Your Guide to Unacast

First, Throw Out the Rule Book

Rule books are typically created by someone to tell others exactly what to do. We don't believe that's scalable - or fun. We're a group of smart and ambitious people, and we trust each other to make smart decisions and believe we should focus on providing the best tools for empowering the individual. That's why we have the Unacast Handbook. 

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Mission and Vision

At Unacast, our mission and vision drive everything we do.


Mission: We harness the power of location data by building the gold standard for depicting human movement: accessible, accurate, and trustworthy.

Vision: With our superior knowledge of human mobility, we aspire to be the trusted foundation for all data-driven decisions.

What exactly does it mean to be driven by these statements? It means that we work hard every single day to provide our partners with the ability to understand human behavior through the connections between people and places. We also believe that not only our data products, but we as individuals and as a company should be governed by the principles of decency, quality and transparency in all we do.

Our mission and vision are also reflected in our values, which you'll read about next.

Unavalues

Meet UNA

We believe that good and relevant values can help us build a better company. Pretty simple, right? We think so. That’s why we have together as a company  agreed on a set of core values to help us make sound and swift decisions  (and no, that isn’t just marketing jargon).

Our values are based on Norwegian principles. Norway, as with the rest of the Nordics, is a society based on the principles of having the trust and transparency to both take quick and independent decisions and to have fun. No wonder Norway is both one of the happiest and most productive countries in the world.

UNA

UNA is the embodiment of our combined values at Unacast.

Be your own CEO

Everyone at Unacast can and is expected to take charge of their own situation, and make sure the company as a whole moves forward. Waiting for some feedback? Go get it! Want something done? Do it!

Trust through transparency

Vulnerability at the workplace? We believe in that. More importantly, we practice it. Dare to be vulnerable and show yourself, your team and our partners who you really are. The trust we build through transparency lifts us all higher than we could rise alone.

Have fun. Seriously!

The average person will spend over 90,000 hours of their life at work. Terrifying? Not at all. If those hours are filled with meaning and fun. We believe in building relationships with our coworkers and creating unexpected moments that surprise and delight our team and our partners. Life is short, so we might as well make it a fun ride.

#begood Code of Conduct

Unacast is a harassment-free zone. Period. We are all expected to #begood and respect all employees regardless of gender, ethnicity, religion, age, sexual orientation, or anything related to background, appearance and identity. We do not accept any kind of disrespectful behavior.

  • This includes but is not limited to
  • Harassment of any kind
  • Inappropriate physical contact
  • Verbal abuse
  • Deliberate intimidation
  • Sustained interruption of talks or activities
  • Encouraging any or all of the above behavior

If at any time someone is not following the rules set forth in the #begood code of conduct, employees can report them to the leaders of the #begood initiative, or anonymously through an online form. We are all accountable for our own behavior, and Unacast is an environment where everyone should feel safe speaking up if they witness or are a target of harassment of any kind.

BENEFITS

Take a closer look at benefits

At Unacast, we believe in working hard, staying healthy (physically and mentally) and cultivating strong relationships both at work and at home. Our benefits are a reflection of our values - you know, those things we talked about earlier. So, working with us means:

  • We are going to make sure you can work as well from home as from the office when that is needed or you want to - like during the COVID-19 pandemic
  • We are going to make sure you can save for your retirement with a good 401(k) plan in the US and pension fund payments in Norway
  • We are going to make sure you have a good health plan with good insurance
  • We are going to make sure you have enough paid time off should you become a parent, and provide equal time off for new moms and new dads
  • We are going to make sure you can stay healthy by paying for your gym subscriptions
  • We are going to make sure you eat well by providing you lunch and an stocked fridge
  • We are going to make sure you leave a climate positive imprint on the world by offsetting your carbon footprint and paying for green energy to counter balance our travelling. We call it our Air-“Fair” policy
  • We are going to make sure you have control over your work/life balance by letting you control your own vacation days
  • We are going to make sure you have fun by inviting you to monthly company events to experience new stuff and get to know your colleagues even better
  • We are going to make sure you get some TLC if you're home for a longer period of time, whether for a new baby or a bad flu that just won't go away
  • And lastly, since we have no shoes-policy at our offices, we are going to make sure your sock game is strong by giving you an annual amount to impress us with your socks. We look forward to see your sock fashion sense

Reach out to our Co-Founder Kjartan Slette if you want to learn more about the details of our benefits, or to just say hi.

Stay Healthy
Relax and Recharge
Put Family First
See the World
PEOPLE

Our People: Being Their
Own CEO

We think (information) sharing is caring

We have the following fixed meetings to ensure that everyone in the company is informed of our short and long terms strategies and goals, and of course to let people get to know each other and have fun.

