InRhythm

Your partners in accelerated digital transformation

Culture

Shape the Future of Web Engineering with Us

My relationship with InRhythm began about 4 years ago when I did a Node.js workshop with the team. I was impressed at how the CEO, Gunjan Doshi, kept in touch, regularly checking in with me over the subsequent years. When the opportunity to collaborate happened, I jumped at the chance.

By then the company that had grown in size to nearly 150 consultants. Approximately 50 of those are web engineers; in my role as the Web Practice Lead, I work tirelessly to supply this team with mentoring, tools, connections, and anything else they need to succeed. I do this with the aim of preparing engineers for opportunities after InRhythm when what they learn here brings them success there. We maintain long-term relationships with our people after they leave because we’re genuinely invested in their career success. The strength of that community is what sets us apart.

JavaScript is eating the world of software and there’s no doubt that web development is going to continue to grow and expand in complexity. The continued acceleration of innovation in the Web sphere—from React to WASM—is an incredible validation of the field. Anyone using a phone or a laptop or a tablet is using software a web engineer built.

For me, Web Engineering is the most exciting type of software development, unlike any other—multidisciplinary, blending the hardest engineering problems with design-based thinking. A full-stack web developer might work on an AI algorithm and its human interface on the same day. I regularly receive calls from teammates working through a new perspective on an old idea, reminding me of just how innovative the practice of Web Engineering remains.

When you join the Web practice you’ll join a team that works on some of the most advanced systems in the world, with some of the largest organizations in the world. I’m amazed when I learn about the incredibly exciting and complex software our team is building. It’s my job to ensure that they—and you—are ready to learn and grow in that environment. As we look toward the future of web engineering, it benefits our company and our consultants to stay in the know.

All of this knowledge culminates in InRhythm University, a learning and growth program developed through inter-team collaboration and client outreach. The InRhythm University curriculum is comprehensive, and in keeping with our company’s mission everyone who joins InRhythm gets this education for free. Check out an overview of the kind of curriculum we offer for our consultants to take their skills to the next level:

Section 1: Computers!

Space and Time: Big O Notation

You cannot excel as a developer if you cannot state clearly and scientifically the cost of your code in terms of space (memory) and time (how long will your function take given 1000 items? How about 1 billion?).

Bits and Bytes: Bitwise Manipulation

Developers push bits and shove bytes around. You probably know about flipping bits between `1` and `0`, and what it means when someone says “megabyte.” Do you know why 1^1 === 0? There are a lot of powerful ideas to apply once you do.

Concurrency

Looking to learn more about using generators, callbacks, Promises, async/await to manage asynchronous workflows with JavaScript? Good! Managing concurrency is perhaps the most important concept to learn when building on modern systems. You’ll need to master it. We show you how.

Functional Programming

You don’t have to learn Haskell to understand functional programming. You can use JavaScript right now to engage with the extremely powerful ideas present in functional programming flows. You’ll learn about pure functions, side-effects, immutable data, and (probably) become a better programmer.

MVC and Classic OO. Bonus: How JS prototypes fit into this.

Can you easily describe the difference between prototypal and classical inheritance OO ideas? You should. You will. By modeling complex scenarios in both paradigms you will learn the pros and cons of each approach, and more importantly, learn how to choose between them.

Data Structures and Algorithms

Software engineers are largely becoming data engineers. Managing application state, immutable or otherwise, is no longer something other people worry about. That means you will need to understand the kinds of data structures and efficient mutation algorithms the smart people in the CompSci room have developed to help us do our jobs.

Trees and Graphs

Folders and files. You know about those kinds of trees. If you’ve used an outliner someone wrote a graph traversal algorithm for that; you’ve probably written one if you’ve ever walked a directory. Ever use Bitcoin? Here we focus on these specific data structures. This is one of the most powerful, and frankly fascinating, pure computer science topics every engineer should get a handle on.

Section 2: The Modern Web Stack

The DOM

No matter how elegant the abstraction of your build pipeline or transpiler or template system is, what it produces is always going to be the same: HTML, JavaScript, and CSS, all linked together within the Document Object Model that your browser or other Web View must process and render. If you do not understand, at a deep level, what is happening when a DOM is built or updated or otherwise modified you, fundamentally, do not understand Web Engineering. Those who master this section do.

Deep JavaScript

Time to dig into the docs. No, really. We’re going to go through the fundamental ideas that power the JavaScript language. You’re going to learn about execution contexts and scopes, and how and why those exist, to create the JavaScript language that we’ve all come to know and love.

