Culture is one of those words that gets thrown around everywhere. It comes up on the list of casually used buzzwords almost as frequently as “artificial intelligence” and “machine learning”. But I never really knew what it meant until 45 days ago, when I joined Atlan as a Data Science Intern.
Atlan had an aura around its culture, so I was immediately skeptical about both the culture and the work that I would get as an intern.
45 days later, here I am writing this post about culture. I now know what culture means and what problems data science can really solve and at what scale. And it is a rare stimulus when a computer science undergrad would rather blog about the newfound meaning of culture than write up a Medium tutorial post on a new framework.
Culture is what makes you bond equally well with your teammates as well as Raju bhaiya, who cooks delicious breakfast for the whole office daily. It is what pushes you to get and provide feedback to everyone, from interns to the team lead right up to the co-founders. It makes you feel like you’ve been a part of the company not just since last week, but since its inception. It connects you to those walls with people’s dreams written on them and makes you want to achieve their dreams, which are now yours too. It drives the work you do, and it sparks the extra 120% you put in.
All this happens because you know that everything you do is not just your work. Because you can feel that it is something much bigger than you or any other individual. This is, all in all, an inclusive feeling. And it truly feels breathtaking when it hits you what “culture” actually signifies.
I could not figure out the source of this culture. I tried unearthing it, but I guess no one can ever find it, because there is no single source. It has branched and stemmed from everyone who has ever been in the workplace — from an intern who has been there for 45 days to the founders who gave birth to it. It is beyond one individual now. It’s ever evolving and growing so much stronger, with its roots now very firmly set.
To Atlan, its culture, the wonderful people and an amazing learning curve, cheers 🙂
