We may be coming up on nearly a year of staying at home, but the LA tech scene hasn’t taken that as a cue to slow down.
From adtech to lighting design, tech talent around the city has been hard at work innovating new products and growing their expertise. To help keep track of it all, Built In Los Angeles has scoured the City of Angels to highlight 10 exciting companies that might not be on your radar — but should be.
Does one catch your fancy? You’re in luck, because they’re all hiring now.
What they do: System1 is a digital marketing company that strives to help customers strengthen engagement numbers through publishing, search, and applications and services.
Big money: Are System1’s marketing strategies effective? The numbers don’t lie: The company has earned itself and its customers a combined $1 billion in profits since 2013.
Big on culture: According to Manager of Partnerships and Growth Eric Piwowar, employees at System1 are a tight-knit bunch — even in a pandemic. “Engagement has always been a big part of the culture,” Piwowar said. “Weekly happy hours, catered lunches and birthday treats offered great ways for our teams to connect outside of working hours. Because of everyone working from home, we have replaced them with remote events and gatherings.”
What they do: Slickdeals, a social platform that offers e-commerce deals and coupons, has saved users over $6.8 billion to date. In building shopping and communication tools, the Slickdeals team is connecting over 10 million monthly users to the products they love — and helping consumers avoid sticker shock.
Work flexibly: Slickdeals trusts its team to do good work. With flexible start times and the option to work remotely when needed, tech talent can maintain a healthy work-life balance and thrive in all areas of their personal and professional lives.
Culture snapshot: What do success and fun have in common? At Slickdeals, you can’t have one without the other, according to CEO Josh Meyers.“When you build a stellar team that enjoys working together, that leads to fun,” Meyers said. “And when people are having fun, they are productive and work smarter, and that leads to winning.”
What they do: TeleSign is a mobile identity solutions company, which builds products designed to keep over 3.5 billion accounts across the globe protected. With services like fraud prevention, two-factor authentication and more, TeleSign aims to create products that are as intuitive as they are highly secure.
Fast-paced work: The race to secure digital accounts will never be finished, according to Lis Pepin, senior manager of business operations. Luckily, she said TeleSign’s team thrives in the ever-changing field. “It’s always something new and different,” Pepin said. “Combating what new attack or attack vector will pop up, on our side and our customers’ side, is what keeps the job interesting.”
The importance of keeping current: Aside from obvious security reasons, TeleSign endeavors to keep on the cutting edge of tech so the team can be ready for whatever the future may hold, explains Chief Innovation Officer Stacy Stubblefield. “As we’ve seen, the world can change in dramatic ways very quickly,” Stubblefield said. “It’s important for any business to be able to respond quickly and flexibly rather than remaining mired in old processes and technology.”
What they do: The most beautiful space in the world wouldn’t be half as good without great lighting. Ecosense Lighting is out to create functional, intuitive LED lighting technology solutions to make every room sing. Using data, color science and modern tech tools, Ecosense builds hardware and software with one goal in mind: To bring an illuminating modern approach to lighting.
Bright future, great customers: Brands like H&M, Tesla, Starbucks, Whole Foods and more have all trusted Ecosense with their lighting.
Rewarding work, rewarded: Ecosense is has been recognized by Red Dot, a prestigious international design award, for its high-quality lighting work.
Engineering toolkit: Techies at Ecosense use languages like .NET, Python, C++ and RTOS.
What they do: ClubLabs is the digital acceleration team behind the Automobile Club of Southern California, better known as AAA. Responsible for designing and building intuitive solutions for insurance, roadside assistance and travel, the company aims to make every user experience simple, impactful and easy to navigate.
Committed to the community: While ClubLabs offers competitive perks, there’s one that stands out: Employees are encouraged to take time off to volunteer with organizations that matter to them. Each year, ClubLabs offers 40 hours of paid time off — separate from vacation and sick days — that team members can use to positively impact their communities.
When an office is a destination: When it’s safe to return to the office, employees at ClubLabs have a sweet pad to return to. “Most offices don’t have 1921 Spanish Colonial Revival architecture with 18-foot ceilings and handmade tile from Mexico like ours has,” Jay Eck, the company’s manager of digital messaging, said. “The space also has 12-foot high arched windows that display the courtyard and let in plenty of natural light.”
What they do: Convoso builds cloud-based call center software for lead-generation teams. Driven by automation and AI, Convoso aims to make outbound sales teams more efficient and profitable.
Wide-open roadmap: Convoso’s tech team is embarking on a new feat: building conversation bots that can interact intelligently with humans. According to Founder and CPO Bobby Hakimi, this latest foray will allow the team to expand into new verticals and ambitious new products.
Big-time perks: When their team can safely return to the office, Convoso’s team enjoys a variety of benefits that would have any techie green with envy, such as group outings, fitness reimbursements, monthly massages, weekly catered lunches and an office dog to play with on breaks.
What they do: Ace Metrix’s mission is to help marketing teams build more effective campaigns. By supplying key data insights on audience reaction, users can pinpoint what’s working in their ads and what they can improve. In a world full of advertisements and content, Ace Metrix aims to help customers stand out in the crowd.
Recently acquired: Ace Metrix was recently acquired by iSpot.tv, a company that measures ad reach on TV and streaming platforms. With this new partnership, Ace Metrix’s tech will be used to help plan and evaluate TV advertising spots, ensuring each ad is impactful.
Culture of innovation: CTP and CTO William Parducci described the culture at Ace Metrix as one where employees are always itching to tinker and build novel solutions. “Our company culture is innovation-oriented, which translates into a perpetual cycle of looking for new things to measure, analyze and continuously improve how we represent the results,” Parducci said.
What they do: Spring Labs strives to bring more security to data sharing among financial institutions. Using blockchain and cryptography, Spring Labs enables organizations to securely exchange information for identity verification and fraud-reduction purposes — while keeping consumer data protected.
Tech toolbox: Engineers spend their days knee-deep in Python, JavaScript, Node.JS, SQL and React.
Feel your impact: For Senior Software Engineer Michael Young, working at Spring Labs has opened up a world of possibilities. “I always feel like I’m driving our mission forward, whether that’s through trying to ensure our products are well-tested, scaling the system for the loads we expect to face or future-proofing features for our even more ambitious ideas.
What they do: Advertise Purple is an adtech agency building tools to increase engagement for e-commerce brands through affiliate sites.
Benefits that last: Through generous work perks like mentorship programs, a learning stipend and paid industry certifications, Advertise Purple works hard to give its team a springboard for long-term career success.
Diversity has always been a priority: “The makeup of our company and leadership positions are highly diverse, with over 70 percent of the highest-paying and leadership roles currently comprised of people of underrepresented backgrounds,” President Kyle Mitnick said. “We realize that we are not perfect, and we have made an effort to create systemic equality since day one.”
What they do: Versus Systems is an in-app advertising tool that strives to make the relationship between brands and consumers more fun. The white-label platform allows retailers to embed real-life prizes into popular games, creating a more engaging and rewarding experience for all.
Score great perks: With education stipends, reimbursements for conferences, flexible work schedules and designated D&I leaders and programing, Versus doesn’t play around when it comes to giving employees a well-rounded experience.
CEO sound byte: “Versus is a collaborative, multiplayer, cooperative enterprise,” Founder and CEO Matthew Pierce said. “It’s a team game. We’re building something new, something challenging, and we’re doing it as a community of developers, designers, strategists, and explorers. We build new technology, we write patents, and we work with our partners to make the most engaging game experiences in the world.”
.png)