Deep Node

JavaScript is on the server now, have you heard? It’s true! NodeJS frees up all the skills you’ve learned about events and event loops and gives you superpowers on the server. Want to write a command-line tool to do automatic deploys? How about building a text parser that powers a chatbot? How about building APIs used by dozens of teams spread across the globe speaking multiple languages? This is the beginning of the path to going full-stack.

Deep React

Time and time again our clients come to us and ask for modern React engineers. We have some of the best. We even do workshops with companies to level up their teams. You’re going to get to the level they want to reach by working through this section.

Debugging and Testing

Did you know that you can link a Node server to DevTools such that you can debug live code and even trace performance of your server code down to the function level…in your browser? Know the difference between unit tests and functional tests? Still using console.log for everything? There are options. You will learn to effectively test software and squash bugs and your life will be better for it.

The Network

Do you know what happens when you enter a URL into a browser? Do you read network packets when debugging API failures? When is a REST architecture appropriate? Cookies or tokens or something else for identity management? Access management? When is caching appropriate, and what is latency anyway? You must burn this knowledge into your bones if you are to build modern, distributed systems. Let’s get started.

Forward!

Every graduate of IRU has mastered the technologies and techniques that we know work at the highest levels of industry through continuous repetition of this process. The IRU program teaches students actionable skills through real-world scenarios. Using proprietary internal development tools, IRU simulates realistic client problems (not half-implemented “TODO” applications or “Hello World” demos) which students work through under the guidance of our senior trainers. Our engineers are given the thinking tools they need to:

1.  Intelligently analyze complex systems to find weaknesses and inefficiencies.
2.  Create a range of solutions and intelligently determine both the right solution and the right success criteria.
3.  Model and test the solution in collaboration with all stakeholders to validate the solution
4.  Analyze the results, measure against success criteria, and restart the process on failure.
5.  Standardize success into repeatable guidelines and share that knowledge with all stakeholders
6.  Repeat this process, without fear of revisiting old successes (the status quo).

The responsibility of transforming digital businesses requires earning buy-in for change from our clients and consultants. At InRhythm we empower the creativity of our people—we don’t accept the status quo. Perfectionism is not our goal; continuous improvement is. We believe in adaptive change, especially when it comes to growing the careers of our consultants. I am similarly focused on ensuring the growth of those in my practice, both as engineers and colleagues, to make us all better representatives of InRhythm and our industry.

Ready to take your skills to the next level? We’re hiring. I hope to hear from you soon.

 

The InRhythm Product Design Community

When you come to work at InRhythm, you’re part of a larger community of people—committed to learning and growing—who are as passionate about what they love as you are. InRhythm’s product design community is growing rapidly, and we continue to bring in the most talented and creative individuals who love helping users and building cool stuff. As Director of Product Design, I’ve made it my mission to use my 20+ years of design experience to mentor new employees and chart the course for this division’s success. Over two decades of work, I haven’t had a single day where I hated the career path I’ve chosen, and I want to foster that same energy throughout InRhythm. We’re more than a consulting company that places you on a client site; we’re more than a 9-to-5 job. Learning and growth at InRhythm is a lifestyle.

Fueled for Success

Product designers at InRhythm are some of the most passionate, driven people. We do everything, including UX/UI, design, research copywriting, and even Agile scrums and product ownership. Loving what you do as a designer does more than chart a successful career—it also influences people around you, and we want that same high energy and excitement in our everyday work and the educational pursuits of our personal passions. Not everyone understands the best practices or user psychology central to our practice; this is where you come in as a thought leader. Be the expert onsite, and elevate the quality of work for your teams.

Why is all this important? There’s a lot to be said for knowing your client, understanding their brand, being empathetic to their pain point, and creating embedded experiences that build new opportunities. Some agencies and firms only care about the end experience instead of understanding the process or story of a company; being an advocate for the users and the company is what makes for a premier user experience.

A Community Like No Other

At InRhythm, we don’t just drop you off with a client and go silent for six months—we’re a growing community that stays connected, whether it’s through Slack channels, happy hours, book clubs, and Meetups. We’re all here for the same thing: to grow and learn. Everyone is at your disposal because the best growth happens with the support of your peers, so if you want to learn something new or fill gaps in your existing knowledge, just ask!

