September 19, 2025

Starting a new job is always a leap of faith. You hope the company is what it claims to be. You hope the culture matches the words on the careers page. You hope you’ll belong.

In my first week at Fleet, I’ve already felt something I rarely have in past roles: alignment. Fleet’s company values don’t just sound good on paper. They mirror my own personal values. And more importantly, they’re lived every day.

Empathy in action

I’ve been recovering from a back injury, and this week was especially rough. I had to work from bed, including meetings and onboarding tasks. At many companies, that would’ve been a problem. At Fleet, nobody blinked.

Not in a “we don’t care” way, but in the best possible way. The only thing that mattered was that I showed up and contributed as best I could. That’s empathy, not as a slogan but as a practice.

Openness as default

Another value I hold close is openness, and Fleet embodies it fully. Unless something must be confidential, it’s out in the open. The entire company handbook is public. All of our issues, discussions, and priorities are visible on Fleet’s public GitHub repo.

That level of transparency isn’t common in tech, and it builds trust inside and outside the company. It sends a clear signal: we don’t just talk about openness, we practice it in every corner of how we work.

Onboarding without the noise

Ownership shows up too, even in how Fleet approaches onboarding. At past companies, I’ve slogged through endless presentations delivered by burnt-out employees who didn’t want to be giving them in the first place. At Fleet, everything is written down.

Instead of trying to absorb hours of meetings, I had a short kickoff, a few check-ins, and then the space to guide myself. That works well for me. I can find the information I need when I need it, and take responsibility for my own learning. Even before officially stepping into my support role, I was able to make a contribution.

Remote work, done right

I’ve mostly been a remote employee since 2013, but Fleet is my first fully remote company, and it feels different. Slack is the office, and everyone’s on equal footing. There’s no anxiety about return-to-office mandates or the sense that visibility depends on being in the same building as leadership. Results matter, not proximity, and that philosophy resonates with me deeply.

Why it matters

Alignment like this is rare. In past jobs, I’ve seen values ignored when they became inconvenient or get in the way of making money. Here, they’re the operating system. They match how I already try to live and work: with empathy, openness, and ownership.

That makes this more than just a new job. It feels like a place where I can contribute fully, without bending myself into someone else’s mold. And that’s the best start I could ask for.