Making the Jump to Ava Labs
Why Web2 (and Web3) Devs Should Consider Joining the Best Team in Crypto
I have been an Engineering Leader for the past 10+ years in different capacities and throughout that period one of my responsibilities has been, as they would say at Amazon, to “Hire and Develop the Best”.
Be it Microsoft, Grab, Lyft, Amazon, Coinbase or Ava Labs - all technology companies realize that there is only one real way to grow and scale a technology business - you need to hire the best possible engineers who build products and culture in equal proportion and create a virtuous cycle of hyper productivity.
Consequently, I have always found myself taking 3-4 interviews a week over the past few years and answering a variety of questions posed by candidates trying to learn more about a potential future employer. As I evolved in my career, so did my answers. Whilst I have always tried to give the best possible answers to candidates, hand on heart, I have never ever felt the urge to actually try and write down my thoughts on these questions - leave aside publishing them.
“Why now?” you ask. The answer is simply that Ava Labs is one of the most unique companies I have ever worked at in my career. I am both challenged and inspired by its mission… and when I am inspired I usually put pen to paper.
To me, Ava Labs is paradoxically small and big - with extraordinary breadth in product potential and extreme depth in platform development. It is both a participant in the larger blockchain/web3 movement and also a trailblazer, it is mostly open source and moving surprisingly fast.
Explaining these nuanced points of views to potential new hires in the space of “a few minutes at the end of the interview for questions” seemed to me, at least, sub par.
So below is a small FAQ from the past few dozen interviews I have taken. These are real questions that I have been asked during interviews and my answers (whilst completely from my point of view) are as honest as I can make them. Hopefully they give you a glimpse into why I love working at Ava Labs and why you should join!
You worked at <Coinbase, Amazon, etc.> before Ava Labs. Could you compare and contrast your experiences?
This is probably the most common question I get. Most candidates are looking to move to ‘greener pastures’ and want to know if the new gig is going to be ‘better’. There is no way to know what ‘better’ means to different people - what I like to emphasize is the following
Ava Labs is a high tech, high growth company in its infancy - we are close to building out our initial vision for the chain and then take off from that launchpad. From a personal and professional growth perspective - it is the place to be.
Ava Labs is a people centric company - we know our strategic advantage is in having talented, motivated people who can focus on their tasks without any disruptions. The culture is built around that concept.
What is Ava Labs process for <planning/OKR/calibration etc.>
Ava Labs is a comparatively smaller and consequently much more focussed company. We spend less time on processes and more time on PRs.
It makes sense for large companies to drive management through process and to standardize everything from error logging to t-shirt design. Consequently, I find Ava Labs ships faster and ships uncompromised designs that all stakeholders can be proud of. (We are also extremely proud of out t-shirts and spend the requisite time to get the t-shirt design right!)
How do you ship uncompromised designs?
Not a lot of companies can say that tbh - in many (most?) large companies folks consistently ship compromises. A little bit of what the product manager wanted, a little bit of what the VP of eng wanted and hopefully a bit of what the customer wanted.
I always find it’s easier to bond (as an engineer and as an end user) with a product that has been built by folks with a high bar of ownership rather than put together to satisfy the market or execs AND that’s ultimately it, having a crazy high bar for ownership! We let the builders… build.
What is the dev culture at Ava Labs?
This is another question I get after I tell folks that we are a very engineering driven culture. I wish I could copy paste our 10 engineering principles and 7 design values - but truth be told we do not have them.
As a younger company - our focus is on being authentic rather than trying to enforce conformity. It is a little bit rock ‘n’ roll - but frankly it’s a liberating experience when you derive your version of our culture from observations and experiences rather than just getting it from an employee handbook.
What are some of the Cons of working at Ava Labs?
There are some cons of working at Ava Labs too - it is undergoing growing pains. What was a spreadsheet yesterday, needs to be a full blown team today. What we could manage with some part time attention, has suddenly become the next big thing.
To me - that is exciting. Not a lot of companies can actually provide their engineers and PMs the opportunity to own and drive the next $1B+ business. A lot of companies say they do - but they really don’t.