Another benefit of working with us is the comfort and freedom to talk about your work and passions. InRhythmers lead and attend “lunch and learn” sessions on client sites, panel discussions, and interactive workshops at InRhythm HQ. You’ll never be alone in your ventures, and our community is here for everything from preparation and coaching to supporting you at your event as enthusiastic audience members.

Work Smarter, not Harder

It’s no secret that Agile and Design Thinking are hot industry buzzwords in our industry. These methodologies are great tools for making work more fun and efficient while inspiring the group collaboration that is at the core of our learning and growth culture. We embody those collective ideals, and design thinking can shape our experiences throughout our lives. When you download a new app, get a new piece of hardware, or even see how text and images are presented in a television show, you’ll find yourself starting that Design Thinking process. How did this feature get included? Why did they do this? Is this design fully effective for their target demographic? Or even something as simple as, “damn, that looks cool!” We research, sketch, iterate, and build experiences ourselves that we know will impact the end user in ways that will make a huge difference without them even realizing what went into it.

When you’re at work representing InRhythm, you’ll always be presented with challenges. Whether it’s interpersonal differences, tight deadlines, or just broken processes, InRhythmers always stay positive, focus on the drive that brought us here, communicate openly, and elevate the game for the people we work with. Regardless of who signs the paychecks, we all have a common goal to build something amazing on our client sites. No company is perfect (if they were, we wouldn’t be there to change things!) but how you show up, identify opportunities for improvement, and forge a path forward is what matters, and what sets InRhythm apart.

Leadership Takes Ownership

In my work at InRhythm, I listen to our clients’ needs, assess what they’re looking for, and our best-in-class recruiting team finds the perfect match to become a new InRhythmer. We want to hear about your process, why you make decisions, and how you ultimately reached those decisions. Anyone can push pixels, but it takes a specific type of person to talk about their work at the level we expect. Whether you’re just starting out or have been designing since the 90s, the type of devotion to your career and the disciplines behind it is what makes or breaks our hiring decision. Our selective process ensures not only your growth as a professional and person but also makes sure our clients thrive through work with some of the most impressive talent. Along the way, I make it my mission to check in with you and make sure your client work is on track to keep you challenged and growing constantly.

We hold biweekly calls that give you the opportunity to chat about everything from client site problems to the latest from your fellow InRhythmers. No one has all the answers, but we can supply you with the tools and stories you need as a group with a common mission. My primary focus is around your learning and growth; when you leave InRhythm, you’ll be better than when you arrived. We shape consummate professionals, teammates, and leaders within our community, and our accountability on all sides is why we’re built to succeed.

This year we plan on adding more UX/UI designers, visual designers, prototypers, UX researchers, scrum masters, dog lovers, thought leaders, cosplayers, crazy people, and—most of all—people who want to stand in front of a room of people and say, “let me tell you why knowing about *your subject* is important!”

Is that you? We’re hiring. Looking forward to meeting you.

 

Learning and Growth at InRhythm


Technology changes at a torrential pace, and in order for InRhythm to continue to bring value to our clients, we have to innovate and keep pace with a rapidly evolving technology landscape. Should we advise clients to move toward a microservice architecture? Should our clients migrate to TypeScript? What is the significance of Design-First thinking? The only way we can answer these questions is by fostering a culture of learning and growth.

Learning and growth represent an individual’s commitment to continuously improve themselves and, as a result, continue to grow in their career. It starts with a personal dedication to learning and growing, but no one should have to make that journey alone. The culture of learning and growth at InRhythm can provide the necessary support and lift required for an individual to achieve their goals and scale the heights set for themselves. So, how do we define the culture of learning and growth at InRhythm?

Learning and Growth at InRhythm

Learning comes in various forms:

•  On-the-job
•  Self-learning
•  Learning from others
•  Instructional learning
•  And more

Clearly, there are various ways to learn, and you’ll pick and choose the form of learning best suited to your needs; it’s InRhythm’s job to support you in your journey. When you come to work with us, you have the ability to learn and grow with as well as join a larger community of people who are as passionate about what they love as you are. InRhythm supports this community of learners by creating an internal structure geared towards shared skills (or “Practice Areas”), a coaching program to foster mentoring and growth, providing PluralSight licenses for self-learners, and a community to help you write and publish content and hold learning events (code lounges, meetups, etc).

