Celebrating Five Years at Notarize: Samuel Holland

Wow, I blinked, and five years have passed since I joined Notarize. What a wonderful ride.

When I started at Notarize in 2017, I only sort of knew what I was doing in my professional life. I had come from a combative, high-stress start-up environment, and what I quickly realized was that I needed to unlearn some of the habits I had picked up there. Notarize was a place where you were expected to work well with others, and be part of the team as a whole. I am really grateful to early leaders in the engineering space at Notarize (Steff Kelsey, hello!) who really saw my potential and stuck with me while I learned how to be a better engineer and coworker, and really be part of the larger organization. I am also grateful that I was able to spend 4 years as the embedded QA engineer on the CORE team, which looking back is a lot of time to spend with a great group of people (it feels like more than two decades). Finally, I want to give a massive thank you to my direct manager, Rob Gagnon, from whom I’ve learned more than I probably realize about quality, engineering, and being a compassionate leader.

When I think about what has made me, and many others from a similar cohort stick around, I think it’s really been the amazing engineering culture we have at Notarize. We’ve had a longstanding “no brilliant jerks” policy, and I really believe that’s paid off. Emotional intelligence and bringing up those around you is rewarded. We work hard, and at the same time, I see real efforts not to burn our talent out. We treat people like people. This kind of culture makes me feel valued for my contributions, and has allowed me to grow immensely both professionally and personally. It also makes me want to do my best to keep the train going, and make good on the idea that you can have a healthy work culture and be more successful as a result.

Stampin’ docs!