Siden, since 2018, has adopted a “Work From Anywhere” company philosophy and policy. As of this writing, we operate in 13 countries and 12 states across SouthEast Asia, China, Europe, Australia and North America. We are building our product and working with our customers and partners around the clock. Why did we make this decision? Two reasons, but it really comes down to our most important resource – our people.
First, we knew from the beginning that the technical scope of our platform was large and that we would need a diverse group of software engineers spanning cloud, AI/ML, network, CDN, wireless/3GPP and client technologies. Additionally, we have a hardware component to our offer and that requires hardware manufacturing and OS/firmware skills. This has led us to source engineers from many different backgrounds, skill sets and locations.
Secondly, our global ambitions have taken us to many different regions and countries requiring business development, content and customer focused resources. These resources combined with the local and regional knowledge has proven invaluable to our customer efforts.
I am a true believer in the idea that not all the best people live in the same place and that we need the very best people to accomplish our goals. This core belief has led us to attract extremely talented individuals from diverse backgrounds and experiences. We are not limited to people that live within a certain range of corporate HQ or a regional office. I cannot underestimate the benefit of this as it produces well rounded thought and challenges norms that can be inherent in non-diverse teams.
Work From Anywhere allows our global team the flexibility to live and work from the city/state/country that suits them and their families the best. This freedom is linked to job satisfaction and improved work-life balance.
Being on the forefront of this movement, we were able to execute without significant change to internal processes at the height of the pandemic. The major exception was the inability to have company offsites. This was an obvious advantage and one I don’t take for granted. However, now that many companies are fully remote or hybrid, the competition for resources has intensified. Siden has a distinct advantage here as we have been evolving our Work From Anywhere process as part of our core beliefs, not something that was thrust upon us.
There are certainly challenges with Work From Anywhere, but the opportunities far outweigh the challenges. Challenges include navigating time zones, ensuring alignment and making sure people feel connected to their teammates. But the opportunity to hire the best people anywhere in the world and give them the freedom to work remotely is a difference that sets us apart. We continue to evolve our culture and processes to support Work From Anywhere and look at best practices from other companies that are successful with remote only or remote first teams.
In future posts, I’ll detail how we built culture, purpose and process from the beginning to accommodate Work From Anywhere and how it allows us to scale efficiently.
Jim
CEO
