Life at Engaging
We as a whole, are more than a collection of the sum of our parts. We’re a bunch of uniquely cool nerds, all wonderfully different but who all share the same vision and values.
When you care passionately about not just the work you do but the people you do it with, then nothing is impossible, and we love doing the impossible.
Our clients love us because we care about them and what they do. HubSpot love us because we make their clients love them. What do we do? We do good work with good people, connecting humans through technology.
Our Values
Caring
We wanted to build a business where caring about each other, our clients and our work was at the core of everything we do. Our motto is doing good work with good people, and that’s only possible with genuine care embedded into everything we do.
Michelle O’Keeffe
CEO
Curious
Working in tech consulting with a fast growing CRM doesn’t come without its challenges. If you’re not fundamentally curious about how things work, what’s new, what’s changing and why, this space could be really stressful. Luckily we’re all massive geeks who love tech!
Ralph Vugts
Solutions Architect
Collaborative
Collaboration isn’t just about working side by side with other people, it’s about creating an environment where everyone feels comfortable asking questions and talking to each other. The more collaborative we can be, the more everyone gets invested in what we do and doing it better. Everyone’s way more friendly too 🙂
Geff Harper
Head of UX & Design
Committed
When I started Engaging.io, I did it because I wanted to use technology and data to free my clients from the historical dependency they’d had on media agencies and tech partners. It was hard, and still is, but when we commit to something we follow it through and our clients can see this. It’s one of the reasons our referral rate is so high.
Todd McPhee
Founder
Courageous
Courage is about more than just taking risks, it’s about speaking up, challenging the status quo, and staying true to our principles. We embrace bravery in every decision we make, ensuring that integrity and authenticity are woven into everything we do. It’s what drives innovation and builds the trust that our clients and team rely on.
Fraser Gordon
Head of People & Culture
Expert
We manage some of the most complex CRM integrations there are. If our clients ask us a question, we don’t have the luxury of saying we don’t know the answer. That means staying on top of every development, every trend and every event, and always being one step ahead of our client so they don’t ever need to slow down. It isn’t easy, and if I didn’t love what I do so much this could be stressful, but when you love this space, playing in it is pretty awesome.
Ed Martin
Onboarding & Digital Services Manager
A Great Place to Work
Engaging.io has once again been recognized as one of the Best Workplaces in Technology in 2024, ranking third on the prestigious list compiled by Great Place to Work. This marks our third consecutive year in the top 20 Best Workplaces in Australia, with a remarkable employee satisfaction score of 100%.
At Engaging.io, we firmly believe that our culture is the foundation of our success. We don’t impose a set of rules or values on our employees – our culture is the living, breathing embodiment of the collective contributions of our amazing team. We hire smart, interesting, and quirky individuals, equip them with the necessary tools and support, and most importantly, listen to them. Our thriving culture is a direct result of our commitment to employee wellness, trust, creativity, and expression.
While being recognised as one of the Best Workplaces in Technology is an incredible achievement, we believe that the true value lies in being a truly great place to work.
Team stories
Ben Whitehead
A growth mindset
I was at a point in my life where I was ready for something different. I had always worked for larger companies where I was always just one of a rather large number. I was over it, I wanted to go somewhere I could feel heard and be less than ten management layers away from the top of the business. It doesn’t take more than one conversation with our HR guy Fraser to know that Engaging.io is something different.
When Fraser and I first spoke in October of 2022, the timing wasn’t quite right. When we connected again in April of 2023, we were in business. Fraser and Michelle hired me to be Engaging’s first US-based employee to drive growth in North America. It’s been quite the year.
As a business, we’ve now grown to have three more US-based team members. We’ve had some huge wins and a few brutal losses. We’ve made great connections, learned tough lessons, shared a lot of laughs, and built a ton of momentum. If there’s one key takeaway from this past year, it’s that you build momentum through the ups and downs.
