Tech startups in need of engineers are sprouting up all across the Silicon Slopes, but the Canopy engineering team is unique. We have daily standups, full transparency (and we mean full transparency—of financials, roadmaps, etc.), and you’ll never see a stack of technical specs just handed off to an engineer. Our values are reflected in our daily work. Here’s a closer look at what makes the Canopy engineering team so different.

We’re Owners

Canopy engineers aren’t micromanaged in what they code. Canopy engineers are owners. Throughout the process of building the product, they have a big say in making decisions. From being included in product discussions to receiving customer feedback, our engineering team is more than just a branch for implementation.

Because each engineer is involved in making decisions, they are given full autonomy and trust. There is no gatekeeper to deployment. Canopy deploys several times a day, and every engineer has the ability to deploy.

“We have a policy of ‘you build it, you run it.’” -Nick Humrich, DevOps engineer

We Collaborate

Another great aspect of Canopy is the emphasis on collaboration. Rather than sitting together as one engineering team, our engineers sit in squads of two front-end developers, two back-end developers, a QA engineer, a product designer, and a product manager.

“We collaborate every day. There is never a day when you come in, put in your headphones, and work alone all day.” -Oli Ikeme, software engineer

Beyond collaborating with other team members who help build the product, Canopy engineers also feel like they play a part in sales and customer support. No one is siloed (there are literally no cubicles in sight).

“You can talk to anyone and know what is happening with a project.” -Olga Areshnikova, QA engineer

We’re Progressive

Our software engineers also have an awesome job from the technology perspective. We stay up to date with the latest technology and push the envelope of innovation. A lot of projects at Canopy are challenging, but our engineering team loves a good challenge and the chance to learn.

“We’re not stale, and we’re not afraid to explore new things. We have a mentality that if something’s working we want to make it work better.” -Oli Ikeme, software engineer

Canopy embraces open source as a tool for innovation. Several of our engineers have written or contributed to major open source projects. Some of the other technical benefits of being an engineer for Canopy include:

• Cloud-hosted software
• Trunk-based development
• True continuous integration
• No dealing with internationalization (we only write for US tax)
• Feature toggle service (deploy to product but not customers)
• Microservices on the front-end
• Python 3.6 asyncio

“I don’t know if you could come up with more complex business logic than tax. It’s challenging to build, but I think of that as a positive.” -Bret Little, software engineer

We Celebrate

Lastly, we have a work hard, play hard policy. Canopy finds as many reasons as possible to celebrate and have fun as a company. For team activities the engineering team has tried virtual reality, waterskiing, and even zip lining.  

“We’re encouraged to celebrate both personal and team wins.” -Skyler Lewis, software engineer & DevOps

On top of the engineers’ activities, there are plenty of other activities to get involved in no matter what your interests are. Whether you want to try mountain biking, join a writing group, go on photography outings, or participate in an intramural sport, we offer it here at Canopy, and you’ll have people who want to join you. Or you can just come to all the parties and enjoy the good food and company.

“Opportunities like Canopy don’t come up every day.” -Skyler Lewis, software engineer & DevOps

Want to hear more from Canopy’s engineers? Check out What Makes a Great Tech Company: A Canopy Engineer’s Perspective.

If you’re interested in applying to Canopy, you can find all open positions here.