I will, however, add there are a lot of folks who would prefer if everything was settled and they could just plug and play into an org. There is nothing wrong with that. However one should note, if you are working in an industry which is in its infancy (like we are) - nothing is settled!
What is your take on culture?
I strongly believe that culture is not something that can be simply written down or transplanted - it has to be ‘locally sourced’.
It is fairly fashionable these days to buy a book about “How Amazon did it” and then put into practice things like ‘Working Backwards documents’, OP1-2 planning etc and then expect outcomes. Turns out (in most cases) you cannot just transplant culture like that. Since, these processes were not created by your own team out of their necessity - no one really values them.
The dev culture at Ava Labs is, thankfully, locally sourced. It flows from our founding team of researchers, it flows from our Engineering leaders. Recently, I caught our VP say something profound and true during a chat.
“At Ava Labs we like to act like a small company by default and like a larger company when we have no other choice.”
Ava Lab’s dev culture is culture of ownership. We are all passionate folks trying to build platforms and tools - not because our ‘manager said so’... because we want to.
Doesn’t being open source slow you down?
This is definitely a nuanced question, which deserves a nuanced answer.
Being open source is critical to the security and integrity of a blockchain project. I am not sure anyone would trust a closed source crypto project.
However, it is a fair criticism that open source projects occasionally suffer from analysis paralysis and things could go in circles. In our case, we have found that if one acknowledges that this could be an issue and then allocates mental bandwidth to be very mindful of it - it turns out to be a very manageable issue.
Not to toot my own horn but having a good management layer protects the team from sliding into the red and Ava Labs has been very careful in putting together a very capable management cadre. In other words, our EMs (myself included) are laser focused on making sure discussions are time bound and teams work in a distraction free environment. Oddly, if EMs sticks to this simple dictat - projects tend to finish ‘on time’.
Don’t all companies and their EMs empower ICs?
In my experience, there is a lot of lip service done in the larger industry towards empowering teams and ICs - only to be followed up with multiple layers of control exerted on the day to day functioning of a team.
Ava Labs, imho, goes beyond that lip service and makes sure they create an environment of trust where we do not want to interfere in every single aspect of a team and its projects. We understand there are occasional delays, bugs and incidents BUT we are not really into creating processes that are supposed to create visibility but only end up creating stress. We empower our ICs to make progress - we also empower them to make a few mistakes and fix them.
How do you see Ava Labs performing in the short term/long term?
If I had a quarter every time I have been asked this question - I would have enough quarters to pay for an entire day of parking in downtown Seattle.
It goes without saying that I do not have a crystal ball and any prediction I make can be hilariously off the mark. Now that I have laid out the disclaimer; I will share my own $0.02.
Avalanche is a legitimate innovation. It isn’t a copy paste of some other project or a collection of unproven claims. I have worked in other industries (Databases, Cybersecurity, Rideshare) before I landed in crypto and the only thing that has ever been true is that honest-to-god innovation is a necessary but not sufficient condition for success. It bodes well for Ava Labs long term that they are a genuinely innovative company.
Ava Labs is still part of the cryptoverse and has been affected by crypto winter(s) - just like everyone else. But every winter (even the ones on Game of Thrones) ends and there should be market corrections. This gives Avalanche a golden opportunity to go heads down and continue building during the winter and come out strong on the other side. I would bet (and I think I have) that short to medium term - Ava Labs is looking great!!
If one can make the leap of faith that crypto and web3 are here to stay, it would take one a very small step further to say that Avalanche will play a big role in it. The reason why so many brilliant folks are here at Ava Labs is because we strongly believe that Avalanche is going to have a huge role to play in the web3 revolution.
Finally, to close out the glassdoor review post I would say this - Ava Labs is a technology company that is trying to build platforms and products with passion and care.
We are looking for great engineers who are passionate about the crypto/blockchain space and really care about how things are built. We offer such individuals space and time to deliver their life’s best work without distractions.
If you would like to learn more about Ava Labs and our open roles please visit our website and careers site. (You can alternatively reach out to me!)