Culture - Kongregate Developers Blog

Culture Mar 15, 2018
The Culture of Kongpanions: What’s in a Name?

Synapse joined the Kongregate family on October 2, 2017. When we were first granted access to Kongregate’s Slack rooms I joined several player-focused chats for both camaraderie and commiseration. Many of the rooms featured ways to engage or support players, but it was the #whos-that-kongpanion room that gave me an instant sense of culture and connection with the company. Kongpanions are collectables found on Kongregate.com; each Kongpanion is charmingly designed by staff and obtained by players who complete at least one "Badge of the Day" during the week. Players can earn additional prestige by collecting at least five in a week, granting their Kongpanion a crown -- AKA a "Shiny." Developers can use the Kongpanion API to use these adorable companions as characters in their games, and they are tied once a year to larger Quest events. I joined Kongregate.com in 2008, so I remember when Kongpanions were released to the general public. The excitement for something new on Kongregate was overwhelming, and collecting Kongpanions turned into a competition among my group of

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Culture Mar 01, 2018
Hiring for Culture: Beyond the Résumé

As a hiring manager, one of the hardest and most serious endeavors you can take on is deciding to grow your teams by hiring more people. The people you choose to bring in will affect the shape of your business for years to come by not only impacting the products and services you are able to deliver, but also by altering the dynamics of your team. Finding the right person can greatly change your team’s personality and productivity, helping them work smarter and build better things. However, finding the wrong person can be devastating, leading to friction, angst, and possibly even turnover. There are many aspects that are going to contribute to how an addition affects a team. Does the person bring different skills or experiences that the team is lacking? Does the person approach work in a manner that could help change how the team operates? Most importantly, though, is going to be how the person complements your team’s and company’s culture. What Culture Isn’t There are many ways in which we attempt to quantify

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Culture Aug 18, 2016
Engineering Personas

A few weeks ago, Kongregate CRO Josh Larson related the diversity of our company as identified by an activity of having people take a Hogwart’s sorting hat quiz. We found out that, without any conscious effort, we had a relatively evenly distributed team. While this exercise was mostly done for fun, it does highlight a key concept to building a successful team: How do you balance the strengths and weaknesses of individuals to propel the team forward? What are the types of personalities you might encounter? Having spent 10 years both working on and leading engineering teams, I’ve found that most engineers tend to align to one of the following personas. The Framework Facilitator The Framework Facilitator is focused on the bleeding edge of changes in frameworks and technology. They have their ear to the ground on what new features are coming to versions of frameworks and are ready to adopt them whenever they are available. Oftentimes, they will also try to push for more ideal solutions than practical with the best of intentions. They thrive on being

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Culture Jul 28, 2016
The Sorting Hat at Kongregate

It was to be the last question of an Exec AMA to close out Kongregate’s day-long offsite: “Which Hogwarts House would the person to your right belong to, and why?” The answers quickly revealed — and were later verified by Pottermore — that the four members of the Kongregate exec team in fact represented each of the Hogwarts Houses from the Harry Potter universe. A Gryffindor CEO, a Slytherin COO, a Ravenclaw CTO and a Hufflepuff CRO. We have symmetry! We love to geek out at Kongregate, including tabletop game nights, 4-person Towerfall matches between meetings, desks adorned with Star Wars Lego vehicles and other collectibles, and a TON of web and mobile game knowledge. Now we had a new way to identify and organize ourselves. Nearly all of the employees have visited the Sorting Hat site and we’re remarkably balanced (see below): Kongregate Employees by House (55 respondents) What does this all mean? Maybe it’s just random! Or maybe some of the diversity that we strive for as a company, and the acceptance of the different strengths and

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