The Youth Employment Centre (YEC) asked Avanti Software to answer a few questions about their company:
How long have you been in business?
40+ years – since 1980!
How many locations do you have in Calgary and nationally/internationally? What locations are hiring locally in Calgary and area?
Avanti was originally founded here in Calgary, so our head office is based in downtown Calgary in the Palliser South building, near the Calgary tower. That said, Avanti is pursuing a long-term flexible, distributed-first (aka remote-first) workforce philosophy. This means that we currently employ people on a distributed basis from Vancouver Island to New Brunswick, and almost everywhere in between! It also means that all our people, even those based in Calgary, will have full autonomy long-term over the choice to work in the office, from home, or some combination of the two. Post-COVID, we will also resume renting a co-working space in downtown Toronto for our GTA colleagues. We are currently a 100% Canadian organization and do not operate internationally.
How many people does your organization employ? How many locally?
We currently employ ~90 people, with ~60 of them based in and around Calgary.
Almost all the positions we offer are full-time, permanent roles. We occasionally offer full-time term or contract positions for things like maternity leave coverages and internship placements.
What are the benefits of working for your company? Staff discounts, incentive programs, scholarships etc.
Competitive base salary, annual bonus / incentive program based on a combination of company and individual performance, health benefits and insurance through Alberta Blue Cross, an RRSP program with company matching administered through WealthSimple, a flexible and uncapped Paid-Time-Off (PTO) program, great opportunities for professional development and career advancement, the ability to work 100% remotely from anywhere in Canada, a flexible schedule, and much more!
Describe opportunities for advancement.
Avanti has grown from ~30 to ~90 employees in the last 5 years, and from ~70 to ~90 employees in just the last year. We have lofty and ambitious growth plans, that will hopefully see us 10x our revenue and 4-5x our headcount over the next 10 years. Therefore, advancement opportunities are essentially limitless for employees who are high performers and who align well with and contribute to our core values and organizational culture. It is common for our highest performers at Avanti to be promoted and/or moved cross-functionally around the business on average every 2 years or less. There are multiple current Avantians who have been promoted or who switched roles 3+ times within the last ~5 years.
List any corporate social responsibility initiatives that your organization is currently involved in.
We run an annual holiday giving campaign through the United Way, we have a dedicated (and paid) day off each year to volunteer as a team with one or several local community organizations, and Avantians collectively donated $6,857.60 to the Black Lives Matter movement and associated organizations in 2020 (and we are currently formalizing our wider, organizational DEI strategy and financial commitments for rollout in 2022). More recently, we have also begun offering awards to ‘virtual happy hour’ game winners in the form of a cash donation from Avanti to the winners’ favorite local charity or non-profit organization.
How would someone find out about opportunities at your company? How can a candidate apply?
Our careers site (https://www.avanti.ca/company/careers) and/or our company LinkedIn Jobs page (https://www.linkedin.com/company/avantisoftware/jobs/). Candidates are encouraged to apply directly via our LinkedIn job postings with their LinkedIn profile and an updated resume. We also welcome candidates to connect with our Talent Acquisition Specialist, Pascal Theriault, via LinkedIn, and to connect and network with other Avanti employees (even if they are not actively looking or the best fit for one of our current postings) to increase their future chances at landing a role.
Describe your hiring and interview process?
We typically have a 4-step interview process – sometimes 5 for technical roles such as Software Developers or UI/UX Designers. After receiving applications via LinkedIn, our Talent Acquisition Specialist and the hiring leader for the role in question review and shortlist applications.
The 1st step in our process is always a 30-45 minute culture & values chat with our Talent Acquisition Specialist to ensure candidates meet basic requirements and expectations for the role, and to discuss and assess candidates against Avanti’s core values, organizational culture, and preferred ways of leading, building, and working.
Next would be a 2nd round hiring leader interview with the role’s direct hiring manager, to go deeper into on-the-job and/or technical details and relevant experiences.
Next is the 3rd round hiring collaborator chat, to meet and get to know one or two other members of the team that the candidate would be working on.
From there, the 4th and last step is the final Co CEO interview, to meet with one of Avanti’s Co CEOs to understand the candidate’s overall business acumen, final alignment with our core values, strategic and career growth potential.
From there, we would debrief internally as a hiring team, and typically extend an offer to our candidate of choice within 24-48 hours of the final Co CEO interviews taking place.
What do you look for in an employee?
The most important thing to us at Avanti across all of our employees and all of our teams is alignment with our core values, the 4 I’s: Impact, Integrity, Innovation, and Inclusion. We look for things like respect, honesty, openness to new information as well as diverse perspectives and people, transparent communication, collaboration and teamwork, a continuous improvement and growth oriented mindset, problem solving skills, adaptability, comfort with change, and much, much more!
What type of education/training/equipment do you require?
For most of our roles, a Bachelor’s degree in a relevant field is typically highly preferred, but not necessarily required. For technical and creative roles such as Software Developers, UI/UX Designers, or Graphic Designers, for example, diplomas, online certificates, or even self-guided learning are all acceptable – but they better have some great work experience and an awesome portfolio to showcase the quality, breadth, and depth of their work in these cases!
What is the minimum age required to work for your company? Are there different age requirements for different positions?
As of today, 18 would be the minimum age to work at Avanti. That said, our current youngest employees are around 22-23 years of age, as the majority have completed some sort of diploma or degree program after high school prior to joining Avanti. There are not different age requirements for different positions.
Provide a wage range for entry level positions.
For interns and/or co-op students, we typically pay in the $18-22/hour range for business-oriented roles, and in the $20-25/hour for technically oriented roles.
For full-time, permanent entry level positions, we typically pay $45,000-$55,000 for business-oriented roles, and $50,000-$65,000 for technically oriented roles.
What are the hours of the business and general shift times? Are there a minimum number of hours someone needs to work per week? Is there flexibility regarding school schedules?
We have official office hours of 8:00 am - 4:00 pm local time, from Monday to Friday. That said, there is certainly flexibility in working hours, depending on the role. We expect a standard, 40-hour work week out of our employees, though there are certainly times of year when things are slightly busier or slightly slower than that. We have worked with post-secondary students in the past to work around their course schedules for internships and/or students that are close to graduating from their program.
Is a uniform provided or do employees have to pay for it?
N/A – we do not have a uniform nor a dress code. Our employees can wear whatever they feel most comfortable and feel most like themselves in. Hats, toques, hoodies, shorts, flip flops – it all works!
That said, we do of course trust our employees as adult professionals to act in good faith and to not wear clothing with profanity and/or obscene / inappropriate images on it.
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