there.
Gleichberechtigung
Unfortunately there are not enough women in IT - somewhat compensated for by a higher proportion in Product, and a large number of women in leadership roles. At the time I joined (January 2021), there were more women than men in upper management.
Umgang mit älteren Kollegen
I'm probably the oldest employee at roadsurfer, and although there aren't many older than 40 here, no one ever makes me "feel old".
Arbeitsbedingungen
Our technical equipment is of good quality; office furniture is not luxurious, but comfortable, there are niceties like desks that adjust for standing work. For most departments remote work is currently the norm.
Umwelt-/Sozialbewusstsein
There's a high level of awareness, though concrete measures are sometimes rather sporadic.
Gehalt/Sozialleistungen
I'm not so aware of pay levels in other departments - in tech we try hard to pay market levels (we could hardly recruit anyone otherwise). An employee stock option program, which is quite generous compared to some other German startups, is being launched this month (May 2022). Other benefits are perhaps not so spectacular.
Image
As far as I can tell roadsurfer has a great image, I have yet to see any significant negative press about us.
Karriere/Weiterbildung
In tech we offer considerable support for further education and skill development; to use this effectively it pre-supposes that employees actively suggest measures they would like to take (working closely with their supervisor).