Why I Joined InfluxData - Thom Crowe

By Thom Crowe235 / Use Cases, Company, Developer
Jun 11, 2019

Hey there, I’m Thom Crowe, Community Manager here at InfluxData. I’m new to the team, and one thing new employees are asked to do is introduce themselves and share why they joined, so here goes.

I started working in digital marketing back in 2014 when I joined Compose (formerly MongoHQ), a DBaaS platform for open source databases. The good thing about joining smaller startups is that you get to wear a lot of hats. I learned to code and took on my first community role. I realized that talking to developers was something I really liked and what I wanted to do moving forward.

As I started looking for where I wanted to go next, a couple of friends mentioned InfluxData. I had known about InfluxDB from my days at a DBaaS company and always liked the folks I met at events, so I decided to go see what was going on. A friend of mine was working here, another friend was involved in the community, and both made it sound great.

Here’s where I’m going to get a little meta: I decided InfluxData was my number one choice for my next company because of the “Why I Joined InfluxData” articles. I read a few and they made it sound like a great place to be, especially Sonia Gupta’s article about company values. Every company talks about its core values and lists them on their website, right? Talking about values is easy. But here is a company who had employees telling the world how those values are ingrained in what the company is and does.

I decided to reach out to Chris Churilo, Director of Product Marketing here, and send her my resume. Serendipity was at play; Chris told me they just approved a Community Manager position, and we chatted the same day.  We talked about the community, what the needs and vision of it were, and how I would fit in. We also hit on the company values. After our chat, I was excited about the position, working with the InfluxDB community, and the company’s values of respecting people and striving to create a healthy work environment for everyone, both in office and remote.

Since I’ve been here, I can say my initial thoughts about the company have only been confirmed. InfluxData provides a place for employees to innovate, try new things, and support new initiatives. In over 3 months, I haven’t heard “we can’t do that” once. I feel encouraged in everything I pitch. I get to work across all of our teams and find that each and every person here genuinely cares about our community members and is on board to do whatever we ask of them to make the community better.

That’s why I joined InfluxData; the enthusiasm and encouragement I get from my team, and the amazing people with their excitement and commitment from the community is why I stay.