Ever pictured your dream job? Well, these four people have them. Here are four cool positions at LA startups that will make you reanalyze your own current role. To recommend your job, company or favorite perk for a future edition, email carlin@builtin.com.
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Elise Lemle: Concept Developer, Two Bit Circus
What she does: authors curriculum for STEAM Carnival to get students learning hands-on. She also does product development for Circus Wares, Two Bit Circus' merchandise division.
Favorite part of her job: "A diverse set of experiences often contained within a single day: I could spend the morning riffling through fabric samples in the garment district for project materials, hit up a thrift store for Story Room decorative accessories, create a few prototypes with our laser cutter, all before settling in to an afternoon planning meeting for STEAM Carnival."
Cool stuff she’s worked on lately: "We will be piloting a larger STEAM Carnival Curriculum this fall in Los Angeles and Orange County Schools in advance of the Los Angeles STEAM Carnival this October. I recently created a wearable electronics program for the Girl Scouts of Greater Los Angeles. Currently, I am working as a producer and designer for a brand new project we are developing, an immersive live-action adventure. Story Room (our demo launches next weekend!) is an innovative social experience that engages patrons in challenging and collaborative problem solving within a rich alternative reality environment."
Company culture is: collaborative. “The fact we can be so different and work together so well speaks to the kind of culture the Big Top cultivates. The Two Bit Circus team is resourceful, if there is a project that requires a certain skill, our carny crew is comprised of people who will go out and find the answers, developing new skill sets if necessary."
Her favorite company perks: "Twice a year, we join our neighbors in opening our doors to the public at the Brewery Artwalk (happening this upcoming weekend April 26 and 27). It is a great time to share our games with the community - we are looking forward to offering a sneak peek of some of our awesome games and experiences!)
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Liz Liu: Director of Culture, Scopely
What she does: turn cultural ideas into reality: "Everything from organizing internal events and on-boarding new members to finding the best Drag Queen Bingo in LA!"
Favorite part of her job: "With seven games under our belt and four consecutive No. 1 F2P games on the iPhone, it is impossible not to be inspired by the people around you. I’ve watched Scopely grow from 30 to 85 people and the feeling still resonates. During the graduation ceremony from my Master's program last summer, I was surprised to see half of the company in the audience wearing (terrifying) t-shirts with my face on it! These are the same people I learned to scuba dive with, celebrate victories with and spend all of my free time around!"
Company culture is: eclectic. “The epitome of Scopely company culture can be seen in our first recruiting campaign: a search for the 'World’s Most Interesting Engineer.' Scopely offered a briefcase filled with $11,000 in bacon-wrapped cash, a year’s supply of Dos Equis, an oil painting (which every employee gets on their year anniversary), along with a spear gun, custom tuxedo, cigars, Sex Panther cologne and beard grooming oil. That’s the heart of Scopely — celebrating weird and constant pursuit of building the best and smartest team possible, even if that means recruiting people from all around the world.”
Favorite perks: daily catered meals, full-body massages and yoga at the office, employee-run clubs ( like Booze Club, Board Game Club, Flag Football) and a dog-friendly office.
Most challenging part of the gig: "Making high-quality, successful games is hard, and there are a lot of challenging problems and opportunities across a wide field of disciplines. A good chunk of the problems we solve are not game-play related, but are tackling areas like server scalability, network optimization, data science, image compression, etc. Gaming is fascinating because it combines social networking problems with e-commerce problems with optimization and modeling problems. Whether you're interested in art, or science or both, Scopely has a plethora of fascinating and deeply challenging problems to solve."
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Aryanne Israel: Director of Restaurant Marketing, ChowNow
Why her job is cool: She heads up the marketing strategy team at ChowNow, which works with all of ChowNow’s clients (aka awesome local restaurants). Essentially, it’s like she’s running a traditional marketing agency within a startup!
Favorite part of her job: “It’s rewarding knowing that we’ve helped level the playing fields for smaller restaurants by giving them the tools they need to compete.”
What’s it like around their Venice offices: “People come to work each morning ready to go, and we power through an incredible amount of work in a week. Come Friday, a group of us can usually be found unwinding together.”
Company culture is: health-conscious. ChowNow is home to a daily juicing club the team has dubbed “Kale Yeah” and regularly do boxing workouts together: “a company that boxes together, stays together,” Israel said.
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Ronette Kite: COO, Adly
What she does: Makes sure that Adly has the best offerings for its clients by ensuring them Tweets from the most influential celebrities for their brands.
Coolest part about her job: "Staying on top of all celebrity news, identifying which celebrities are relevant, up-and-coming, socially-charged with strong influence. We scour all the relevant websites, magazines and articles to make sure that we are up to date with anything happening with our existing and targeted celebrity list. We also get a number of referrals and in-bounds to join our platform."
Best company perk: team lunches every Friday and team events every quarter (anything from trips to Magic Mountain to paddle tennis competitions at the beach).
Company culture is: “open, collaborative, high-energy and FUN.”
Outside of work: She is on the Board of E&Y Alumni Council and is a VIP Committee member of Women In Tech Network.
