Views on our Values: There’s no ‘I’ in Rokt

Rokt’s vision to improve ecommerce and enable smarter decisions faster for its clients is multi-fold and requires world-class talent to achieve it. That’s why we developed four core values to identify the type of individuals that we feel will help Rokt move forward with its vision. One of those values is ‘Smart with Humility’ – for Rokt, this means finding and nurturing smart individuals who are without egos, are willing to work as a team, use data to make decisions, and “play the ball (not the person)”.

We. Not Me. We work together and achieve together. We put the customer and our team first every time. Our company’s successes are the result of not just a single team’s work, but that of multiple teams working together — often cross-functionally. We strongly believe that a successful team is contingent on its members’ compatibility -to build our team’s collective strengths in order to minimize potential weak points. To ensure that we are in the best position to deliver on our goals, the Engineering team follows the agile methodology and is organized into scrum teams- 11 and counting! This approach fosters efficient collaboration, implementing a regular schedule of sprint planning, daily stand-ups, backlog grooming, and retrospectives. Each of these meetings all has elements of collaboration and discussion, allowing every team member the opportunity to participate and put their ideas forward.

As Rokt grows its headcount across six offices, we continue to expand our roster of Rokt’stars which represents citizens from 26 nations- an incredible opportunity for both cultural and thought diversity. As some of the challenges we face when developing solutions for our clients are increasingly complex, we have found that having such a wide variety of minds with varying backgrounds and skills is a great asset in finding creative ways to push through our roadblocks.

Objective over subjective. We always use data-driven facts when making decisions and it’s not just with our clients. At Rokt, we practice what we preach and emphasize the importance of decisions made with data-backed insights. This, in turn, continues to improve the way in which we help advertisers make smarter decisions in the ecommerce space. Our machine learning systems automatically crunch all available data for each client in order to produce the most insightful results possible. We also invest in solutions that measure the results of these decisions. No one can say we aren’t thorough.

Being a customer-obsessed organization, we are constantly finding learnings directly from our clients as well. Through regular conversations about their objectives and blockers, we are able to obtain the most valuable data available which helps to inform our product roadmap. We truly believe that delivering value to our clients is what will drive Rokt forward.

Play the ball, not the person. We are accountable but not finger pointers. We always strive to make the most informed decisions with data but we still deal with uncertainty every day. With our data-led approach, we conduct small, measurable tests that help guide us on the next steps and minimize our risk as much as possible. The retrospectives we organize after the end of each sprint, allow for both team and individual reflection on what we have done well, what we could have been done better and what we have learned. We use this time as an opportunity to discuss how to improve for the next sprint, the next project, and the next obstacle which are always right around the corner.

At Rokt, we are striving to transform the ecommerce space to help advertisers connect with consumers on a personal, 1:1 level. And what we have all quickly learned is that no real success is achieved without failure. This is what drives our Smart with Humility value- being able to acknowledge our failures together and apply them to the next day so together we are able to make better decisions as we move forward. If all successes are the product of a group of individuals, then so are its shortcomings and we are not afraid to admit that. We leave our egos at the door because we know that together is always better.