Anyone who has looked for a tech job in the Los Angeles area recently knows that there are a lot to pick from. In fact, there are more opportunities in the City of Angels than in San Francisco, Seattle and Chicago according to dot.LA, citing a report from the Computing Technology Industry Association. With more than 13,000 roles to pick from, there has never been a better time to be a job seeker. There’s also never been a more intimidating time, as an abundance of choice can often lead to inaction.
Simply put: With so many jobs to choose from, how could anyone know where to start looking?
We invite you to start by checking out the 17 companies profiled here. All of them are hiring and offer something unique, whether it’s a perk like sabbaticals that provide long-term employees the opportunity to rest and recharge, the possibility of working with celebrities or the ability to steer your career toward one of tech’s “next big things,” decentralized finance.
What they do: Fair is looking to shake up the car buying experience by giving drivers the option to lease used cars on a subscription basis using only their smartphone.
You’re 100 percent covered: Having healthcare is incredibly important, but high premiums can be a source of stress. That’s not an issue at Fair, though, as the company covers 100 percent of medical, vision and dental premiums for employees and their families.
All in on tech: In a recent interview with the Los Angeles Business Journal about its relaunch, Fair CEO Brad Stewart said the company’s focus is squarely on consumer-facing tech. Indeed, all of the company’s current postings on Built In LA are for its dev team, including senior-level openings for a software engineer, React developer and a DevOps engineer.
What they do: Wavemaker Labs is a corporate innovation lab that partners with companies to build and launch startups that solve problems in the restaurant and agricultural industries.
Wavemaker in the wild: Flippy, a burger-flipping robot, is one of the products to come out of Wavemaker Labs. It was developed by Miso Robotics, a company created by Wavemaker in partnership with fast-casual burger chain CaliBurger. In addition to working at CaliBurger, Flippy has also taken shifts at Dodger Stadium.
Want to build robots?: Wavemaker is hiring software developers and engineers to build robots. Its current openings include a principal mechanical engineer, senior robotics and automation software engineer, and a senior embedded robotics systems engineer. In addition to Flippy, Wavemaker has also developed robots that mow lawns and make bubble tea and pizzas.
What they do: Pluto TV is a free, internet-based television broadcaster that airs TV shows, movies and viral videos.
Pluto TV’s DevOps culture: Pluto TV has an opening for a senior DevOps engineer. In a previous interview with Built In, Daniel Lloyd, then VP of engineering operations and now SVP of engineering, spoke about what he sees as the key characteristics of a strong DevOps culture.
“An interactive process, communication and transparency of goals,” Lloyd said. “It also requires a bit of evangelism to act as a representative for DevOps as a focus. We work to provide a working proof of concept early, transitioning to MVP and then a fully baked pipeline for the organization.”
Growing and growing: In a recent press release, Pluto TV’s parent company, Paramount, announced that the streaming service reached 64 million monthly active users in the fourth quarter of 2021, an increase of 10 million. The company will continue hiring to maintain that growth and currently has over 50 openings on Built In LA.
What they do: Welcome Tech is a fintech company that provides financial services and access to educational and health information and resources to immigrant communities.
Flipping the diversity script: Tech companies are well-known for struggling to diversify the workplace. That’s not the case at Welcome Tech, though, whose workforce as of September 2021 was made up of 70 percent of people from underrepresented backgrounds. More than half of employees identified as Hispanic and four of seven board members and six of 11 executive team members identified as Hispanic, too.
Product veep wanted: Looking to take the next step in your product career? Welcome Tech is hiring a VP of product design, a role requiring more than 10 years of tech product design experience as well as the ability to develop UX/UI strategies for complex problems involving data visualization and work cross-functionally with engineering and other product stakeholders.
What they do: Revenue.io’s artificial intelligence-powered tech can provide sales reps with guidance in real time during sales calls, analyze revenue by lead source, optimize sales workflows, and more.
Sales training: How does a company that develops tech for sales teams train its own sellers? Jake Spear, senior manager of SMB and commercial sales, explained his approach in a previous Built In interview.
“Being specific about a behavior you’re trying to change is both effective and critical,” Spear said. “You need to come to training sessions with real-world examples of call recordings, meetings, email exchanges, and more in order to analyze a particular action, phrase or objection.”
Openings across the board: Revenue.io currently has openings on several teams, including marketing, finance and sales. These roles range from more junior positions like a sales engineer role to senior-level positions such as a senior product marketing manager and controller.
What they do: Spring Labs specializes in data protection, with its technology designed to give companies the ability to exchange information for fighting fraud without exposing sensitive consumer data in the process.
