Joining Vera is like joining a high-performance first division sports team. Performance is your passion, you love a challenge, and you have fun completing it. We’re startup athletes.

​
Be a self-guided missile

You don’t wait for orders or permission. You understand what needs to be done, align it to customer value and company goals, and make it happen. You seek clarity, challenge unimpactful work, and move fast - adjusting course when needed based on feedback, data, and impact. You unblock yourself, make decisions efficiently, and think ahead to avoid future risks. You’re driven by outcomes, not tasks.
  • 1. Move the needle - prioritise for high-impact work.
  • 2. Be obsessed with customer value - solving our customers’ problems is the reason why we exist.
  • 3. Learn in the wild - value is only real when your work holds up in real-world use.
  • 4. Plan for the last 20% - the last 20% unlocks 80% of the value.
  • 5. Be scientific and reflect often - be meticulous about planning and then execute relentlessly, reflect often to materialise learnings.

​
Growth Mindset

You see every challenge, piece of feedback, or failure as a chance to get better. You’re open to being wrong, quick to adapt when new information arises, and eager to learn beyond your comfort zone. You take ownership of your growth, stay resilient through setbacks, and help others do the same. Progress is the priority.
  • 6. Embrace the bumpy road - the journey won’t be smooth, but that’s where growth lives.
  • 7. Always be learning - curiosity compounds. Start before you feel ready.
  • 8. Master of some, doer of many - be flexible. Step up beyond your lane.
  • 9. Strong opinions, weakly held - have conviction, but stay open to change.

​
Work with others

You make the people around you better. You communicate with clarity, show up prepared, and write things down so others don’t have to guess. You’re respectful of people’s time, helpful even when it’s not your job, and always aim to reduce friction, not add to it. You know that great teamwork means not just delivering your part, but helping others deliver theirs. At the highest level, you actively shape how we collaborate - creating systems, setting standards, and making it easier for everyone to do their best work together.
  • 10. Play to win - deliver results, not just effort.
  • 11. Create a common lore – Define shared language so teams stay aligned and sharp.
  • 12. High-context communication – Choose formats that reduce friction and help others move fast.

​
Our core values broken down

​
1.  Move the needle

Prioritise for high-impact work.
Make sure your work moves the needle. It’s not enough to just meet the requirement. That’s baseline. True impact comes when your work drives momentum, when it makes the next step faster, clearer, or more valuable. Think of every task not as an end, but as a setup for what comes next. Your job isn’t just to kick the ball, it’s to move it to the next base. These are small differences in effort, but huge differences in outcomes. They show care, clarity, and ownership. They reduce friction, build trust, and accelerate progress. Don’t aim to just deliver. Aim to move the needle. Every time.

​
2. Be obsessed with customer value

Solving our customers’ problems is the reason why we exist.
Customer priorities aren’t just a consideration, they’re the priority. The fastest way to build something great is to stay close to the people you’re building it for. Talk to customers directly. Don’t assume, don’t guess, go to the source. It’s often harder, but it’s where the real insights live. You’ll learn more from a 10-minute call than hours of internal debate. Deliver value. Earn trust. Then do it again, faster.

​
3. Learn in the wild

Solve real problems, not imagined ones.
Not all decisions are equal.  Some are very hard to reverse, one-way doors, like changing system architecture or brand changes. These need care and alignment. Some are easy to reverse, two-way doors. For these, prioritise failing fast. Most things can be done faster than expected if you get creative and scrappy. Constraints force clarity. Build like this: aim for a production-ready version in just 10% of your time budget. Not perfect, but real. Because the hardest problems aren’t theoretical, they show up in production, with real users, under real pressure.  Learn how we approach type 1 and type 2 decisions here. Don’t wait for perfection. Ship early, break things where it matters, and learn in the wild.

​
4. Plan for the last 20%

Value is only real when your work holds up in real-world use.
No matter how good the work is, value is only created when it works in the real world. That last step, testing in context, checking for edge cases, and validating assumptions, is where many things quietly fail. It’s not just about whether it looks right or runs without errors. It’s about whether it truly delivers what it’s supposed to, in the hands of real users, under real conditions. To avoid surprises:
  • Run a real-world test, not just a theoretical one
  • Create a pre-mortem: what could go wrong, and how would you know?
  • Define success criteria and how you’ll measure it, so it’s clear what “done” really means
The final mile is customer delight, it’s making sure your work actually solves the problem it set out to.

​
5. Be scientific and reflect often

Be meticulous about planning and then execute relentlessly, reflect often to materialise learnings.
Follow the scientific method, start with sharp, data-driven assumptions, and think about what can go wrong early. Build a plan, then execute with speed and conviction. But set stop cues, intentional moments to pause, reflect, and adjust when momentum shifts:
  • Time-based: “If we haven’t doubled activation rates by June, we challenge our onboarding strategy.”
  • Milestone-based: “If 100 demos don’t land 10 deals, our messaging needs a rethink.”
  • Trigger-based: “If CTR drops below 3.5%, we reassess our ad copy”
  • Ask yourself “what have I learnt” a lot.
These cues aren’t signs to stop, they’re built-in prompts to level up. Reflect. Refocus. Reinvent. Then push forward, bolder than before.

