Diversity and inclusion have long been at the forefront of Rangle’s mission and culture. We do our best to reflect this in our day to day practices. While it’s not a perfect science, we believe it’s important to keep working towards an environment where everyone feels confident and welcome. That’s why for our NewCo Open House we let a wide range of Ranglers share what their experience has been like since joining. With that being said, we’ll let them speak for themselves:
Camas Winsor, our COO, has some advice for standing out and succeeding in the workplace: Be confident in your abilities, do your job while looking for adjacent opportunities and most importantly, stand up and ask for what you’re worth. Starting out as a software developer, she knew she had to set herself apart from her peers. By not only doing her prescribed job but going above and beyond, it wasn’t long before her work spoke for itself. Taking the initiative to capitalize on opportunities enabled the confidence needed to ask for what she knew she was worth. Don’t let imposter syndrome convince you that you don’t belong or hold you back from asking for what you deserve.
Jordon McKoy is a software developer who started here last January. He was attracted to Rangle since they not only offered the opportunity to level up his technical skills but also other areas he hadn’t considered before. Rangle presented a culture where it was the norm to host a Meetup, write a blog post, or speak a conference in Toronto or halfway across the world. So when he joined Rangle he was thrilled that after only a few months he was encouraged by a manager to write a blog post on GraphQL. After diving in, he hit a few roadblocks and wasn’t sure what his next move was in getting his blog post where he wanted it to be. That’s where the content team came in to help coach him through his writer's block and get his blog across the finish line. It was such a success that he was actually encouraged to turn it into a talk.
Jordon had previously done a talk and it didn't go so well, completely left to his own devices, he didn’t feel confident when it came time to present. This time, despite his apprehension, he agreed to do the talk. Right from the start of planning, there was a marked difference in the dynamic. His coworkers were happy and willing to spend time editing and rehearsing after work to ensure he was confident and ready to deliver his talk. Not only that, he noted that the Studio Team and Events Team made an effort to ensure that his deck was polished and ready to go. In the end, he nailed his talk and can’t wait for his next opportunity to speak. Of his time at Rangle so far Jordon says, “they’ve succeeded in creating a positive, supportive and not judgemental environment and because of that, myself and others feel empowered to try anything.”
Purvi is not only a Solutions Architect at Rangle, but also the Director of Software Development for Bridge School. Now a veteran of two years, one of the first things she did upon joining Rangle was raise her hand to volunteer for Bridge School, a not-for-profit that brings together people who believe in removing the barriers that prevent members of marginalized groups from participating fully and equally in the tech. When she first became involved with Bridge it was only 2 members born out of the Diversity Guild, and as it stands today, serves to train developers and designers with an advanced curriculum they develop themselves. The curriculum is developed to ensure that women, agender, and non-binary professionals who may already even be working in the tech sphere don’t attrition out by having the necessary tools to become the leaders of tomorrow. Bridge was able to exist in the first place because Rangle gave the autonomy to start and execute on the idea. Not only that, Rangle celebrates these initiatives and over 50% initial volunteers were fellow employees. By seeing ideas become realities, and the support given not only by Rangle leadership but coworkers, it created a framework that teaches people how to lead. Purvi notes, “as it turns out, the most effective way to teach people how to lead is to give them the opportunity to be a leader.”
Sara Rehman has worked in tech sales for over 4 years and has been in Business Development at Rangle for just over six months now. Throughout her previous roles, one of the misconceptions she found impacted nearly all tech sales teams is the belief that the ability to sell is personality-based — resulting in homogenous groups. She adds that across tech, there's typically a maximum of 20% women on most of the teams. What’s more, if you go up to tech sales leaders and sales enablement, that number drops down to around 15%. This means it’s not always the most inviting space, but unfortunately also not something that can be changed overnight. With that in mind, when Sara was reached out to by Rangle one of the first things she looked into was the diversity of the team and found that the effort that they've put into actual programs and employee experiences was very evident. From their social channels, it was clear that instead of just attending talks and conferences they had Ranglers actually speaking and acting as panelists and thought leaders. “Rangle is clearly walking the walk that most companies just speak about, and that’s what attracted me to join.”
Baggio Wong is a software developer who came all the way from Hong Kong to join Rangle. He spent 16 years in Hong Kong, a year in Shenzhen, 4 years in Shanghai and eventually returned to Hong Kong. There he studied software engineering at university but by the time he graduated he wanted to do something different. For a while, he taught online and worked on his own projects but realized that not having coworkers and seeing people regularly takes its toll. That’s when he decided out of the blue that he wanted to move to North America. When deciding where to apply, Rangle was one of the first companies that he chose because he had remembered looking at it while working on a side project and was impressed in what he saw. After applying, he adds that he thought to himself, ‘how awesome would it be if I moved to Canada and ended up working at Rangle?’ Fast forward a few months and interviews later, Rangle gave him that opportunity and here he is working at a software developer for over 6 months now.
Abdella Ali is a Rangle OG having started over 5 years ago. He had a unique and humbling experience when he started at Rangle, coming from Scarborough to downtown was a big change. Downtown is hustling and bustling, it’s only natural to want to loop yourself in and step it up to learn as much as you can when starting out in the workplace. For a long time, he says he felt as though something about himself didn’t quite add up, as though he ‘didn’t really belong’. This feeling, however, was contrary to everything he actually experienced at Rangle, where he did genuinely feel welcomed and well-liked. Abdella took to Rangle like a fish to water, running around, starting meetings, talks, writing blog posts and even teaching. After a while, it got to a point where it hit him, “Oh, I do belong here.” He emphasizes that this can be difficult when you don’t feel a natural sense of belonging to trust that your friends respect you and people who say they love you, actually do - but you should. Things became easier as he essentially accepted being accepted, he stopped overexerting himself and working 60hour weeks. Which he adds is another benefit, “Rangle cares just as much about mental health as they do physical and as he put, ‘all the healths’. It’s a great place to grow and feel cared for.”
So now you have a snapshot into how Rangle is continually working towards creating and improving a community of diversity and inclusion. Want to learn more about life at Rangle? Check it out, here.