In 2012, two former college students from Hanze University of Applied Sciences in the Northern Dutch metropolis of Groningen, took a significant gamble. They made a listing of 100 corporations they’d prefer to work for — together with Facebook, Twitter, Spotify, and Uber — and hacked them. As you’ll be able to think about, this little stunt definitely obtained their consideration.
Now, $159.4M in funding later, their cybersecurity firm, HackerOne, reached unicorn standing in 2022 and counts massive gamers like Nintendo, AT&T, Hyatt, GM, and even the Pentagon amongst its shoppers.
HackerOne is a bug bounty looking platform that allows corporations to enlist the assistance of moral hackers throughout the globe to determine and mitigate safety vulnerabilities and knowledge breaches, which value corporations a mean of $4.35 million.
While founders Jobert Abma and Michiel Prins now stay in San Francisco, the place HackerOne’s HQ relies, they surprisingly determined to not transfer their improvement team throughout the pond. In truth, over 50% of their engineering and product design team are nonetheless based mostly in Groningen right this moment.
The query is, does it really make sense to maintain half of your dev team in one other time zone and is that this a method different founders ought to really contemplate? And why Groningen? With a world tech powerhouse like Amsterdam only a few hours away, why preserve the team in this Northern Dutch metropolis?
Follow-the-sun mannequin
The story of HackerOne’s founders is the everyday tech fairytale come true. Abma and Prins grew up throughout the road from one another in a small city in the North of the Netherlands and spent their time taking part in video video games, constructing web sites, and, in fact, pulling the occasional prank hack.
They went to Hanze University of Applied Sciences in Groningen collectively, the place they recognized a significant knowledge leak in the establishment’s system. Realizing this may very well be a profitable enterprise enterprise, they began a consultancy agency and constructed a small team of like-minded moral hackers.
After gaining the eye of Silicon Valley’s largest names, they realized it was time to unfold their wings overseas.
At the identical time, holding a part of their dev team in Groningen offered an important alternative to introduce a ‘follow-the-sun’ mannequin, guaranteeing somebody is at all times on-line and able to deal with any points that come up.
“The internet has no borders,” Abma says, “We have tens of thousands of people every single day that use our platform to collaborate and work together. We rely on such a distributed community of hackers, that I don’t see why we can’t do that as a company.”
Indeed, HackerOne facilitates this alternate between world, moral hackers and corporations by offering a platform the place they’ll join, with out having to fret about tax varieties, background checks, cost safety, and different boundaries.
Some who visited fell in love with the town and moved completely.
While there are a number of advantages to having a distributed improvement team, it additionally comes with its challenges.
“Working across time zones requires everyone to become good at written and asynchronous communication. It’s important to let people take time to become good written communicators,” Abma says.
Another necessary level he shared is to ensure engineering and adjoining roles proceed to be repeatedly uncovered to different departments, comparable to gross sales, advertising and marketing, and buyer success. This helps construct context, breaks down silos, and permits groups to create higher options.
One method HackerOne does that is by sending their Groningen team to go to the San Francisco HQ a number of occasions a yr and vice versa.
It’s necessary to allow folks to construct a stronger bond by having them spend time with one another in individual, not less than twice a yr. They love that facet of getting a distributed team as a result of they get to go to completely different cities and meet new folks, however nonetheless have the consolation of having the ability to stay in Groningen, which I feel is a superb metropolis to stay in and lift a household.
The advantages of a cosmopolitan metropolis, on a smaller scale
Aside from the enterprise advantages of sustaining a distributed team mannequin, as Abma defined, a lot of the team merely wasn’t eager to observe them to San Francisco.
“Many people were starting their families and had significant others there, so they couldn’t move to the other side of the world, and we didn’t necessarily want them to.”
For a metropolis of simply 235,000, Groningen has an especially cosmopolitan vibe. Through its two universities and rising startup neighborhood, it attracts nearly 6,000 worldwide college students per yr and a rising variety of expats.
Some HackerOne workers who visited the Groningen workplace from San Francisco fell in love with the town and determined to maneuver there completely. Abma suspects it’s these ‘expat ambassadors’ turned hiring managers who’ve been key to getting extra world expertise on board by sharing their first hand experiences of shifting to the town.
I feel it’s good for Groningen to only be Groningen.
For Isuru Ranaweera, Senior Software Engineer at HackerOne, shifting his household to Groningen was a straightforward transition.
“What I enjoy about Groningen is that it’s less busy and I actually find it a calm city compared to other places. Additionally, I feel safer here, making it a good place to raise my child. Another bonus is that the city is very green, with plenty of trees.”
Another nice coverage HackerOne has in place is that they pay builders in Groningen the identical charges they’d pay in Amsterdam.
As an expat, settling right here was simpler in comparison with my pals who’ve settled elsewhere in the Netherlands. Housing is accessible and reasonably priced, which I discovered useful when migrating to a unique nation. Reducing prices is necessary and dwelling right here helped me to decrease my housing prices throughout my first years of residency. The commute can also be simple as you don’t actually need a automotive. We’ve been dwelling right here with a baby and a canine with out having a necessity for a automotive, which is nice. I additionally like staying away from the chaos of massive cities.
Having a base in a college city additionally has the additional advantage of entry to a pool of younger expertise. Groningen in specific has two nice universities positioned in the town that appeal to college students from throughout the globe. Zahra Putri Fitrianti, Software Engineer at HackerOne, was recruited after finding out and dealing on the University of Groningen as a instructing assistant.
Personally, I actually just like the ambiance in the town, it’s very appropriate for college students in addition to employees. The metropolis has a way of tranquility that helps me be productive at college and work. There’s additionally a number of nice hubs the place you’ll be able to work, such because the Forum cultural heart that gives nice assist for those that spend their day there, albeit typically being fairly crowded particularly throughout examination season.
Groningen is altering, however hopefully not an excessive amount of
Groningen is shortly turning into a extra recognizable title in the worldwide tech neighborhood with new startup success tales and college spinoffs placing its ecosystem on the map. Nonetheless, there are a number of modifications Abma nonetheless hopes to see that can assist the town attain its potential:
For Groningen to actually upscale that vibrant ecosystem, there are some elementary constructing blocks that also have to be constructed, like extra entry to funding, tax breaks, and many others. What would make me actually proud is that if, ten years from now, among the individuals who we initially employed at HackerOne went on to discovered their personal corporations in Groningen. If they’ll make that transition, it might present the constructing blocks are actually in place. Although I’m joyful to see corporations like HackerOne have a presence there, I’d prefer to see extra of that.
However, having lived each in Groningen and now (arguably) the capital of the tech world, Abma hopes these oncoming modifications don’t impression the character of the town:
“I think it’s good for Groningen to just be Groningen. It doesn’t need to be the next Silicon Valley. There are a lot of downsides to that kind of ecosystem as well.”
The query is, like HackerOne, will Groningen’s humble beginnings morph it right into a tech big of the longer term? Probably not. But it would seemingly be a spot of alternative for expats and younger expertise in search of the right steadiness of thrilling alternatives and compact metropolis life. Unlike Silicon Valley’s lower throat tradition, Groningen’s tight knit tech neighborhood may be likened to the theme tune from Cheers: it’s seemingly everyone will know your title and really be joyful that you simply got here.
If Groningen has piqued your curiosity, take a look at among the nice tech jobs open in the town on the Make it in the North.nl job board.
…. to be continued
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