​
6. Embrace the bumpy road

The journey won’t be smooth, but that’s where growth lives.
Stay optimistic -but expect the unexpected. The path to anything worthwhile is rarely smooth, and that’s a good thing. Every twist, setback, and so-called “failure” is proof that you’re in the game, growing, and doing what most people won’t dare to try. You won’t win big without failing big first. So take the hits with curiosity, not shame. Learn fast, laugh when you can, and let the hard parts sharpen you -not shake you. Don’t get too high on the wins or too low on the losses. Neither defines you. What defines you is your willingness to keep showing up, stay curious, and keep moving—no matter how bumpy the road gets. Success is in the process. Trust it. Enjoy it. Keep going.

​
7. Always be learning

Curiosity compounds. Start before you feel ready.
The best people aren’t the ones who know everything, they’re the ones who never stop learning. It’s a fire of curiosity that pushes you to explore, try, fail, and improve, every single day. Don’t block yourself from doing something just because you don’t know how. That’s the point. Don’t wait for permission. Don’t wait to “be ready.” Curiosity drives learning. Learning compounds like interest, the earlier and more often you invest, the better you become.

​
8. Master of some, doer of many

Be flexible. Step up beyond your lane.
You might be an expert in one area, but real impact comes from your ability to wear multiple hats and adapt. That means staying aware of what falls outside your lane, and being curious and humble enough to learn it. No matter how senior or experienced you are, never let ego or fear of failure stop you from diving into something new. Titles don’t build products. Teams do, and teams need people who step up wherever the work is. Roll up your sleeves. Get your hands dirty. Be the kind of person who figures things out, even if it’s not “your job.”

​
9. Strong opinions, weakly held

Have conviction, but stay open to change.
Great decision-making starts with having a clear point of view. Leaders are expected to form strong opinions based on the best information available, but they must be ready to change those opinions when new evidence emerges. This is not a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of strength. The best ideas win, not the loudest voices. Strong opinions give direction. Holding them loosely allows for learning and improvement. Confidence without ego. Conviction without rigidity.

​
10. Play to win

Deliver results, not just effort.
Playing to win means doing what it takes to get over the line - not just for yourself, but for your team. It’s about urgency, ownership, and raising the bar. You don’t coast. You commit. You follow through. And when you’re done, you look for how to make the whole system better. Winning isn’t about working the longest hours—it’s about showing up with intent, pushing past “good enough,” and taking pride in outcomes. You move fast, finish strong, and help others do the same. Hustle with purpose. Deliver like it matters. Win together.

​
11. Create a common lore

Define shared language so teams stay aligned and sharp.
When different people refer to the same thing in different ways, or when you’re introducing a new concept, don’t let it slide. Stop. Define it clearly. Create a shared name or framework. Then socialise it, get buy-in, and stick to it. This isn’t just about semantics, it’s about efficiency. Clear language removes ambiguity. It saves time, reduces cognitive load, and ensures that energy is spent solving problems, not decoding conversations. DON’T USE ACRONYMS -  DON’T USE ACRONYMS - DON’T USE ACRONYMS -  DON’T USE ACRONYMS - DON’T USE ACRONYMS - DON’T USE ACRONYMS - DON’T USE ACRONYMS - DON’T USE ACRONYMS If everyone’s using different words for the same thing, you’re already losing.

​
12. High context communication

Choose formats that reduce friction and help others move fast.
Choose the path that gives everyone else the most context, and minimizes back-and-forth. Your goal isn’t just to communicate, it’s to get the team as close as possible to taking action without needing to ask for more.  Every time you make someone pause to clarify, you introduce friction. Great collaborators remove that friction before it appears.  Here’s a rough hierarchy, from highest to lowest context: 
  1. A review on something final and ready for production (e.g. a polished Pull Request)
  2. A Loom video walking through your thinking, preferred solution or changes A screenshot with helpful annotations
  3. A message with links to relevant docs or references 
  4. A vague message that refers to things without including or summarising them 
  5. A “what do you think about this?” or “@a please check”
Always aim to communicate at the highest level of context possible for the situation. It saves time, sharpens understanding, and accelerates decisions. Communicate in a way that it already feels done.

​
How do we measure performance?

We have a formal performance review process tailored to each individual and role. We evaluate your ability to: 
  • Hit pre-defined goals.
  • Your deliverables - the speed, quality and complexity of what you deliver.
  • Expected behaviours that adhere to our culture.
  • Specific skills related to your role and seniority.
You can find our competency matrices for our cultural values and skills per role here.