A Culture of Values

It’s easy to come up with a list of corporate values, hang a plaque in the hallway, and call it a day. What’s hard is building a company from the foundation of those values and having them show up daily in your work. Since its inception, Codence has endeavored to be a client-focused company that cares most about making an impact rather than only focusing on building apps and solving tech problems. That’s why, as we’ve grown, Codence has not only codified our values into everything we do, both internally and externally, but we’ve also worked to bake them into our day to day behaviors so that we really practice these core tenets as we continue to scale.

Why Having Values Is Important To Us

At our core, we are problem-solvers and relationship-builders. Yes, we build custom apps, but what we do goes so much deeper. We believe that is what sets us apart. It’s about more than just writing great code: our work lives in service to clear purpose. Additionally, having a clear set of values not only adds structure to how we engage with clients, but it also gives us the tools to be intentional about our growth and deliberate about our internal culture. As Scott Love, our CEO, recently shared, “I see values as navigational stars to steer by. If they don’t influence decisions, they don’t mean anything.”

So, what are Codence’s core values? Here’s a snapshot of what our “culture forum” (the committee we turned to) agreed upon:

Build Trust

First and foremost, Codence believes strongly in building trust with our clients and honoring their decision to hire us. Our goal is to be as candid, open, and honest with them, every step of the way. Scott captures it perfectly when he says, “How we build the software is as important as the software itself.”

Trust has three key components that really resonate with us: reliability, altruism, and competence. To us, that translates to: we keep our promises, we make our client the focus of our decisions, and we make sure we can deliver the goods. To sum that up, we strive to do what’s best for our clients for the right reasons, using our genuine expertise.

A key member of our culture committee, shares her thoughts about trust in her work at Codence:

“Trust is what drew me to Codence; trust in the leadership I witnessed before ever joining the team. Once I was a part of Codence, I saw how building that fundamental value with one another and our clients were a core focus of the day-to-day experience.
“We are honest about goals and how we plan to achieve them. This way, we can keep our promises and confidently advise our clients.”

– Samantha Barkus, Executive Assistant

Build Relationships

Trust grows between people – not organizations – and we take this a step further by focusing on the individuals whom we serve. We get to know them, their concerns, their lives, their needs. We want to nurture human connections and ensure our technology solutions genuinely make our clients’ lives better. Ivan Granger, Codence Application Developer, shares how he sees that manifest in his work, “the philosophy has always been that business is, fundamentally, about human interaction. All other metrics, like revenue and projects, are simply a reflection of those relationships.”

It’s not only about us and the systems work we do. We also like to help clients build stronger relationships within their own teams, clarify processes, see the impact of their own work, and better understand their own data.

One of the ways we try to live up to this standard is by meeting our clients in-person when circumstances allow. We often choose to do this on our own dime, not theirs, simply because it’s meaningful to us to be there with them. We do other small things as well – flowers when someone is sick, a coffee gift card as a thank-you… these elements weave themselves into our entire practice. While not revolutionary, we simply strive to be intentional about it.

We typically ask ourselves the question, “Is {this decision} going to build a stronger connection with this person?” If the answer is “Yes”, then it’s a no-brainer.”

And the impact is, well, impactful. Our Technical Lead, Allan Kirtlink, shares his thoughts, “since coming to Codence I’ve been so impressed with how much the people here care about me and my family. It’s the kind of environment that inspires you to do your best work because you care what these people think about you, and you don’t want to let them down.”

Build Excellence

Tied back again to trust, we have to be true experts in our craft. We strive to define and follow best practices, to stay current with technology, and to make sure both our processes and our solutions meet exacting quality standards.

But for us, excellence goes beyond just being great developers. When we talk about excellence what we’re really talking about is how we bring our values together in a real way, both internally and externally. Tied again as well to relationships, we know that the best way to serve our clients is to have an internal culture that is collaborative, appreciative, and celebratory. We help each other out, we take time to appreciate each other, and we celebrate individual contributions.

Taking care of each other means we can better take care of our clients. Nurturing those relationships from the inside out starts from the top down, with leadership.

In addition, excellence isn’t a fixed state – it’s a constant evolution. We invest in learning, we set explicit goals for ourselves, and we contribute to our community. 

 “I’m proud of our values and our integrity. And I think that that’s an extension of excellence… We’re really trying to build something special.”

– Scott Love, CEO

Excellence at Codence also means really understanding why we’re doing what we’re doing. We don’t just want to be excellent at building software, we want to be excellent at solving problems, building value, and creating meaningful connections. This means focusing on budget and schedule, and means building impactive solutions that last and grow.

The Bigger Picture

Short story long, we are striving to bring everything together so that as we grow, scale, and evolve, we can continue to create a culture and build relationships that matter. That means making sure our team is made up of people from a diverse set of backgrounds and experiences. We also hope to contribute to the Claris FileMaker and broader tech community in the same way.

A great living example of our work in this space is our Apprenticeship Program, which actively works to create new job opportunities for up-and-coming developers and provide clients with a new capability their organizations often lack. It’s an inspiring way to bring much more value to our clients while also doing some good in the world.

Codence isn’t perfect, but we will continue to strive to demonstrate our values in everything we do. Our mission will always be to do right by our clients, to serve them with pride, and to develop deep, meaningful, and lasting relationships.If you want to learn more or see us in action, please consider contacting us.