Practice Area

Practice Areas are how we internally organize ourselves. They are communities of individuals who share a common passion and skills around solving specific technology challenges but, more importantly, who are willing to continue to push the envelope within their domain by helping and learning from each other. You may be officially part of a single practice area, but you’re free to join other practice areas and learn from the community of learners within those practices. Here’s a quick overview of some of our practice areas:

•  Product Design: From design thinking to rapid prototyping, InRhythm designers craft end-to-end design strategies
•  Web Engineering:  React or Vue, Typescript or JavaScript; web engineers who are passionate about building applications with the right UI framework
•  Cloud Engineering:  Scalable services down to scalable data layer, involved in building microservice architecture for our clients

Each practice area community has its own dedicated Slack channel, and these channels are vibrant forums for sharing insights, asking questions, and learning by association.

Coaching Program

Given the explosive growth we’ve experienced over the last few years, it became clear that we needed to invest in a coaching program to support and scale employee growth. What is a coaching program and how does it benefit you? Our coaching program has two main goals:

•  Growth opportunities for individuals interested in leading and mentoring
•  Mentorship to help shape your career at InRhythm and beyond

InRhythmers interested in leading and mentoring volunteer to become coaches within the program. Coaches are responsible for guiding their mentees by meeting with them on a regular basis, shaping their career journey beyond InRhythm by helping them come up with their annual learning goals, and collecting and providing performance feedback. Coaches also have a seat at the table in helping shape their respective Practice Area’s identity, which could include everything from talent growth to strategic offerings. The coaching community across Practice Areas meet at a regular cadence to help each other and continue to brainstorm ways in which we can support the aspirations of our employees. An example of these efforts is the soon-to-be-unveiled Speaker Series. This series will be a monthly event where industry leaders will hold discussions around specific topics.

Each employee has a coach; in a distributed work environment, it’s great to have someone that will always be there for you, meet with you regularly, and be a cheerleader for your career at InRhythm and beyond. Our ultimate goal is to ensure everyone leaves InRhythm a better engineer, leader, and teammate than when they joined us.

Annual Learning Goals

This is the third and final way in which InRhythm promotes learning and growth.  Up until now, we have mainly focused on communities from Practice Areas to Coaching; however, annual learning goals are geared towards individuals and self-learning.  Let’s get right into the details.

Each individual should create an annual learning goal plan working with their coaches that will help them learn and grow in their careers at InRhythm and beyond.  This plan is truly meant for the individual to think about their career beyond InRhythm and indicate 4 things they will focus on achieving in an annual year. The individual items on the plan can be one of the following but not limited to technology, industry, book, professional development, and soft skills.  In addition to leveraging the communities to help with your individual goals, InRhythm also provides PluralSight licenses to help with your self-learning.

Career Growth

If we compare learning and career growth to the Input-Process-Output streaming paradigm the tools, structure, and support you have for learning is the input, how you leverage this support system and your dedication to learning is the process, and career growth is the result/output. It is natural to expect growth if you commit and dedicate yourself to learning and stellar job performance. We feel the same way. As mentioned before, our ultimate goal is to ensure you leave InRhythm a better engineer, leader, and teammate then when you joined us. At the same time, we would be thrilled and excited if you decide to continue to grow your career with us!  Each Practice Area will have levels defined with ideal expectations of behavior and skills for those levels. You bring the passion and dedication to learning, we provide the tools, structure, and support required for learning, and together watch you grow in your career.

Come learn and grow with us, and let’s take things to the next level together.

Our Next Milestone: Leading the Way to the Future of Our Industry

This year at InRhythm marks an important time in my career, as I transition my role away from the day-to-day management of the company to focus on high-impact leadership pursuits that move the needle for us and create long-lasting impact. InRhythm’s success has been driven by tenacity and our own hard work, and we’ve come this far with zero outside investment. We’ve bootstrapped our way to consistent, award-winning growth, and it’s a major milestone for us to have hired a well-rounded and capable operations and leadership team to run the company. This team is more than equipped to handle the business operations that allows us to scale.  

In my renewed role as an outward-facing CEO, I will be spending more time practicing thought-leadership and innovation. This will include having important conversations with clients, our practice leaders, coaches, and industry leaders. Part of my renewed role will also include my participation as the Chairman of the New Jersey Commission on Science, Technology, and Innovation, which gives me a platform to advocate, innovate, and help grow great talent and businesses in the New Jersey area.

We have much more to come at InRhythm, including an InRhythmU onboarding program, leveling and professional goal-setting, a guest speaker series, leadership summits, and more! Our mission of promoting learning and growth also means that we’ll be hosting open events and workshops, so stay tuned for more event news if you’re curious about what we do here at InRhythm.

