Looking for Something New and Exciting? These 10 Chicago Companies Are Hiring Right Now. (2024)

For Sebastian Cortes, starting his new job as an ontology lead at machine learning company XSELL Technologies was not only exciting and nerve-wracking — it was also life-changing.

After receiving an offer from the companyin Chicago, Cortes left his friends and family behind in Pereira, Colombia to see the opportunity through.

“I would say that a deciding factor to join XSELL was the culture of the organization,” Cortes said.“It makes me feel like I’m at home.”

Cortes’story doesn’t have to be an anomaly. In addition to XSELL, Built In Chicago rounded up nine additional companies across the city that are actively hiring. From Rise Buildings to DRW and more, we caught up with company leaders to learn about what swayed their decision to accept a position at each of their current companies.

What they do: Redstone provides a digital fintech platform that streamlines the creation of esoteric alternative asset classes.

What was the deciding factor for you when you accepted your job at your current company?

What I really like about Redstone is the ability to share ideas and challenge the status quo regardless of my position. The culture we havecultivatedavoids the standard corporate bureaucracy and red tape.Wehavean idea of meritocracy that powers innovation and constant development. There is a feeling of commitment, passion and work ethic that motivates everyone in the company as we all work collectively towards achieving our vision.The radical transparency we foster shortens the feedback loop and helps build trust among the team to work more efficiently and take ownership of our roles.

There is a feeling of commitment, passion and work ethic that motivates everyone in the company.”

Looking to the future, what excites you most about where your company is headed?

What excites me about the company is the vision of creating automations todisrupt the origination and creation offixed income assetsincluding niche products like non-qualified mortgages. By leveraging cutting edge technologies inartificial intelligence and machine learning, Redstone eliminatesmanual processes and inefficiencies in the way financial assets are createdfor institutional investors.We firmly believe our technology and customer-centric concierge-level service set us apart as a leader in our industry and helps us scale into adjacent verticals with ease.

What they do: Rise Buildings is a technology company that provides an all-in-one solution for the real estate industry.

What was the deciding factor for you when you accepted your job at your current company?

There were two main deciding factors that ultimately led to me accepting a job at Rise Buildings.

The first was the culture. During my initial conversations with the Rise team, it was clear to me that everyone I met was passionate about the product and worked hard to achieve the company’s goals. Now that I’ve been with the company for some time, that sentiment has continued to prove true. On top of that, team members aren’t afraid to voice their opinion, challenge decisions and processes to ensure we are setting ourselves up for success. Each employee’s voice is respected and we embrace the diverse backgrounds that other team members bring and unique lenses that can provide.

Second, the company was (and still is) in its early days and in a period of rapid growth. That environment allows for many opportunities for personal growth and gives each person the ability to expand their responsibilities within the company and make meaningful contributions to the future of our organization.

The environment at Rise allows for many opportunities for personal growth and gives each person the ability to expand their responsibilities.”

Looking to the future, what excites you most about where your company is headed or, more specifically, the work you’ll do to help your company get there?

Despite the breadth and depth of our current product, we are still only scratching the surface of what it will one day become. There is a lot of work to be done and what excites me every day is the ability to continue moving the product forward and making our users’lives easier and their use of our platform more enjoyable. As a development team, we like to move quickly, which allows us to see meaningful progress delivered to our users quite often. The next big feature or update is always right around the corner and that mentality keeps each day exciting.

What they do: Healthtech company divvyDOSE is a home-delivery pharmacy focused on adherence packaging.

What was the deciding factor for you when you accepted your job at your current company?

I was working as a pharmacist and teaching myself to code on the side — but after six years, I was ready for a change. I wanted a job that was exciting and aligned with my values and priorities. I stumbled across divvyDOSE and was so interested in the mission that I had to reach out. So, I was immediately connected to Talha, the CTO, and Jana, the VP of people and culture. After hearing more about divvyDOSE from them, I was sold. So much that I was willing to leave my new niece and nephew and move halfway across the country to Chicago from Seattle.

DivvyDOSE is on a mission to make it easier for patients to take their medications and to, therefore, improve health outcomes. Some of the exact problems that divvyDOSE is fixing are things that I saw every day in my pharmacy career. Additionally, the perks of the job were quite nice: flexibility, remote-friendlyand a great office in the River North area, to name a few. I was offered a position with divvyDOSE where I could provide technical support to its pharmacy operations users while they use the software being built by divvyDOSE’s engineering team. This transitioned into being a full-time front-end software engineer! It’s been more than amazing and I am so thankful every day for this opportunity.

We are continuing the mission of helping patients have better health outcomes.”

Looking to the future, what excites you most about where your company is headed?

We are continuing the mission of helping patients have better health outcomes, but now at a much larger scale due to divvyDOSE’s recent acquisition by UnitedHealth Group. We are growing our team in all areas, which is very exciting to see. As a pharmacist myself, I know that pharmacists play an important role as part of a patient’s healthcare team. I’ve been in our pharmacists’ shoes. There are so many manual and repetitive tasks that were a part of the job that take the focus away from the patients. We are getting rid of those! I am most excited to continue building software that supports divvyDOSE’s pharmacists so that they can do their jobs more effectively and provide the best care for patients.

