Glia Career FAQs

What's it like to a part of the team at Glia? We've got your answers below.
GeneralApplyingEngineering

FAQs: Applying and Interviewing

We want you to have the simplest, easiest buying experience possible. But we know you might have a few questions. Read on for details about purchasing, shipping, checking order status, returns, and more.
General
What Does Glia Do
• When Was Glia Founded
• What is Glia’s work culture like?
• What are the office locations?
• How does the time difference between your locations affect workflows?
• Do I need to be at the office or can I work remotely?
Read more....
Applying
• There aren't any roles open for me on the careers page. What can I do?
When Was Glia Founded
What is Glia’s work culture like?
What are the office locations?
How does the time difference between your locations affect workflows?
Engineering
What Does Glia Do
When Was Glia Founded
What is Glia’s work culture like?
What are the office locations?
How does the time difference between your locations affect workflows?

General

What does Glia do?

Glia’s Digital Customer Service solution brings the in-person experience to digital customer interactions - whether they start online or on the phone.

When was Glia founded?

Glia’s journey began in 2011 when two of our founders, Dan and Justin, were growth consultants for a Fortune 50 retailer. They identified that their client’s main competitive advantage was its superior in-person customer service. They wondered, “How can we replicate that same, winning experience online?” And so Glia was born.

They set out to build a unified Digital Customer Service platform from the ground up (with the tech expertise of co-founder Carlos and the support of tech-savvy investors). The result is a patented, visionary approach to Digital Customer Service. It’s earned many industry awards and praise from customers and analysts alike and is fueling company growth.

What is Glia’s work culture like?

Glianeers raise the bar. We’re driven, communicate openly, and support each other (and our clients) fiercely. We hold ourselves to high standards and strong values, including the core values we call CChaMP

  • Collaborate
  • Challenge
  • Master
  • Persevere

Those values and guiding principles are exemplified in every aspect of Glia from how we interact to how we build our technology.

What are the office locations?

We have offices in New York, USA, Tallinn, Estonia, Tartu, Estonia and Vancouver, Canada. In practice, these are resource centers where Glianeers can work from depending on their FlexWork choice.

How does the time difference between your locations affect workflows?

The biggest factor in succeeding with our spread out team is asynchronous, open, and clear communication. Otherwise, planning ahead to accommodate availability across time zones allows everyone to work more closely when meetings are necessary.

A weekly company-wide check-in helps everyone feel connected, get a chance to see each other, and find out what other teams are working on. It’s one of those meetings where everyone is marked optional, but if it were in-person, it would be standing room only.

Do I need to be at the office or can I work remotely?

We’ve learned that doing one’s best work can look very different from one person to the next. Whether you love being able to jump into a room for a brainstorming session with teammates on a whim or the freedom of taking a cleaning break while working from home—or even both—we’ve got options for you.  

We have an official policy called FlexWork. You find the option that fits best and we make it work for you.

How international is your team?

At last count, Glianeers represent 15 nationalities and speak 18 different languages (although a few are more likely to be heard on the screen or at a Comic-Con convention than at a diplomatic relations meeting).

We’re proud of our diverse team, so those numbers are likely to date quickly.

Who are Glia’s clients?

Our clients are the biggest names in the Financial Services market — for example credit unions, banks, insurance companies, and financial advisor organizations. View case studies and testimonials from some of our clients.

What are the perks and benefits?

When you’re a Glianeer you can expect:

  • Medical insurance plans*
  • Pension and retirement plans*
  • Generous Paid Time Off (PTO) / leave policy*
  • Stock options
  • Gym membership support
  • FlexWork model
  • Social events
  • Snacks and refreshments**
  • Office set-up**
  • Relocation support
  • Parental leave
  • Personal development 

* Varies depending on location

** Varies depending on FlexWork option

Do I get stock?

We want all Glianeers to own their success, so stock options are part of our compensation package.

Glia could be applied to any business, why focus on financial services?

Everyone starts somewhere and it takes focus to really get things right. Finance is the sector we’ve focused on to really learn our craft and refine our products. We’re not worried about doing it all, we’re zeroed-in on doing it best first.

What are your work hours? 

When do you do your best work? When are you most effective with your team?

Then that’s when our work hours are.

What is the interview process like?

After you apply for your perfect role on our careers page one of our awesome talent operations team members will be in touch—expect communication regardless of whether we decide to move forward in the hiring process.