Big backers: Spring Labs raised a $30 million Series B in May of 2021, which pushed its funding total to $68.8 million according to Crunchbase. The round was led by TransUnion, one of the biggest names in the credit reporting industry. The relationship between the two companies goes beyond a simple investment, though, with TransUnion recently announcing a partnership with Spring Labs to bring credit data to public blockchain networks.
Your gateway to DeFi: Decentralized finance, or “DeFi,” is one of the hottest areas in tech right now, and Spring Labs has an opening specifically in the space. The company is seeking a senior product manager with a strong understanding of Web3, DeFi and blockchain and more than three years of PM experience.
What they do: E-commerce companies use Tapcart’s no-code platform to build mobile shopping apps.
Growing with Tapcart: Sahand Ansari was one of Tapcart’s first employees, and he previously spoke with Built In about his growth journey at the company.
“I started as an intern before we even had a product available to sell on our website,” Ansari said. “We were a logo, a landing page and a dream inside a four-person office at WeWork here in Santa Monica. In just three years [the interview was conducted in 2020], I’ve earned the right to call myself a Shopify expert and a walking encyclopedia of all things Tapcart.”
Tap in: Tapcart has 39 open roles, with nearly half of those on its engineering team. The company is currently seeking an Android engineer, senior software engineer and director of engineering, among others.
What they do: ChangeFi is a community development financial institution that offers loans, insurance, checking and savings accounts, and more to underbanked and diverse communities.
Attracting attention: Fortune named ChangeFi’s parent company, The Change Company, to the 2021 edition of its “Change the World” list, which highlights companies using capitalism’s tools to address unmet needs in society. ChangeFi founder Steven Sugarman spoke about what being named to the list meant to the company in a press release.
“When we founded The Change Company, we set out with a singular mission: to bank the unbanked, fairly and responsibly,” Sugarman said. “Fortune’s recognition of The Change Company shows that our approach to financial services is not just good for our customers but also good business.”
What a year for funding: In September of 2021, The Change Company announced it closed a $75 million senior debt offering. That capped a whirlwind year that saw the company raise $300 million to fund its mission to provide expanded financial access to underserved and diverse communities.
What they do: Your Super is an e-commerce company that sells “superfood” mixes designed to offer a wide variety of health benefits.
LA’s fast five: Your Super was named to the 2021 Inc. 5000, a list ranking the fastest-growing companies in the U.S. based on percentage revenue growth from 2017 to 2020. The company came in at number 25 after posting a growth rate of 11,477 percent over the three-year period.
Advance your data career: Do you have experience developing data strategies and data architecture roadmaps? Are you a Python and SQL pro who also knows their way around Apache Airflow, GCP and Docker? If so, Your Super is currently hiring a director of data and would love to see your resume.
What they do: Blue Pisces Consulting helps companies solve challenges related to Agile and DevOps through its staffing and consulting services.
The CEO speaks: Damion Jones, CEO of Blue Pisces, previously spoke with Built In about how to build a DevOps culture and methodology that actually works. In a nutshell, Jones believes that DevOps is not something a leader can merely study and implement overnight.
“DevOps is not a textbook or playbook that you can just take and follow,” Jones said. “It is a culture. It’s something you have to build, nourish and continuously evolve. To do this right takes experience paired with a strong understanding of your enterprise capabilities, talent and appetite for change.”
Work from wherever: Blue Pisces is actively recruiting developers and a technical project manager. You don’t need to report to the company’s Simi Valley HQ for any of these roles, as they’re all open to remote employees.
What they do: Dave is a banking app that provides users greater insight into their spending and bills, overdraft fee-free spending account and the opportunity to build credit through rent payments.
Stepping out in public: The company celebrated a major milestone earlier this year when it went public via an SPAC merger. Dave hit the Nasdaq — its ticker symbol is “DAVE” — with shares valued at $8.27 apiece, giving the company a valuation of $3 billion according to CNBC.
The interview experience: Many companies keep the interview experience a closely guarded secret, but not Dave. Speaking to Built In, Alex Kim, head of talent acquisition, said the company creates custom informational presentations for each candidate who makes it to the panel interview stage.
“The deck includes an overview of who the candidate will be meeting with and why,” Kim said. “We share our founding story, information about our leadership team and company values. Candidates also receive credit to our swag store or Uber Eats as a thank you for their time.”
What they do: PickTrace develops software for the agricultural industry with a focus on workforce and harvest management.
No small goals: Founders typically think big, but CEO and founder Austin Steed’s goals for PickTrace are more ambitious than most. This comes down to the fact that agriculture is a global industry that employs 27 percent of the world’s workers according to data collected by the University of California, Davis.
“Our vision is to become the technology platform empowering produce farms all over the world,” Steed told Built In. “Our software will help growers build efficient, compliant and successful operations that provide healthy fruit and vegetables and fair, rewarding jobs for billions of consumers and agricultural workers globally.”