What they do: Oak Street Health offers users a network of primary care centers with a goal of improving health outcomes and managing medical costs for the older adult population.

As a tenured employee, what has been the biggest reason you’ve stayed at your company so long?

Over the three years that I’ve been at Oak Street Health, the company has grown and evolved so rapidly that it keeps my job interesting and challenging. We are never complacent and are always looking for new ways to innovate, whether that be new services to offer our patients or new opportunities for improvement. As a result, the things I’m working on today are totally different from the things I was working on a year ago and from when I first started. I love the opportunity to continue to learn new things and push myself into new areas.

The one thing that is constant, no matter what I’m working on, is the passion and energy of my coworkers. Particularly in 2020, when the company had to pivot — basically overnight — to offering telehealth visits to our patients, it was so inspiring to see everyone rise to the challenge. Challenging work, passionate coworkers and a company whose mission I believe in is what keeps me here.

Challenging work, passionate coworkers and a company whose mission I believe in is what keeps me here.”

Looking to the future, what excites you most about where your company is headed?

We’ve found that existing health IT tools are not well-suited to the patient outcomes our care teams deliver, so our doctors have had to navigate multiple sub-optimal systems to make those tools work. By building a homegrown platform, we are giving them a best-in-class system, imbued with evidence-based clinical decision support, which puts the exact information they need at their fingertips at precisely the moment they need it. As the foundational pieces of that platform have come into place, it opens up exciting opportunities for my team over the next few years.

It’s really cool to see our work in action — to actually go to a center and see our care teams using the tools we built and the impact it has on our patients. It’s rewarding and gives us unparalleled access to collaborate with doctors to perfect the technology in precisely the way that will help them and our patients most. Additionally, it gives us the opportunity to dream big and really think about all the potential innovations and benefits that technology can bring to healthcare.

What they do: BigTime is a time, billing and expense software platform that users can access from anywhere.

What was the deciding factor for you when you accepted your job at your current company?

I joined BigTime due to a few factors. I knew from speaking with the hiring team, our CEO Brianand members of the boardthat BigTime had a vision that I believed in. Not only did everyone have the same goals during the discussion, but they genuinely believed in me being the candidate that could help them achieve the goals with the success team. Since I have joined the team, everyone at BigTime has continued to work toward achieving the goals that were clearly presented during the hiring process. Everyone has been encouraging and accountability between peers is extremely high to ensure we do not stray from the company goals. I have truly enjoyed the transparency throughout the entire process.

The vision that everyone at the company shares aligns cross-departmentally and each individual truly understands their role.”

Looking to the future, what excites you most about where your company is headed or, more specifically, the work you’ll do to help your company get there?

BigTime has brought in some extremely talented people to help grow the already amazing company. The vision that everyone at the company shares aligns cross-departmentally and each individual truly understands their role and is excited to be a part of the process along the way. I am looking forward to being a part of an organization that is continuing to grow at such a rapid pace. I am very excited to coach the members of the success organization as we work to become a best-in-class department.

What they do: Adage is a web design and development firm that combines strategic thinking with advanced technology in order to create comprehensive strategies for its clients.

What was the deciding factor for you when you accepted your job at your current company?

I had been looking for a new role for a long time before I accepted this position. I talked to many talented teams, companies with interesting work and even great mentors, but what really stood out for me about Adage was the focus on growth. Throughout the interview process, there was a great deal of emphasis on not just how I could help the team grow, but on how the team could help me grow as well. That really resonated with me.

There was a great deal of emphasis on not just how I could help the team grow, but on how the team could help me grow as well.”

Looking to the future, what excites you most about where your company is headed?

Adage has a great culture of teamwork and of women supporting women. As we start to move forward to a new normal in 2021, I can’t wait to continue to find new opportunities to rebuild the in-person collaboration that has helped to foster that culture. We’ve found great ways to build connections remotely, so it’s exciting to see how much stronger we can grow from this.

What they do: DRW uses advanced technology to identify and capture trading and investment opportunities globally.

What was the deciding factor for you when you accepted your job at your current company?

The team and company culture made accepting my current role at DRW easy. I joined DRW right out of university. As a computer science major, I had interned at software companies and received full-time offers from a few Silicon Valley companies. While in school, I had never seriously planned for a career in the trading industry.

However, when I came in for an onsite interview at DRW, I felt an immediate connection to the company — a small and collaborative environment, openness to new ideas and technologies, and highly focused on solving the most challenging problems in the industry. My interviewers, whether relatively new or tenured employees, all seemed like self-motivated and high-achieving people, yet at the same time willing to help others. DRW values technology and quantitative talent, so I felt I would be able to make meaningful contributions given my background.

DRW is a small and collaborative environment, open to new ideas and technologies, and highly focused on solving the most challenging problems in the industry.”

Looking to the future, what excites you most about where your company is headed?

