Congratulations on resolving to improve your professional standing this year! After a long holiday season that placed your job search on hold, it’s time to get serious about pursuing the career you so richly deserve.
Luckily for you, there’s no shortage of companies in Los Angeles with desirable positions to fill. Q1 is a time for untapped potential — of unlimited possibility. These seven local companies are sparking innovation across a wide range of sectors, including fintech, renewable energy, transportation and machine learning. For exactly how they are doing so, and where you can contribute, read on.
What they do: Core Digital Media is out to empower people financially. The online marketing and consumer acquisition platform runs sites like LowerMyBills.com, which helps consumers make optimal choices when it comes to loans, insurance and continuing education.
Notable perks and benefits: Leadership at Core Digital Media places a premium on career growth within the company: “I started as an entry-level analyst and I am now a director leading our CRM team,” Megan Craven said. “This is due to CDM's investment in my training and professional development. Leadership has always kept my best interests in mind, and has provided me with the tools needed to accomplish my goals. As a result, I have been able to succeed in ways I could not have imagined.”
View from the inside: Always evolving, Core Digital Media empowers its employees with opportunities to lead and the ability to experiment with new technology. “Even though we’ve been around the block, we still very much operate with that scrappy, startup demeanor,” Web Developer Garron Ma previously told Built In. “Every voice can be heard, every idea acknowledged. We’re driven to win. Any victory or milestone we achieve, no matter the magnitude, is celebrated. I believe the opportunities are ripe for the taking.”
What they do: Heliogen is a renewable energy technology company unlocking the power of sunlight to replace fossil fuels. Through a combination of AI, masterful engineering and human ingenuity, the company is using its sunlight refineries to work toward making solar and hydrogen energy more accessible and reliable.
Notable perks and benefits: A collaborative culture is key at Heliogen, where employees participate in group brainstorming sessions and team-based strategic planning. The company additionally offers job training conferences to continue professional development, as well employee benefits like unlimited PTO, relocation assistance, health insurance packages and 401(k) investment opportunities.
View from the inside: Heliogen recently announced that it had finalized a $39 million award from the U.S. Department of Energy to deploy the company’s breakthrough renewable energy technology in California. “We’re proud to lead the way for clean energy through the deployment of breakthrough technologies that utilize sunlight to displace fossil fuels,” Founder and CEO Bill Gross previously told Pasadena Now. “The large and ambitious scope of this DOE award adds momentum to deployment of Heliogen’s breakthrough AI-enabled, modular concentrated solar solution for carbon-free energy at scale.”
What they do: Metropolis Technologies is a computer vision-based platform that converts parking assets into smart infrastructure that supports current and future mobility modes. It simplifies the parking experience; its proprietary heuristics recognize your vehicle, and payment is facilitated automatically. Members’ cards are charged automatically upon exit.
Notable perks and benefits: Metropolis is led by an experienced executive team with diverse backgrounds, including a successful LA-based tech founder, a technical leader from eHarmony and DogVacay, and senior professionals from major global financial services firms and the world's leading mobility companies. Paid company snacks and after-hour meals, commuter benefits, unlimited PTO and a gym reimbursement are just some of the many benefits the company offers.
View from the inside: Senior Software Engineer Austin Steady applauds the company’s ability to balance no-nonsense pragmatism with plenty of empathy: “I’ve found that my role models here are both extremely knowledgeable and excellent communicators. The engineers are product-minded, and the product team appreciates the development process. This mutual understanding has allowed us to quickly focus on the highest priority work without accumulating unnecessary complexity.”
What they do: Million Dollar Baby Co. is a baby furniture company committed to building exciting baby brands “so there are no more boring nurseries.” The organization’s double-digit growth in the past 10 years creates an energetic and challenging culture that empowers ownership and teamwork, encourages constant feedback and adaptability, and keeps every day interesting.
Notable perks and benefits: It’s only fitting that a baby furniture company provides generous parental leave. MBD Co. offers up to 16 weeks of paid maternity leave, eight weeks of paid paternity leave and eight weeks of adoption leave for new parents with at least six months of service, as well as a flexible work schedule outside of core hours.
View from the inside: As a company, Million Dollar Baby Co. likes to think of itself as a 30-year-old startup, blending time-tested experience with fresh perspectives. “Everyone is expected to make an impact by challenging the current assumptions and processes, and serving as catalysts for change,” Senior Vice President of Operations Julia Bedanova previously told Built In. “We give team members — even new hires — the psychological safety and opportunity to take risks and make an impact. This creates a very dynamic and energetic culture of entrepreneurial thinkers with a bias for action.”
What they do: Mothership is a logistics technology company that connects companies with freight transportation organizations on-demand, whether they need cargo shipped across the country or locally within the same day.
Notable perks and benefits: Mothership’s lunch and learns, as well as the company’s “307 Temporary Redirect” engineering events, allow employees to learn as they grow. The core component of the programs is to facilitate a sense of community within the engineering department while everyone works from home. Roundtable discussions about a variety of topics both technical and lighthearted, a satirical news panel, game shows (“Jeopardy,” “Price Is Right”) and accompanying bingo cards provide a sense of camaraderie, even when meeting in a virtual environment.
View from the inside: “I took three things into consideration before I accepted a job at Mothership: company culture, leadership, and opportunity,” Senior Product Manager Rachel Ku said. “As I assessed the company, I spoke with the CEO, engineering leads, and UX leads. The transparency, collaboration and a fanatical customer-centric mindset aligned with my personal working philosophy.”
What they do: Blue Pisces Consulting specializes in building and transforming tech stacks through DevOps. The consulting firm can help clients with DevOps, SRE and infrastructure operations challenges by offering solutions that range from staff augmentation to kanban implementation and even Scaled Agile Framework for Enterprise (SAFe) adoption.
Notable perks and benefits: Soumya Naidu Conway, a project manager at Blue Pisces, said the company passes muster when valuing their employees’ time outside the office: “Having done my Masters thesis in Work Life Balance, I can assuredly say that Blue Pisces is on the forefront of creating that balance and integration that is needed in today’s working environment,” Conway said. “I am able to have a flexible work schedule to suit my family needs which in turn makes me more productive and allows me to contribute my best to my work.”
View from the inside: Project Manager Kim Thompson said she felt welcome from the moment she arrived with the company: “Having only recently joined the team, one of my favorite things that I’m learning about everyone is that we are all huge foodies. Someone always has a top-notch lunch spot recommendation, and our general Slack channel is filled with recipes and pictures of people’s cooking projects. It’s so much fun to share this interest with my colleagues!”
What they do: Zest AI’s machine learning software was built to help lenders make better decisions. Through the use of big data, the fintech company strives to make credit underwriting more compliant, yield higher revenue for lenders and reduce risk.
Notable perks and benefits: Zest is invested in providing employees with the tools they need to sharpen their skills and advance in their careers. The company offers learning benefits like tuition reimbursement, lunch and learns, and customized development tracks and reimbursements for conferences.
View from the inside: Zest Co-Founder Sonya Merrill says that despite the evolution of the company, its culture has remained constant: “We maintain an incredibly high bar for talent,” Merill said. “We value diversity a lot and foster an environment where everybody can bring their full selves to work. We thrive on people voicing their ideas. People often describe our culture as collaborative, fun, and maybe even a bit quirky.”
