Ascentium is in the business of helping companies integrate their operations, marketing, and sales organizations to foster growth. Our full-service approach brings together business strategy, creative, marketing, and technology services.

Our home office is in Bellevue, Washington, just outside of Seattle. Microsoft is 15 minutes away and is our largest client. But we have numerous clients across the United States, and the number expands daily through our growing list of offices.
 
Our company is just about 7 years old and continues to grow at an astounding rate. We are looking for outstanding people who can help us become one of the top 10 interactive marketing and technology firms in the nation.

Why you want to work at Ascentium:

• You will work with very smart people who will push you to be the best you can be. You will never say, “I'm surrounded by clueless people.”
• You will work on different stuff and learn more than you can imagine.
• You will work with new Microsoft technologies all the time.
• You will get to take a team and work with clients and “teach them cool stuff” every now and then.
• You will not be “staffed” out to other companies.
• The people you work for will value you and you will like them.
• Developers are respected and revered. You won't feel like a “resource.” 
• We use XP/Agile methods and design patterns and we write reams of documentation. 
• We have people who really like to write code and consider it an art.
• We have nice offices, and there are normal people here who do stuff like marketing and creative work.
• It's a social environment, with a mix of cubes and open space.
• We view interpersonal teasing and playfulness as appropriate business behavior.
• Sci-Fi, gaming, political, and philosophical conversations occur daily.
• Your career advancement is limited only by your ambition.
• We will encourage you to recruit your friends and family so you can work together.

A typical day for a dev
Get into the office, go over your e-mail, and check your schedule. There is a standup meeting in a few minutes, so you pull your task list and head to it. A half dozen of you stand in a circle and talk about what you're doing and what you need to get done.

Another dev asks for some help, so you do a quick design job on the wall and come up with a solution. An analyst says that the customer wants a different feature, so you make a quick task list and estimate what it will take to complete it. The PM reminds you that tomorrow is planning day for this iteration, so you think about what you need to do next week and where you'll be at the end of the day.

You go back to your desk and check out your code and start working on it. There is a lunch meeting where the dev team discusses the Visitor design pattern and how it's used. They bring in Thai because everyone is tired of pizza. You ask a few questions and then go back to work.

A PM from your last project comes over to ask if she can get an hour or two of your help on a small change. You say you can fit it in late tomorrow if she gets you out of a meeting. She agrees and you go back to writing code.

A client calls to ask your opinion on how difficult something is. You're kind of surprised because you haven't talked in a month, but you tell him it's not that hard. It's the end of the day so you enter your time on the project billing system. A Nerf gun battle has broken out and you get up to join the fray.

We look for people who: Can obviously code.  Not everyone needs to be amazing, but we need you to write good code because it’s our business. We have you take home a set of problems and then discuss them in your interviews. We want to hear the different possibilities you come up with.

Have written something on their own. You are most attractive to us if you’ve written a small application or game on your own or you’ve been a member of a small product team that really owned the idea.

Have stable and reliable work histories. We’ve found that you will be happiest at Ascentium if you have worked in an environment that was not all that great. But it’s good if you’ve stuck with it and developed friends and relationships at previous companies.

Have the ability to work self-directed. No one will micro-manage you and you’ll rarely have specs to instruct you. You must communicate well, think on your feet, be able to design features, work in multiple styles, maintain your own task list, do your work in the time you estimated, and be a fun person to work with. 

Have career potential. We want people who will be with us for years. We have nearly zero turnover and we want to keep it that way.

Like making clients happy. Our business is making clients happy. We want people who find that part of the job compelling.

Are a “fit” for our culture. This one is obvious, and we’re not the only company who talks about this sort of thing. So what is a “fit” for us? It should be very clear after you’ve read this page.

Have personal interests. If you’re a musician, a skateboarder, a player of competitive sports, a hiker, a computer-game aficionado, an artist, an economist, a philosopher, or something of that nature, you’re more interesting to work with and more resilient at work.

