Why DigitalOcean was named to Inc.’s Best Workplaces List for the second year in a row

DigitalOcean has been named to Inc. Magazine’s annual “Best Workplaces” list for the second year in a row. The “Best Workplaces” list recognizes U.S.-based companies that have “excelled in creating exceptional workplaces and company culture, whether operating in a physical or virtual facility.” The honor is particularly exciting, given that the 475 companies on the list were selected based on employee feedback and engagement metrics, as collected by Quantum Workplace. Employee surveys included questions on management effectiveness, company benefits, fostering employee growth, overall company culture, and more.

This year, DigitalOcean excelled across a number of different categories, including overall collaboration, employee engagement across generations, and making sure employees feel valued every step of the way. Why do DigitalOcean Sharks (our internal nickname for employees) view these as top strengths? Below, we’ve broken down what it is that makes DigitalOcean unique in these areas.

Collaboration

According to the Inc. Best Workplaces survey, “collaborative” was the top word our employees used to best describe their work environment. At DigitalOcean, we strive to deliver on the promise of a collaborative working environment every day through one of our values: “We speak up when we have something to say and listen when others do.”

DigitalOcean is a remote-first company, and our 800+ DigitalOcean Sharks are based all over the world, and collaborate across different time zones, teams, and departments. DigitalOcean encourages employee collaboration through company events such as Shark-a-Hack. Shark-a-Hack is a 2-day internal company hackathon that encourages Sharks to get together with teammates across the organization and come up with innovative solutions and ideas for any aspect of DigitalOcean’s product, offerings, or company culture. These hackathons are organized three times a year, and the winning projects often come from teams that have collaborated widely across the organization to build up their ideas.

Employee Engagement

DigitalOcean also scored highly among overall engagement scores across different generations of employees. Employees aged 35 and younger reported an average engagement score of 92%, while employees between 36 and 55 reported an engagement score of 91.5%. Employees between the ages of 56 and 65 were the highest performing segment, with an average engagement score of 94%.

At DigitalOcean, building a diverse and inclusive workplace is critical to our success, and this includes fostering an environment that works for all employees. In addition to our flexible PTO offering and remote work policies that allow all employees to work from home permanently, we also offer a variety of wellness-related benefits to help employees work and rest on their own schedules. DigitalOcean offers monthly “Sammy Recharge Days” designed as mandated company-wide days off to ensure employees have time to log off and “recharge.” And for employees that want a physical workspace, DigitalOcean offers a WeWork benefit to all employees to access whenever they’d like.

Additionally, in the past year, DigitalOcean has introduced a variety of Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) for a variety of employee demographics, including Women of DO, Rainbow DOlphins (for members of the LGBTQIA+ community), Shark Tank (for military members and veterans), and Emerging Sharks (for early-career employees). These groups offer input and mentorship from fellow Sharks and put on events and meetings to help employees get the most out of their careers.

Employee Appreciation

Inc.’s survey also revealed that 80% of our senior leaders value “people” as their most important resource. Accordingly, one of DigitalOcean’s often-cited values is “love is at our core,” and we enact this value in part by showing love to our internal community of employees whenever we can.

Employees are encouraged to spread the #DOLove by nominating coworkers, teams, or managers within a Slack channel and our internal feedback platform when they’ve had particular success or live out and demonstrate DigitalOcean’s values. Each month, the first 10 recipients of #DOLove are granted $100 in credits to donate to a charity of their choice.

We also strive to make sure employees are provided with recognition from our executive leadership team, and that communication between senior leadership and the rest of the company is transparent and two-way. Employee anniversaries, new hires, and other milestones are recognized company-wide at All-Hands meetings and in DigitalOcean’s monthly company newsletter, Coral Reef. At company-wide meetings such as All-Hands and Shark Days, employees are given the chance to ask questions of our executive team in an AUA (Ask-Us-Anything) style format. This access provides Sharks with the opportunity to have any of their questions or concerns met, and provides our executives with insight into the topics that are most top-of-mind for employees.

Our Sharks show up every day to help fulfill DigitalOcean’s mission of simplifying cloud computing for developers and small and medium businesses, and DigitalOcean aims to show our appreciation in return by living out our company values each and every day. To learn more about what makes DigitalOcean’s culture unique and to view current job openings, visit our careers page.