I joined Rangle about five weeks ago, on Valentine’s Day.
I love data, ideas, and solving problems, but I’m neither a developer nor a designer, nor do I have a wealth of commercial or consulting experience. I have a Ph.D. and industry experience in mental health research. So what was I doing here?
I was worried that I wouldn't fit in at Rangle; that my background would be so different from everyone else's, and my experiences would be irrelevant here. But the more Ranglers I spoke to, the more I understood why I was welcomed here and why I felt that I belonged here.
Rangle genuinely values employees as people who work on inspiring and challenging problems at Rangle and have aspirations beyond their current role and job title. Rangle provides the mentorship, resources, and space you need to continuously grow professionally and personally.
Many people who began their careers at Rangle are still here. (Does that surprise you? I’ve met University of Toronto professors who completed their bachelor’s, master’s, and Ph.D. at U of T, but I’ve never before met a millennial whose first full-time employer is their current employer.)
Some people have been at Rangle since they finished school and never left, changing roles as they, their interests, and their goals evolved over time (such as designers who later became developers). Others had left the nest to pursue opportunities elsewhere and returned to embrace new roles that aligned with where they are headed next (cleverly coined “Boomeranglers”). (It helps that Rangle offers all employees a generous “professional growth allowance" and protects employees’ time—“culture hours”—so that they can allocate time and resources to learning something they’re interested in.)
There seems to be an amorphous, multi-dimensional, “Rangle-y” quality that is shared by everyone here. Without exception, every Rangler I've met is curious, compassionate, and creative.
They learn relentlessly and constantly build new and existing skills. They’re remarkably driven and exceptional at what they do. They have deep, specialized expertise in their respective domains but are also acutely aware of what the ecosystem needs to thrive as a whole. They operate synergistically, as autonomous units and as interdependent processes, driven by a shared purpose: to make things that matter, the right way, and to keep improving.
There’s a mosaic of people from diverse backgrounds whose ideas and contributions are welcomed and valued, regardless of who they are, what they do, or whose team they’re on. Ranglers help other Ranglers across projects and teams.
Ranglers who are not currently on billable projects are “Free Agents” and they incubate emerging technologies, experiment with innovative ideas, and share their learnings with the Free Agent community and beyond; they help their colleagues on billable projects in whatever ways they can, and they contribute to other internal projects and activities to invest in Rangle's future.
As someone who’s just joined Rangle and is still learning the ropes, I love Free Agents and their Slack channel, which feels like an ask-me-anything forum with people who really know what they're doing. Every time I've reached out for help, someone has gone above and beyond offering to help me and making time for 1:1 meetings within 24 hours. (It’s amazing how quickly you can learn another programming language when you have an expert to help you get unstuck.)
When I first heard about the Free Agent community, a part of me admittedly assumed that individuals were benched for reasons similar to why coach Ted Lasso benched athletes Jamie Tartt and Roy Kent—Jamie was equally stellar at scoring goals and undermining and ostracizing his own team; Roy chronically underperformed—so I was surprised when I met Free Agents. They weren’t benched because they were subpar or there wasn’t enough work.
Free Agents represent a reservoir of spare capacity to be leveraged as needed, like a battery for solar lights. Need an illustration by the end of the day today for a last-minute change to a slide deck? Done. Need an impromptu team for a quick internal project? Done. New client or project? As a fresh forward line would fly onto the ice and pilot the puck, Free Agents will swap jerseys and hit the ground running.
Rangle is able to move and adapt quickly to changes in the market, in clients' needs, and so on, because we have a diverse talent pool of individuals who are boundlessly learning and growing and are able to work across disciplines and industries. Cross-pollination diversifies ideas; fresh creativity abounds where Ranglers solve problems.
This “Rangliness” creates a collaborative culture of valuing learning and growth, and fuels the voracious productivity and innovation that we're known for.
My favourite part about Rangle’s career page is this:
People at Rangle are hired based on their innate and learned qualities, rather than their qualifications alone. My interview during the hiring process never felt like an interview: it began as a dance, where we tried to get in step together; and as we got to know each other a little better, it naturally evolved to a thoughtful and honest conversation about who we were, our aspirations, and how we could work together. No banal, decaffeinated questions that are usually the hallmark of job interviews.
What I like about the career page is that it represents an open door for anyone who excels at what they do with humility; whose insatiable drive for knowledge, experience, and connection are the bedrock of their life’s journey; and who boldly challenge themselves and others with compassion and respect.
If you see these qualities in yourself or in your organization, I can confidently say that we, Ranglers, would love to hear from you.