Gal Bello, Field Engineer in Tel Aviv: Why I Wanted to Work at Neo4j

It was three years ago – after spending six years as a software engineer at one of the biggest Nasdaq companies – when I thought I’d seen The Best of the Best, that I started looking around at the high-tech market for the next phase of my career. Before jumping into 24/7 interviews and riddle-solving, I did some research to find a company that had a solid combination of four characteristics that I see as advantageous to a workspace:

1. Interest and Passion for Your Work
2. Innovative Technology
3. Company Roadmap
4. Cultural Values

After reflecting on these attributes and considering what I wanted from my next job, I started applying for roles at several companies that met these specifications, and interviewed at a number of them. This is how I was introduced to Neo4j. During my first interview, I felt that Neo4j stood out drastically among the competition for its remarkable representation of all four of these qualities.

I’ll share how this played out for me during the interview and hiring process.

Interest and Passion for Your Work

For me, being a field engineer has the optimal combination of four characteristics that I really connect to in my daily work:

• Technology
• Problem Solving
• User-Facing
• Collaborative (with other colleagues and teams)

That itself made the “score” I gave Neo4j for interest a very high one.

Innovative Technology

Neo4j has one of the most innovative technologies in the world of databases out there today. It relays a unique combination of storing your data in a safe, secured, easy-to-use graph model with ACID (atomicity, consistency, isolation, durability) properties. In parallel, it enables you to run complex data queries, deep searches, and graph traversals. That is one of the biggest challenges in the database space today.

From a personal perspective, I’ve been a Neo4j user and community member for over five years, so I was already keenly aware of the enormous capabilities of the platform. I remain very impressed by the immense power this platform has. Really.

There are other fascinating companies out there that bring really innovative technology to the world, and it’s so rewarding to see that Neo4j is one of them.

Company Roadmap

Neo4j has led the Graph DB segment proudly for several years now, and with every new release it seems that the additional capabilities and features are mainly based on users needs, requests, and expectations – multi DB, sharding, SSO, connectors, etc. It’s not driven by easy-to-achieve, fast, marketing-focused releases.

I have high expectations for my workplace to look towards the future with a deep understanding of its user-based community and its real needs. I want to work at a company that seeks to find solutions for problems that arise from the bottom up.

That is not a trivial approach and requires many unique organizational decision-making mechanisms to be achieved.

Cultural Values

Even before I started working in Neo4j, I Googled around to read up on the company’s cultural values. I found that the company has set six cultural values, which validated my impression that the company intently looks at the daily work of its employees as valuable and meaningful, at least as much as its own innovative technology.

These values are:

• We value relationships.
• We focus on user success.
• We thrive in a culture that is open and inclusive.
• We assume positive intent.
• We welcome intellectually honest discussions.
• We deliver on our commitments.

Now, after three years at Neo4j, I feel that our six values have greatly impacted my satisfaction at work.

I also know the culture is important to Neo4j based on the CEO’s motto and goal: “I want to make Neo4j the best job you’ve ever had.”

Furthermore, being a part of the Neo4j Cultural Team for the past three years has proven that creating a healthy culture in a high-tech company is not an easy goal to achieve. It requires different parallel processes, behavioral dependencies, and vast human dedication – all of which should sync together in a harmonious synergy.

I feel that at Neo4j we are on a good path of handling this complex goal.

These variables drove my thought process and ultimately led to my decision to join Neo4j.

I’m so glad I made that decision.