Our process ensures that you get a real feel for Glia, our products, and the incredible people you’ll be working with. You’ll meet with your potential team members and people from other departments and locations. Expect an opportunity to show off what you’re great at.

Otherwise start thinking about whether you’re working from home, one of our office hubs, or a bit of both.

Applying

There aren't any roles open for me on the careers page. What can I do?

You love our mission, our products, our people. We hear you! Set your mission as a Glianeer and tell us what that looks like! 

Does Glia have internship programs?

We periodically take interns for experiences in a variety of departments. Keep an eye on our careers page and social media channels to stay in the know.

Who should I address my cover letter to?

Our talent operations team.

How can I prepare for an interview at Glia?

A new position in any company is a big commitment — you’re offering your talents, knowledge, skillset, and time. We want to make sure you’re doing that with a company and mission you can really get behind—and hopefully that’s Glia.

The best way to start is learning about us—on our website, our blog, and social media channels like LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Once you know a bit more about us, we’re sure you’ll be able to tell us about how you see yourself developing the role you’re interested in—and beyond.

Where can I get answers to any other questions about Glia’s hiring process?

Can’t find the info in the job posting or here? Get in touch.

Engineering

What technologies are you using?

Back-end and full-stack developers at Glia can expect to work on building a cloud native, highly distributed system written in Elixir (backed by Postgres and NoSQL stores, like Redis and S3). Services run as containers orchestrated by Kubernetes. All of it is on AWS and defined in code (e.g. Ansible). As such, Linux/Unix tools and ecosystem are part of the package.

For front-end engineers, the stack includes an JS API written in JS ES6 and Web applications written in React.

Our mobile developers collaborate with other engineers to develop and maintain native SDK. Android engineers function with Java, while iOS developers do so with Swift. A few tools for observability and telemetry include ZipKin (open tracing) and an ELK stack to increase confidence in our continuous delivery process. 

Do you plan to change your tech stack in the future?

We’ve done so in the past, but don’t have any planned stack changes on the horizon. 

What is the size and structure of the engineering team? 

Over the years, we’ve experimented with team setup and shaped an approach that is poised to serve us well as we continue scaling. Today, we build new teams by expanding one team and then dividing it. This engineering team mitosis allows for growth that provides initial structure and support to new Glianeers while ensuring continuity of technical and cultural standards. If we find that two teams are starting to overlap in their responsibilities, we designate that area of responsibility to one of the teams, freeing up the other to shift their focus.

Some teams focus on who’s being served by the product. For example, one team’s focus may be on the end-user (our client’s customer), while another team’s North Star is the customer service agent for whom Glia’s technology is mission-critical. Other teams are organized around operational management or analyzing business metrics—providing our clients with a full range of Glia products.

Of course, we wouldn’t function without our platform teams. They build the infrastructure to enable all the development and keep everything running smoothly. Meanwhile our Information Security and Compliance Team makes sure that our platform is secured and our customers’ data is protected.

Read more about the Glia Engineering team.

How is the current team going to change during the next few months?

As a company we’re growing rapidly, but mindfully. We prioritize the quality of growth over the quantity. This will translate to new faces in meetings, but you’ll always have someone as the resource on any product and process questions. 

Will there be a possibility to become a team lead/manager?

Wow! You’re really looking for long-term prospects with Glia. We love it!

Our engineering career development moves along two distinct tracks—Technical and Management. The management track spans from an Engineering Manager role to Senior EM, up to leadership positions such as Director and VP. On the technical track, engineers can hone their skills and grow beyond senior positions into Staff and Tech Lead roles.

Technical Track
: Our Staff Engineers serve as roving Glia-engineering experts. Their in-depth specialization, whether technical or organizational, allows them to lend their support and know-how to the teams as needed.

Management Track
: The Engineering Manager role, while requiring an understanding of software creation, is a people role. Partnered with a Tech Lead, the two roles are focused on the two drivers of engineering team success—the people and the tech. The work is a partnership, but the responsibilities are clearly defined.

I don’t have experience with Ruby/Elixir. Will that be a problem?

Short answer — no.

Slightly longer answer: While Ruby and Elixir are key languages we use, not all new Glianeers need to be fluent in them. We’ve designed structures for learning, from courses to consistent support from Engineering Managers. Glianeers are the ones who decide the best approach to learning. Check out the experience of one of our Senior Engineers who dove into Elixir.