From Product Specialist to Full Stack Engineer: How Grayson Berger Saw His Career Transform at Calendly

Grayson Berger could be described as the Swiss Army knife of Calendly. He began his career as part of Calendly’s Customer Experience team then transitioned to Revenue Operations and now works as a Full Stack Engineer. He believes his wide range of experience and knowledge across the company has allowed him to bring a unique perspective to each of the roles he has held. So, what is Berger’s secret to navigating such unique experiences?

1. Join a place where you can be yourself.

“When I first graduated, I was part of a fellowship program that connected people with start-up opportunities. My first role was with a Sales start-up and it really wasn’t for me. I had a friend who worked at Calendly and I started going to meetups and I fell in love with the people and culture. I felt like I could really be myself at Calendly and it gave me pride being a part of a company that cultivated that.”

2. Don’t underestimate your past experience.  

“Customer Experience showed me how people are using our product and it’s features. That helped me view the product differently and thinking as our customers do gave me ideas on how to enhance and implement new ways for our customers to use our product. Similarly, my experience in Operations and Sales shows up in how I build tools for our internal team members and that was something I hadn’t expected. ”

3. Be confident and open to learning. 

“I think something I’ve dealt with a lot is impostor syndrome. I’ve learned that when you don't ask questions, it’s because you are worried about looking uninformed. So you just stay uninformed and both you and your team can suffer. Even the most senior member of your team knew nothing about your work area at some point in their life which means even if you have 0 knowledge on a topic, you are in the same place they were before they started asking questions, so ask questions!”

4. Build relationships across teams and with leaders.

“I’ve been fortunate to have managers who were fierce advocates for my growth and development and kept pushing for me to take on projects that would enable me to grow. Working with managers and mentors that will push visibility of your achievements upwards to leadership is the first step. I think the next level of leadership is someone who also pushes you to think about the next project that will enable you to grow and make their job of advocating for you easy. Then, you have to take that opportunity to show your passion and interest around that work!”