Education A four-year degree is preferred—you probably will feel much more comfortable here if you have one. But we seem to find that some of the best programmers come from the community college circuit.

We get excited over:

• Very smart, witty, funny, competitive people
• Individuals who are curious, insightful, and interested in new things
• Knowledge of Agile/XP methods, design patterns, and the history of online solutions
• Knowledge of design patterns
• Experience working for Microsoft
• Experience in a top consulting environment or an interactive marketing agency
• People who want to bring their friends to work here too
• A degree in computer science with a minor in business
• Military experience

 

More about working at Ascentium Careers Ascentium is a career company owned by partners, and we view nearly every person we hire as a potential partner and stockholder. We try to advance everyone's career—sometimes even faster than they want us to. But you ultimately direct your own career path.

Technologies

• We write almost entirely in ASP.NET/C#, we use Agile/XP, and we work on 80% Web and 20% desktop applications. We use NUnit unit testing.
• We do not generally hire specialists, so we expect everyone to either have or develop SQL and database skills.
• We use a lot of design patterns. We use bug tracking software.
• We need to integrate with about half the technologies businesses use, so being able to learn new technologies quickly is important.

Not all the work is that sophisticated. We work on dozens of projects at once and you may switch between them a bit to help when needed. For six months you might work on something complicated, for one month on something not so, and then for a week between projects on something trivial.

CertificationsAs a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, we are expected to maintain competency. Therefore, we put everyone on a program of certification. Your career development advisor will work with you to help you achieve your certification.

Balance
We work very hard at times when it's necessary, but we discourage long work weeks. And we actively look for people with families who want to have a personal balance in their lives and don't want a lot of travel.

TravelOur travelers are usually salespeople, PMs, and principals. This can vary from a few days to a week. In most cases, travel is infrequent enough that people consider it a perk.

On rare occasions we have done long-distance work for as much as 6 weeks. If we find a big client or lots of activity in another location, we are likely to open an office there. In fact, our Portland and L.A. offices are a good example of that.

CultureOur company culture is our people, who’ve been described as “smart, hip, social, hard-working, upwardly mobile, confident, competitive, entrepreneurial urbanites.” That could be a bit of an exaggeration, but we certainly have a lot of energy here.

We have a large number of family people who are very senior, very knowledgeable, and not all that hip. (But who’s sure what “hip” means nowadays anyway?) And we have a lot of very quiet programmers who talk about computer games.

We just want to be the best and to work with the best. We want to care about our clients and the people we work with and be cared for in return. We want to make a profit doing that. This just seems like good business.

RelocationWe will happily relocate top people. It is our charter to bring aboard diverse individuals from diverse regions so that we're constantly adding new people and ideas to our company and our clients.

Come with friends
We hire friends, family, whole teams, and we even acquire small companies. It helps make Ascentium a great place to work when friends and family surround you.

Ascentium has grown in part through successful acquisition of teams and companies. People who like working together are happier and work better with clients. Believe it or not, a significant number of married couples work here.

If you work with one, two, five, or more friends you really like to work with but don't like where you're working, then call us and say so. We will put together very attractive offers for everyone who wants to come here.

It’s actually easier to get hired here under these circumstances because we know you will be a better fit for the company and even more likely to be happy here.

Contacting usWe have dedicated recruiters that serve each of our business groups. They’re each responsible for helping the best people in the country find out what a great career they can have here.

If you think your background is suitable and you’re very smart, great to work with, and can inspire our clients, send your resumé to careers@ascentium.com. We'll do our best to find a place for you here.

ConfidentialityWe’re committed to maintaining confidentiality. It often feels risky to send your resumé to an e-mail alias. If you’re currently employed and just want to explore Ascentium or you’re in a principal, executive, or account management role, indicate “Confidential - Attention Partner” in the subject line or at the top of your message. We will review it and hand-deliver it to the appropriate partner for confidential consideration.