The social atmosphere in the office is warm, supportive, and welcoming. There is a strong cohesion among employees. It is common for people from one team to be voluntarily helping another team to meet their deadlines and resolve any pressing issues. It is also common for employees to create and participate in social clubs (e.g. book club, board game club) and organise social outings on a regular basis. There is no strict social hierarchy as such. All people in the company, including the managers and the CEO treat each-other with equal respect. Halter has a truly no-bullshit culture where social roles and hierarchies do not get in the way of effective and easy communication among all members in a shared effort to achieve a common goal.
Moving into a new area of NZ, meeting new people was an aspect that I was nervous about. Working at Halter was great for this, the team of young people meant that I loved the culture both within work as well as outside of work in a more casual sense. Although I have finished up at Halter I still keep in contact with much of the team and see them weekly.
It's a startup so the hierarchy is relatively flat, the CEO and executives would speak to everyone in all teams and regularly attend meetings with the engineering team to brainstorm ideas. Cooperation and teamwork was superb, everyone was happy to help me whenever I asked. People were kind and helpful when pair programming with me. There were lots of work events for colleagues to socialize, including board game nights. At lunchtime groups would go out to get food together or eat at the shared dining table in the office.
There are multiple different teams within the company that focus on different aspects of the collar such as the guidance team, product team, among others. The hardware team focuses on the physical aspects of the collar, and comprises of the mechanical, electronics, testing and validation, and production teams. I like how the company structure is not very hierarchical, meaning that, its very easy to go up and talk to people in senior roles and ask them questions. The after hours culture is very fun, and Halter makes it a point to celebrate big, and show appreciation for all the hard work that every team members does. There are people & culture leads who put in a lot of effort into organising events and improving in office and after hours culture.