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Our Next Investment

As I spend more time out of the office leading these exciting new projects, it’s more important than ever to rethink our communication strategy as a company. When I started InRhythm with a small team, it was easy to speak openly and directly with everyone, and I’ve tried to maintain that same open environment of communication as we expand, owing to our continued success over the past few years. Doing so takes careful consideration and mindfulness about where our messages can be best heard and where our people need to hear from us. The medium is the message, after all, and as our rockstar recruiters and interviewers drive us toward our goal of adding 100 new InRhythmers this year (which reminds me: we’re hiring!), we’re presented with new challenges and opportunities to keep important lines of communication open.

As our team expands and we continue to build the business, taking on exciting new projects and expanding our relationships with current clients, we’re making sure our people have the tools they need to bring the very best into our family of consultants and on to project sites. Like any good dialogue, I want to make sure this is a two-way street. I always encourage our consultants to share feedback, recommendations, and concerns with me directly. We owe our success as a company to the hard work of every InRhythmer, and everyone has a seat at the table when it comes to shaping the direction of the company we all work for.

The ultimate goal—and the best culture builder in an era of overwhelming notifications and communications platforms—is to also increase our face-to-face time together. However you are able to reach your employees remotely, it’s important to foster those connections, which is why our communications overhaul is happening in tandem with more company-sponsored events like themed office dress code days, holiday celebrations, and open social events around the city.

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This month, I’ll be thinking about and recommending articles on the importance of communication: how we can be better listeners, how to speak up for yourself where it matters, and harnessing the power of words as simple as “yes” and “no.” I’m asking everyone to be more communicative (and I hope you’ll say “yes” to that request!) by sharing your thoughts, stepping up to teach others, and giving back to the community as thought leaders for the enrichment of everyone. I’m looking forward to hearing what you have to say.

Thanks and Keep Growing,

Gunjan Doshi

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What I’m Reading

The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
Holiday, known as the author of several bestselling books on marketing, culture, and simply being human, teams up with Hanselman on a sweeping collection of quotations and wisdom from the three great Stoics—Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Seneca—providing timeless wisdom with a modern context in a well-organized way. This collection will remind you that some knowledge is simply ageless. The keys to success were discovered long before our time; we need only take hold of them.

Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business by Gino Wickman
You might recognize Wickman’s name if you’re a member of our operations team—his EOS primer has been floating around our office, and for good reason: his direct, helpful business insight has made him a celebrated leadership development expert. Traction precedes the EOS primer and lays out the foundation for keeping a company on track as it grows, including prescriptive steps and tests for its strategies. As we continue our rapid growth and aspire to be bigger than ever year over year, it’s important to be aligned on what makes that growth happen.

What I’m Watching

It is Always Day One.
Amazon’s rise to its current status as a business juggernaut and industry redefiner is driven by Amazon’s core principles: customer obsession, eagerness to invent, long-term thinking, and operational excellence. It hasn’t always been easy, but it has been interesting—stories abound of Amazon operating at a loss in a bid to outmaneuver its competitors with unconventional doggedness. Bezos lays out the philosophy of “Day One”: the idea of capturing that magical cultural attitude at the beginning of any new company where that entrepreneurial spirit and nimbleness still exists, even as you scale. Well worth a watch for would-be entrepreneurs and industry veterans alike.

Spread the Love—Life at InRhythm

 

Valentine’s Day is a great opportunity to share a little love with that special someone in your life. We remember the days of giving out Valentines to everyone in our class; in that spirit, we encouraged InRhythmers to share a little love this Valentine’s Day with an internal Love Day! Check out these photos of the gifts our InRhythmers enjoyed this past Thursday:

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We assigned secret Valentines to our ops team members, who were tasked with making their Valentine feel special all day without revealing themselves. While a few people gave themselves away to their Valentine early, there was so much festivity, free coffee, candy, cards, stickers, and shoutouts on Slack that we forgot all about the secrecy rule and just had a great time together!

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While we never need an excuse to share the love with our coworkers, we’re all about promoting the best environment for our people here at InRhythm, so any chance to celebrate is an opportunity to get to know each other better and have a little fun. When’s the last time you showed appreciation for your favorite coworker? Valentine’s Day may have come and gone, but you can definitely spread positivity where you work all year round. We sure plan to.

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