By Brigitte Chan, UI Designer

It’s been two and a half years since I started at SuccessFactors, and I have to say–I continue loving it here! Why? It’s the people that make this place so special and fun.

Thanks to the open office layout we have, you feel closer to everyone sitting next to you. You can join in any conversation you want, or tune out to focus on your own work. You can even, right from your seat, greet someone who’s walking down the hallway. Some interviewees have asked me, “Don’t you get distracted by the conversations happening all around you?” “Sometimes,” I replied, “but I got used to it very soon. It’s great to be able to chit-chat with one another while working. I’d rather be able to relate to people in an open environment, than to be surrounded by four walls.” Just like one of our founding principles is “No Jerks,” there are certainly no strangers here either, as you get to know everyone so well.

One of the SuccessFactors core competencies is “not leaving any wounded soul behind.” I truly see that in the Engineering Department. As a User Interface Designer, one of my responsibilities includes enhancing the look-and-feel of the application by tweaking code in the development environment. If my environment ever fails to work, I know I’ll be doomed because the error message that pops up is like a foreign language to me. Fortunately, there’s always someone nearby to help me debug and fix the environment, even when they are in the middle of doing something. And most importantly, they make sure that everything’s working for me before they take off. How awesome is that?

I truly love the gang sitting around me—and I know that most people can’t say this about the people they work with. They are the motivation for me to come in every morning. They are the ones who turn a bad day into a joyful day. I love being here because of the thought and care I receive from my coworkers. I still remember the day when I faced several roadblocks, one after another, yet when I walked back to my desk after a break, I saw a cup of bubble tea sitting there—it was from a coworker who knew that this was my favorite. That just made my day! And this has actually happened more than once.

It’s simple interactions like this that makes SuccessFactors so special.