So far I’ve been learning a lot working in the digital space– some rules and general guidelines for accessibility, working on refining wireframes and of course, learning a lot about ideation! But this past week, I got to learn more about the operational side of Metalab. I was fortunate enough to meet with the COO, Steph (a super lovely woman!) and she told me many interesting stories about her career history and what makes Metalab a great place to be. If you were to read up on Metalab, one thing you’ll always hear them mention is that their employees are their secret sauce for the success as a digital company and so far, that seems pretty accurate! Metalab goes about two ways to keep their employees working on products they enjoy.

The first is by handing out a survey where employees are asked what their dream client/industry would be and the second is by having a slack channel where they’re able to share existing apps/platforms that they believe can be greatly improved by Metalab. After receiving feedback from everyone, they’re able to see patterns of the type of work the majority of employees would enjoy (funnily enough, the top choice is productivity this year) and based from that, they either go directly to those clients or sift them out from the long list applications they receive from companies hoping to work with them. Of course they’ll also have work that is a bit more rough or not suuuuper interesting but overall, they try to choose projects that either have clients that are friendly and easy to work with, has an interesting idea or align with their values as well. I was really impressed hearing about this because I’ve never really heard of work being chosen in this way but I believe that’s a great way to approach projects. Employees get to work on projects they’re more passionate about and Metalab provides strong work back to the client. In the end, everyone is happy!

Besides speaking with Steph, I also got to chat with someone from the sales team which was an equally interesting conversation. Gen, a sales woman also from Vancouver, who told me how about the amount of inquiries Metalab has received in the last couple of years. For a long time, Metalab operated quietly in the background and no-one really knew about them except for the companies working directly with them but overtime, their reputation grew and now they receive multiple applications in a day from companies all over the world trying to get them to build their products (it’s even reported that other companies will attempt to scout Metalab’s team members to work in-house for them instead which is pretty funny!). Anyways, next week I start with a new team and I’m excited to find out what I’ll be working on 🙂