Gynger
Gynger Company Culture & Values
Frequently Asked Questions
The culture at Gynger is defined by a high-ownership, mission-driven environment where innovation is matched by empathy. Employees describe a workplace that is collaborative and growth-oriented, pointing to organic team bonding and a person-first approach as proof that our values are visible day-to-day.
Culture by the Numbers
Our commitment to this environment is backed by a year of consistent pulse data:
- Optimal Balance: Our team reports an optimally balanced workload (3/5), ensuring high engagement without burnout.
- Strong Alignment: With a 3.5/5 score for mission alignment, our team understands and believe in the "why."
- Proven Loyalty: We maintain a 90-day retention rate of nearly 100%, with an average employee tenure of 2+ years and average leadership tenure of almost 3 years - a significant achievement in a fast-scaling startup.
- Leadership Support: Managers are highly accessible, maintaining a 3.6/5 rating for clear direction and support.
The Employee Experience
Employees frequently highlight our open communication styles and a workplace that feels personal rather than transactional. Whether it’s wearing many hats to gain rapid cross-functional experience or collaborating across teams (which holds a consistent 3/5 effectiveness rating), the experience at Gynger is built on transparency. Our recruiters and managers discuss the realities of startup life upfront, ensuring every team member feels respected and prepared for the journey.
External Validation
This internal satisfaction is mirrored by external recognition. Gynger is proud to be a Built In "Best Places to Work" award winner and maintains a 5/5 star rating on Glassdoor, outperforming the Information Technology industry average by 30%. These aren't just accolades; they are reflections of a culture that prioritizes professional acceleration alongside genuine human connection.
Collaboration isn't just about the tools we use; it’s about a shared sense of ownership. We operate with an agile mindset where the typical walls between departments don't exist. This is backed by our internal data, with employees consistently reporting a 3.5/5 for feeling connected to and supported by their teammates.
How We Work Together
We move fast by balancing synchronous energy with asynchronous focus. While Slack, Jira, and standups keep our pulse steady, we prioritize deep work by setting clear norms around when to meet and when to message. This structure prevents bottlenecks and ensures that projects move forward without constant meetings. Our teams thrive in cross-functional squads, where engineers, product managers, and sales leaders work toward shared OKRs rather than competing departmental goals.
Transparency in Action
We believe that healthy collaboration requires a safe space for dissent and discussion. Leadership reinforces this through:
- Transparency: We host regular all-hands meetings where any employee can surface concerns or ask the hard questions directly to senior leaders.
- Open Communication: Our leadership ensures that no one is left to struggle in a silo.
The Teamwork Factor
Beyond the spreadsheets, the collaboration at Gynger feels personal. You’ll see it when our Credit team jumps in to help Sales navigate a complex deal, or when Marketing huddles with Product & Engineering to discuss positioning. You can also see it during our informal team bonding where we talk about lives outside of work. This atmosphere is why we’ve been recognized as a Built In "Best Place to Work" (three years in a row!) and hold a perfect 5-star rating on Glassdoor. At Gynger, you aren't just working alongside people - you’re building something with them.
We believe that great work shouldn't just be noticed - it should be celebrated. Recognition shouldn't be a "once-a-year" event - it should be ongoing.
Public Wins & All-Hands Shoutouts
Our most visible recognition happens during our Company All-Hands, where we set aside dedicated time for public kudos. These aren't just top-down announcements; they are a space for leaders and peers to spotlight specific contributions that moved the needle. Whether it’s hitting a sales milestone or a developer solving a complex backend hurdle, we make sure the whole company knows who drove that success.
The Feedback Culture
We believe the best feedback is immediate. Our culture of recognition is powered by:
- Digital Kudos: Our Slack channels are a constant stream of cross-departmental shoutouts. It’s common to see a Sales leader celebrating someone in Credit, or Finance highlighting a People Success win, ensuring that behind-the-scenes work gets the spotlight it deserves.
- Direct Managerial Support: With a 3.6/5 rating for manager support, our leadership is trained to weave recognition into the weekly flow. Our employees tell us that these small, frequent moments of acknowledgment make their work feel personal rather than transactional.
- Performance-Linked Growth: We weave recognition into our formal feedback cycles (we typically do performance reviews in February/March), ensuring that consistent excellence is a direct driver of career progression.
A Culture of Visibility
From company-funded celebrations to being named a Built In "Best Place to Work," the signals are clear: your impact is seen here. This culture of visibility is a major reason why our team reports feeling so connected to our mission.
Gynger Employee Perspectives
The software development team at Gynger approaches everything with intention — and that includes team members’ time.
Will Hogben, director of software engineering, gave the example of keeping set meeting schedules for software engineers.
“Not much alters the meeting schedule we have set,” Hogben said. “Even if we are having issues, those meetings still occur.”
The idea is not to make the team more rigid, but to protect everyone’s time.
“If you are on call, it is possible some issue could come up that could take time away from your regular development work,” Hogben said. “If anything becomes large, we adjust the sprint by moving some tickets to other people or to the next sprint.”
Respecting the time and hard work that team members put into each product milestone is part of the team culture. Built In saw this when interviewing Varun Sridhar, a product lead, in 2023.
“We are one team marching towards the same goal,” Sridhar noted. At the time, the team was still scaling the young startup and was intentional in making sustainable hiring decisions and designing the product in consistent proof-of-concept steps.
Now, Gynger is expanding its CFO-focused product suite and bringing on product and engineering team members with the same intention and care as when the company started.
To give applicants a preview of what a day-to-day as an engineer at Gynger might look like, Built In asked Hogben to share a walkthrough of his daily schedule.
7:00 a.m.
Most days I wake up around 7 a.m. This allows me to be up in time for 7:30 a.m. meetings, which is the best time to meet with the New York team and the Israel team without waking the West Coast team up too early. I make coffee and a protein shake and walk the dog. Then I check Slack for any overnight errors or emergency issues that might need attention. If it’s Monday or Thursday, I sync with the team. If we are not doing a sync, I settle into whatever tickets I’m currently working on.
7:30 a.m.
Most meetings for me on the West Coast start at 7:30 a.m. This includes our two weekly team syncs, our design meetings, which happen every other Wednesday, and our retro, which is every other Tuesday. After those meetings, I might have one-on-one meetings with members on my team or something similar.
9:00 a.m.
I review any new PRs, check Slack for any new issues or emergency items and then usually begin development around 9 a.m. Then for the most part of the day, I am free to develop on my own unless someone needs help or I need to sync with someone about a ticket.
Most of my midday work is spent in heads-down development after about 9 a.m.
Noon
I usually take a 30-minute to one-hour lunch around noon, then back to development.
1:00 p.m.
Most days I sign off around 3 p.m., which is when most of the East Coast team is also done working. Before I leave, I check Slack and make sure nothing else pressing has come up, review any new PRs and then usually go do some sort of exercise.
3:00 p.m.
Sign off.
Gynger Employee Reviews
