Growth & Kilimanjaro
Success is built on relationships, and relationships are built on authenticity.
I’m taking a gap year from studying computer science at the University of Waterloo to bet on myself and invest in people that challenge me.
In October, I climbed a mountain with a group of real estate investors.
I discovered I learn best when people challenge how I think and act through conversation.
In the spirit of challenge, I’m going to Africa next year to climb Kilimanjaro with these investors.
My journey to Kilimanjaro is my chance to reclaim mental real estate and prioritize my career and personal growth.
I learn best from conversations with people who challenge how I think and act, and there’s no shortage of those conversations at Wrk.
Learning through Wrk
I’m four months into my internship as an Automation Designer at Wrk.
I feel fulfilled in my work, relationships, and career development.
I have autonomy in what I do, I love working with my team, and I feel empowered to succeed in my personal life and career by the leadership team.
This was an extremely rare and rewarding internship experience.
At Waterloo, co-op students tend to obsess over landing their next job because they weren’t satisfied with their previous internship and want “more.”
I used to feel the same way. Not anymore.
I feel empowered to succeed in aligning my interests with my career goals at Wrk.
My long-term goal is to become a partner at a top VC firm in the next five years, and I’m taking a gap year to bet on myself and focus on content creation.
To align my interests with my career goals, I’m returning to intern as a technical product manager and content creator for Wrk.
Here are three high-leverage practices Wrk inspired me to focus on for my career and personal growth.
Prioritizing relationships
Success is built on relationships, and relationships are built on authenticity.
The team at Wrk values authenticity, and I feel supported in my personal and career well-being.
My team lead, Nick, schedules time to check up on me and give actionable advice to help me achieve my personal and career goals.
I was consumed with the decision to take a gap year to pursue content creation, and I was not as productive or involved in the day-to-day business priorities of the company as I was in my first three months.
Nick helped me pick up my slack, showed genuine care for my well-being, spoke his words of wisdom, and helped align my interests in content creation with the business priorities at Wrk.
I’m now creating a comprehensive how-to guide to building bots in Python to help onboard automation designers coming from Jamaica and New Zealand and for other anybody else at Wrk interested in building bots.
Aligning passion with a career is rare and extremely valuable.
This wouldn’t have happened if my team at Wrk did not prioritize authenticity in their relationships.
Product Led Growth
PLG is when user acquisition, expansion, conversion, and retention are all driven primarily by the product itself.
PLG aligns teams across the company—from engineering to sales and marketing—around the product as the largest source of sustainable, scalable business growth.
Wrk embraces PLG in their business for clients but also for interns, where the internship is the product, and the interns are the users.
User Acquisition
I learned of Wrk’s strong engineering culture from reaching out to Aaron on LinkedIn.
He showed how Wrk harnesses the power of Machine, Platform, Crowd, emerging trends of automation, platforms that scale, and leveraging the wisdom of the crowd to impact businesses, economies, and societies profoundly.
I was hooked and kept badgering him for half a year before officially joining the team.
I chose Wrk despite competing offers because of the strong product and winning team that make up the company.
User Expansion
As an automation designer, my primary job function is designing bots, which are independently deployable units of code that run the Wrk actions on the platform.
I wanted to align my interest in content creation and technical product management with the business priorities of the company.
Even though my team lead Nick was onboarding a child as a new father, he still made time to mentor me through one-on-ones to support me in achieving this alignment.
User Conversion
I feel empowered to succeed in my career by the leadership team because of the autonomy I have in what I do and the amazing people I get to work with.
To align my technical skillset and curiosity for technical product management, Bassem, the Head of Wrk Action Product & Partnerships, took me under his wing to experiment with API solution providers and establish partnerships for Wrk.
Technical product management as a career path aligns with my technical skillset and interest in working with people, so I’m returning to intern as a technical product manager.
User Retention
Matt, VP of Automation Solutions, helped me personalize a plan to retain me as an intern during my gap year to pursue content creation.
Thanks to the flexibility of a strong remote-first culture, I can continue working with this winning team through a part-time internship in technical product management.
I can also return full-time next summer, even when I’m taking a month’s leave to travel to Africa and climb Kilimanjaro.
Aaron acquired, Nick expanded, Bassem converted, and Matt retained me as an intern.
Wrk practices product-led growth for their clients but also for their interns.
I also learned and actually talked to some of Canada's most successful founders and business leaders about how they started and scaled their companies at The Peak's Bet On Canada Summit.
Here I am learning through Wrk with Jacob, who onboarded with me this August, and from Wrk’s co-founder, Mo.
Personalizing for Personal and Professional Growth
Rest & Recovery are important and is usually undervalued at other companies. This was not the case at Wrk.
From what I can see, the people I worked with seemed to be living their best lives outside of work.
They make the most out of the remote-first culture by traveling, pursuing their hobbies, and making time for their family and friends.
By personalizing their schedule to what works best for them, they can show up at their best in their personal and professional lives.
Some days I’m tired, and some days I’m energized.
I’m able to show up at my best, grateful to have autonomy in what I do, love working with my team, and feel empowered to succeed in my personal life and career at Wrk.
TL;DR
My past four months at Wrk have been a phenomenal experience.
As an intern, I feel fulfilled in my work, relationships, and career development.
I have autonomy in what I do, I love working with my team, and I feel empowered to succeed in my personal life and career at Wrk.
This was an extremely rare and rewarding internship experience, made possible because my team at Wrk understood personal and career success is built on relationships built on authenticity.
By prioritizing my relationships, the team at Wrk helped me personalize my internship through product-led growth by acquiring, expanding, converting, and retaining me as an intern. That empowered me to thrive in my personal and professional life.
That’s why I’m taking a gap year to bet on myself and invest in the people at Wrk that challenge me.
I’m returning to intern as a technical product manager and content creator for Wrk, and I’m excited to see where this journey leads!
( 👍🏻ᐛ )👍🏻