Build a career, then reset: PickTrace offers full-time employees with six years of service the opportunity to take a sabbatical. The sabbatical is set at four weeks, is fully paid and includes a cash bonus. According to Built In reporting on sabbaticals, while this perk is ubiquitous in higher education, fewer than 10 percent of private companies offer it.
What they do: DISQO’s consumer insights platform is designed to give companies a better understanding of what people think about brands and how that influences their behavior.
Walking the walk: Nearly every tech company is talking about improving diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace and closing the industry’s gender pay gap. DISQO is doing more than talking, though. The company has dedicated DEI staff and a diversity manifesto, employee resource groups for diverse employees and holds unconscious bias training. There’s also a documented equal pay policy and the mean gender pay gap below 10 percent.
Keeping an eye on crypto: DISQO gathers its consumer insights firsthand from people who sign up to take surveys and are rewarded for their time. Ara Abrahamian, director of engineering at DISQO, told Built In that the company will be watching the crypto industry in 2022 to see if its use as a form of payment becomes more widespread. If that’s the case, DISQO’s members could potentially be compensated in a new way.
What they do: XCLAIM is a fintech company that operates a unique marketplace, with the company facilitating the sale of corporate bankruptcy claims.
No bankruptcy experience required: Think you need to have experience in corporate restructuring and bankruptcy to work at XCLAIM? If so, think again. Stuart Posin, CTO and co-founder, told Built In his company specifically looks for people without direct experience in these areas when hiring.
“Our founder and CEO, Matt Sedigh, made it a clear goal to recruit industry outsiders, and we’ve built a team of highly experienced professionals from a wide variety of backgrounds, experiences and skill sets,” said Posin. “We firmly believe that outside-the-box ideas come from fresh perspectives and a drive to challenge the status quo.”
So what does XCLAIM look for in candidates?: Chris Voxland, senior software engineer, provided the answer to this question to Built In from the standpoint of the company’s dev team. In short: It’s about being able to work autonomously and masterfully dealing with ambiguity when problem-solving.
“We are a young company, so everyone wears a lot of hats and collaboratively figures out how to handle new twists and turns,” Voxland said. “The problems we are addressing are massive and we don’t have concrete answers for every question. Being able to independently write working, adaptable code is key.”
What they do: Who What Wear operates fashion news sites in the United States and United Kingdom. In 2020 the company went from covering fashion to making it with the creation of its line, the Who What Wear Collection.
Making an impact: Who What Wear works with employees to fight racial injustice and inequality by matching employee donations to organizations dedicated to these causes. Employees can make an impact more locally through volunteer opportunities with organizations like the Do Good Bus and Tech Gives Back.
Now hiring creatives: Who What Wear currently has three openings on its content team, two writing positions and one senior producer and content strategist role. The assistant beauty editor and fashion editor roles are focused on producing content that drives affiliate purchases and on building and maintaining press relationships. The senior producer and content strategist is in charge of managing the company’s social media content calendar and creating video content for the Who What Wear collection.
What they do: Tinder is an app for meeting new people, whether it’s for a date or a friendly hangout.
Running the numbers: Tinder offers impressive financial perks to employees, including a 10 percent 401(k) match. Speaking of matching, the company also matches up to $15,000 of an employee’s annual charitable donations. Other financial perks include a yearly continuing education stipend of $1,500 and $10,00 for fertility preservation treatments.
More than mobile development: Although it’s known primarily as a mobile dating app, Tinder can also be used from a web browser. In an interview with Built In, Senior Software Engineer Kyle Boss said this gives full-stack developers the opportunity to make a big impact at the company.
“Our full-stack developers get to work on core features that are accessed by millions of members worldwide,” Boss said. “We also have the ability to work on high-visibility, greenfield projects that support our marketing efforts.
What they do: Ace Metrix’s technology analyzes video advertisements to provide insights designed to help marketers create better creative and tweak existing campaigns in real time.
Out with the old: Satoko Sato is the director of data persistence and a mentor at Ace Metrix. In an interview with Built In, she touched on how the relationship between mentors and mentees at the company is a two-way street when it comes to building new systems.
“We don’t have anyone here who insists on doing things the old way,” Sato said. “Instead, we spend time researching new technologies alongside our teammates before we make new systems, and we welcome new opinions and consider their usefulness together.”
Take the next step: Ace Metrix has openings for DevOps and software engineers who are ready to grow their careers. Its senior DevOps engineer role requires experience with AWS and continuous integration and delivery tools like CircleCi and Jenkins and GitLab CI/CD. The senior software engineer position is available to both local and remote workers and asks for five years of experience with Java, Python and Go (ideally), with the role’s responsibilities adjusted according to the candidate’s location.