Personally, this was probably the most fun year of my life. After starting in June, Engaging flew me to Australia in July to meet the team, I married my lovely wife a couple of weeks later in August, Engaging took me to Inbound in Boston in September, and I even worked remotely from Hawai’i for ten days while my lovely wife attended a conference in October. All of that trust and investment in the first four months of being with Engaging confirmed what I had read on the website and heard about during interviews, it’s all about doing good work with good people.
BackMichelle O’Keeffe
A female CEO in tech
When we started the business, our whole purpose and philosophy was to do ‘good work with good people’ and to prove you can have a successful business AND be nice to people. I never set out to be a female CEO, just a CEO, but in the tech space, it’s naive to think that being a female doesn’t make a difference when only 17% of CEOs are female. Ensuring more women are taking on roles in senior leadership positions is a particular passion of mine.
We started Engaging.io when I had two very little boys running around at home, so family first was how I needed to operate. We wanted to ensure that each employee also had the opportunity to put their family lives first, so we built up our internal processes and incentives around that philosophy. I wanted to be the kind of CEO that lived and breathed the values we created and instilled this into my team by leading by example. It’s also why we have one of the best flexible working and paternity policies in the world.
I have of course come up against sexism, misogyny and well, not particularly nice people along the way, but that’s the awesome thing about having your own business. We only work with people that we know we can help and who share our values. If you’re not a nice person, then you don’t get the privilege of partnering with us. So far I don’t regret a single decision when it comes to turning down work.
I do feel a responsibility as a female leader in a still mainly male dominated tech space to encourage and embrace diversity in all its forms, and am really proud of the eclectic team we’ve built across four countries.
I’ve been nominated for awards, interviewed by journalists, asked to judge on panels, and it’s always really flattering to get that recognition. But I hope my legacy will be to leave the world a better place than I found it, to encourage diversity and collaboration and to be aware of our responsibilities as humans to look after the world around us.
BackLenora Fagan
Work-life balance
I worked for one of Engaging.io’s clients, and always got on well with Michelle and the team. When I was looking to leave I reached out to Michelle and was over the moon to be offered a role. Imagine my dread when only a few weeks into the role I found out I was pregnant. I was over the moon about the pregnancy, but terrified about telling my new CEO.
As it turned out I didn’t need to be. Michelle couldn’t have been happier for me, and despite not working for the qualifying period, I was still given full maternity pay.
When I came back from Mat leave, I dropped down to a 4 day week, and whilst it’s never easy working part time hours in a busy and demanding role, I do manage to make it work. I also get heaps of support and flexibility from the business, so when unexpected things pop up as they frequently do with a young baby, I never felt like I had to choose between work and my daughter.
It’s also amazing to know that if I have another child, not only do I get extended paid maternity leave, but also my full super contributions paid for a full 12 months.
I don’t really have anything to compare it to having only been a mum since working at Engaging.io, but it’s hard to imagine a culture that supports and embraces parenthood more. We even have a SLACK channel just for baby pictures!
BackEd Martin
Flexible working
Despite working for a business based in Australia, I live and work in Auckland. I enjoy traveling and so when I get the opportunity to go with work to Australia or the USA then it’s always a bit of an adventure, but working in another country day-to-day has never caused me an issue at Engaging.io as the business is set up for people to collaborate effectively no matter where they are.
What was very cool this year was being able to take my first ever ‘workcation’. My wife is Brazilian and until working for Engaging.io it was always a toss up between short and rushed trips to South America and longer unpaid breaks from work. Engaging.io let me work from Brazil for 6 weeks, so we no longer had to compromise. The 16 hour time difference didn’t always make it easy, but my CEO worked with me to find ways to make it work. As a result, I got to see all my extended family and have an amazing time on the other side of the world, but didn’t have to lose all my annual leave to do it. It was so refreshing just to be trusted to get my work done.
It’s definitely something I’ll do again as it wasn’t just my life that was made easier, but my wife and my son’s. To be this is the epitome of flexible working at its best.
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