DRW has always been an innovative company. Artificial intelligence and machine learning have been revolutionizing many industries including finance and trading. I look forward to seeing how that will change the financial market, create new opportunities and present new challenges.

What they do: AvePoint is an information technology company that offers customers a full suite of SaaS solutions to migrate, manage and protect data in Microsoft 365.

As a tenured employee, what has been the biggest reason you've stayed at your company so long?

As a tenured employee, the biggest reasons I’ve stayed at AvePoint are the culture and ability to grow my career. I started as a corporate recruiter and have since been given so much support to help develop the talent acquisition team into what it is today. I’ve been pushed by my managers and our senior leadership team to learn about the business, align our recruitment goals to that and think “big picture.”

Through my passion for employee development and ensuring the employees we hire feel they have the support needed to succeed, I was given the opportunity to lead our human resource efforts in the U.S. I’ve always been given the support and autonomy to try new things and learn what works and what doesn’t. Our culture is very agile and team-oriented, which makes working here fun because you feel connected to those around you. It’s truly a sense that we’re in this together.

I’ve always been given the support and autonomy to try new things and learn what works and what doesn’t.”

Looking to the future, what excites you most about where your company is headed?

We announced a public merger through aSPAC acquisition in November, so looking to the future, I am most excited to help scale the business and continue to expand the way our people team supports the growth of employees.

More specifically, I’m excited about being pushed to think bigger than ever before and learn from others on how we continue to grow our employee development programs. Together with our chief customer success officer, I recently launched AvePoint’s Talent Optimization Program, which is a program that recognizes our future leaders and will provide a platform for them to grow their skills and further their thought leadership. This program invites employees to propose strategic business ideas that will help push the business forward.

What they do: ShoppingGives is a donation platform thatprovides a Shopify integration retailers can use to enable both business and consumer giving.

What was the deciding factor for you when you accepted your job at your current company, and why?

The deciding factor for me to work at ShoppingGives was the mission and the idea that doing good can also mean doing well. I truly believe that new businesses need to keep ethics in mind to succeed and even legacy corporations often have to re-work their corporate social responsibility models in order to meet growing demand from consumers. When I found a company that was thinking about this as a core value and enabling other brands to build their impact, joining the team was a no-brainer.

ShoppingGives creates an accessible platform for conscious consumption. Whether a brand or shopper, our program gives the user power to do good with dollars spent. Even more specifically, customers have the opportunity to decide where they want money that they spend to go. When I go to work every day, I’m fully confident that we’re helping to better the direct-to-consumere-commerce world and our communities. The opportunity for growth of the company and as an individual within the organization really pushed it over the edge and, once I got to know the team, it washard to imagine working anywhere else. I feel fulfilled by the work I do, it’s more than just an occupation.

Once I got to know the team as well, it washard to imagine working anywhere else.”

Looking to the future, what excites you most about where your company is headed or, more specifically, the work you’ll do to help your company get there?

I’m thrilled to watch ShoppingGives become a recognizable name for consumers. With the number of partners we have now, shoppers are excited to see a charitable aspect to their buying, but may not understand who we are or what we do. As we grow our giving economy, our name will become something that conscious consumers look for when buying from a brand, no different from a B-Corp certification or even an Afterpay option. We’ve already seen our group of giving stores grow, and I’m grateful to get to work with our partners on a daily basis to discern how they want to give and what they want to see from us to build their mission of impact.

As an account manager, I get to work with brands through the ideation phases of their giving initiatives and gain inspiration for new features for our team to create. I’ve watched the idea of “loyalty points for giving” grow from a thought a partner shared all the way through the creation and implementation of a product from our team. Our team is always ready to get creative about giving and I can’t wait to see what that leads to.

What they do: XSELL Technologies uses a blend of proprietary cloud-based natural language processing and machine learning to increase sales and conversion rates for its customers.

What was the deciding factor for you when you accepted your job at your current company?

Moving from a different country, leaving my family and friends behind, I would say that a deciding factor to join XSELL was the culture of the organization. It makes me feel like I’m at home. The foundation of XSELL is built on values of leadership, commitment and transparency that encourages everybody to reach their full potential — which is something you can’t measure. Having a clear vision from our CEO Matt Coughlin and the team allows us to have a clear path of the objectives needed to achieve our goals. It has been a journey since I started a year ago, and I can say that working at XSELL doesn’t just allow me to expand my knowledge on how machine learning takes place nowadays, but it also gives me an opportunity to build a career where I can achieve my personal goals.

The foundation of XSELL is built on values of leadership, commitment and transparency that encourages everybody to reach their full potential.”

Looking to the future, what excites you most about where your company is headed?

Continuing to build stronger relationships with our clients is what excites me. Our team challenges themselves every day to learn and apply new methodologies to innovate our products. I can see our team taking XSELL to the next generation of AI learning by driving even more value and growth to all clients by enhancing and exceeding their customer service experience. As an ontology lead, my role is to support those initiatives, provide guidance, and develop and empower our teams to push themselves towardsurpassing our goals in a short period of time.