Built In Chicago’s Featured Companies of the Month

Skyscrapers. Blues. Baseball. Theater. Never putting ketchup on a hot dog.

While listing off features is simple, Chicago’s culture is more than the sum of its parts. Looking further back can help illuminate the city’s long history of cultural and linguistic diversity from its founding by Jean Baptiste Point du Sable and his wife, Kitihawa. But history and geography can only offer a limited glimpse into what makes the city unique.

Understanding Chicago’s culture requires first-hand experience, and the same is true when considering the local tech scene.

Position listings offer a limited inside peek at company culture. But employers’ mission, core values and priorities can help jobseekers connect with a role and organization right for them.

Read on to learn more about how nine Chicago tech companies put their culture into action and explore the opportunities available now.

What they do: Life Fitness has been creating fitness solutions that benefit both facilities and exercisers for more than 50 years. Their products span cardio, strength and group training products, as well as digital fitness offerings like on-demand workouts and a virtual library of exercises.

Personal growth: According to Mallory Bannon, senior manager of Americas commercial finance, Life Fitness’ commitment to continuous improvement is inherent to how the company supports its staff. Bannon told Built In Chicago that she values “the opportunity for continual growth and learning” offered in her work. “There are regular opportunities to be involved in projects, work collaboratively with other functions and have exposure to different levels of leadership,” she said. “The type of experiences and growth I’ve had would not have been possible at another company in such a short time.”

What they do: Smokeball’s legal practice management software helps small law firms better serve their communities.

Autonomy and trust: Director of Client Quality Assurance Alison Lupel told Built In Chicago that Smokeball empowers her to be autonomous “by being results-driven rather than being bogged down in the process.” At Smokeball, their autonomous culture is built on a foundation of trust. “By trusting my institutional knowledge, interpersonal skills and work ethic, my employer has given me the freedom to examine parts of the business that could be unintentionally overlooked through a more limited lens,” Lupel said.

What they do: MVMNT is a comprehensive brokerage transportation management system that supports freight brokers “from procurement to shipment complete” while building a more connected logistics network.

Transparent and efficient: MVMNT’s communication-first hybrid environment is a direct result of their focus on building nimble and efficient systems. “Constant communication is key,” Maddy Fassett, head of HR and recruiting, told Built In Chicago. “By encouraging employees to keep that flow of communication, we ultimately spend less time in meetings and more time executing. We trust each other to do the job we’re assigned and keep open lines of communication to ensure efficiency and reliability.”

What they do: Bringg is a delivery management platform that helps companies with last-mile fulfillment and allows them to grow their delivery capacity while reducing costs.

Work-life balance: Bringg’s fulfillment model is flexible for clients, and their culture offers that same flexibility to the team. According to Customer Success Manager Michal Buchler, their culture “allows me to enjoy special moments with my son during the day, without compromising my work responsibilities.” Buchler told Built In that the support of her manager and peers has helped her thrive both professionally and personally.

What they do: OppFi provides accessible products including loans, cards and payroll credit to customers whose credit may otherwise exclude them from financial services.

DEI in action: OppFi’s investment in doing right by marginalized populations is embedded as deeply in their culture as in their product. “Following the murder of George Floyd, our country and corporations have been forced to think about diversity, equity and inclusion in a different and more urgent way,” Michelle Y. Bess, vice president of talent and DEI, told Built In last year. As companies invest in seeking Black talent, many candidates have the opportunity to evaluate which positions truly serve their needs. “Many Black employees have relished being at home, where they can be their authentic selves more regularly, aren’t reminded that they are the only Black person in the office and do not face microaggressions daily, as they did in the office,” Bess said. At OppFi, a commitment to remote-flexible culture has helped their diverse team thrive.

Everspring

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What they do: Everspring works with educational institutions and industry to develop online and hybrid learning solutions. 

Learning for the future: As an edtech company, Everspring’s commitment to learning is deeply embedded in both their product and culture. With a wide lens on the value of continuing education, Everspring offers robust support for goal planning on their team and considers both short- and long-term benefits. “As technologists, any individual learning that we do makes our team stronger. For example, while some goals — like learning a programming language that we aren’t currently using — don’t affect our bottom line today, they do offer a different perspective and might open the doors to change tomorrow,” Engineering Manager Amanda Bolander told Built In Chicago. 

What they do: Productive Edge is a digital consulting firm that relies on a toolkit of design and research methodologies. Their expertise includes IoT, the blockchain and artificial intelligence.

Innovative approach: Productive Edge is committed to setting the pace for industry change — for their clients and for their employees. “As technology evolves, as society evolves, and especially as healthcare evolves, we’re pushing ourselves to be at the forefront of all of those changes, not only in how we work with clients, but in how we work internally,” Project Manager Diana Maldonado told Built In. For Maldonado, remote work has supported her as she cares for her mother, which allows her to be more effective at work by knowing she is present to her family. “Having the flexibility to bring her to appointments and manage her healthcare has been life-saving.”

What they do: CPI, the OpenFox Company supplies a network for federal and state agencies to manage and share criminal data.

Strong teams: Senior Technical Lead Sue Conckus knows she has a part to play in fulfilling CPI’s mission. In overcoming her own self-doubt, she gained a deeper understanding of what she offers her team as well as wisdom to share with other women. “Remember you are here for a reason,” she told Built In Chicago last May. “Your ideas and thoughts matter. Focus on what you bring to the team and what gives you satisfaction.”

What they do: Crisp Thinking Inc. discovers and tracks risk in digital chatter across open and closed social media channels, forums and messaging apps to offer fast, actionable intelligence to protect clients from security threats.

Building a safer internet: The time is right to explore a future in internet safety and security, according to John-Orr Hanna, Crisp’s chief intelligence officer. “After years of successfully raising awareness for online safety and global discussions about how to improve it, 2022 will be a year of action for online platforms, governments and organizations committed to creating a safer internet,” he wrote on the company’s blog last February. “To be truly successful, we as a global community must align policy, operational, and AI teams to make robust and evidence-driven decisions and interventions.