  • Round Tables: At regular intervals we all meet in NYC or Oslo for a couple of days to update on all departments and discuss key topics and strategies. All decks and summaries are shared with company after the Round Table
  • Town Halls: Each month Thomas Walle, CEO and Co-Founder, leads a 45-minute call to update on KPI status and company updates. All decks and summaries are shared with company after the meeting
  • Weekly OKR sync: We use the OKR framework to plan and measure
  • Weekly Wins Friday sync per office: We want to share and celebrate wins. So we do just that
  • Everyday: Communication through Slack and Zoom

It's all about the team

Teams and Divisions are the core building block at Unacast, and where strategic discussions and decisions are taken.

Product Teams are responsible for delivering the highest quality version of their product to customers in a timely manner. The teams are also responsible for making sure that the many partnerships they have are efficient. This applies equally if one team is the customer of another team inside Unacast.

Divisions can be thought of as departments: Like Tech, Marketing and Commercial, and can be divided into smaller sub groups such as Data Science, Data Engineering, Sales, Partnership, Client Success, Sales, Data Partnerships etc. All Unacast employees are all members of at least a Product Team or a Division, and some are members of multiple.

Teams and Divisions are autonomous and decide for themselves what tools and processes they need to accomplish their goals.

Life at Unacast

What does it look like to be your own CEO at Unacast and collaborate with an incredible global team? It looks a lot like this. If you can see yourself at our offices in New York City and Oslo, we want to meet you.

Join Us
27
+40
29
+35
Retention rate (globally)
Nobody ever quit company!
100%
Gender breakdown (globally)
36%
64%
CULTURE

Okay, time to talk culture

Remember that bit earlier about spending over 90,000 hours of your life at work? Culture is important for the same reason having fun is important. If we’re going to spend that much of our lives working, it should be an amazing experience. And we take the goal of this job being a meaningful event in your life very seriously.

Our culture reflects Nordic values, which makes sense considering we were founded in Norway (it isn’t the certified happiest country in the world for nothing). The recipe is simple. More trust + more autonomy + more humanity = more success. What does that actually look like in practice?

It looks like curious people embracing discussion and always asking questions.

It looks like people being willing to challenge one another and daring to speak up.

It looks like supporting one another and taking ownership of your role.

It looks like checking your ego at the door.

It looks like a commitment to lifelong learning.

It looks like having empathy for your team members. 

It looks like a choice to bring your best and be your best for your team no matter what.

Still with us? We hope so. Because this is the part about hiring

Look, we’ll be honest. The hiring process is not quick and easy - and for good reason. Quick and easy is for questionable fast food decisions and bad haircut choices (bowl cuts were quick and easy, remember?). The hiring process at Unacast starts when we receive an application from an interested candidate, and it goes something like this: 

1. 1st interview role fit

2. Work sample

3. Role-related knowledge interview

4. Personal interview

5. Leadership interview (with one of the founders)

6. Reference check

7. Offer and offer call

8. Signature and onboarding

It’s a lot of steps. About double the number you’d find at most other organizations. And that’s because we want to make sure we hire the right people for the role - in the most efficient amount of time. We also want to make the utmost effort to remove biases from the hiring process to promote a diverse company.

You can read more about our mission to improve diversity in general and gender diversity specifically here.

This process also gives you, as a prospective employee, time to figure out if this is the right place for you. Remember - you’re interviewing us as much as we’re interviewing you. Use the interviews to your advantage and get to know us better.

We believe that hiring works best with wisdom of crowds, just like Laszlo Bock and Google, so we want multiple people from Unacast to influence the hiring decision. That usually means you’ll be meeting a new Uncast employee for each step in the process. It also means you will get to meet different Unacast team member in each interview.

You can read more about the full hiring process in more detail here

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WORK FROM OTHER OFFICES

Oh, and you can work from other offices

We’re a trans-Atlantic company, and anyone can choose to move abroad to another office. But before you pack your bags for NYC or strap on your skis to head to Oslo, there are a few best practices we follow. If the move is requested by the company, the company will help with finances. If the move is by employee choice, it must be agreed upon as a good idea for the company and employee, and while the company can help plan, we may not always be able to support the employee financially. Every employee transfer decision is made thoughtfully.

But, anyone can propose to travel to another office to work there temporarily.

Slack and video conferencing is all well and good, but nothing beats real face-to-face time with your coworkers. Want to spend some time in another office? We’ve got you covered, as long as you’ve given the opportunity some time and thought (a plan demonstrating meaningful benefit of the trip is ideal).

So, what do you think?

By now, we’d say you know what we're about. Think you’re ready to join the team? You can check out our open positions below.

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