“Don’t just work with us — grow with us.”
You might have seen this phrase on a PCI recruitment flyer or front and center on our Careers page. Maybe you’ve even heard it straight from the mouth of a PCI recruiter.
There’s a reason we continually highlight it, and that’s because PCI employees are serious about continuous improvement. In fact, it’s one of our four core values.
At PCI, we understand that pushing ourselves personally and professionally doesn’t stop once we hit manager level, get promoted to director, or find ourselves in the C-Suite. A growth mindset isn’t exclusive to new employees or those learning the ropes of a new job — it’s something you cultivate and carry throughout your career.
To illustrate that, we checked in with four of our managers and directors to give you a sense of their leadership styles and how they live out our value of continuous improvement every day in their quest to become better leaders.
Ruth Angarita: Great leaders see your potential
Ruth Angarita started as a business analyst intern on the Mexico team and worked in several roles before becoming the manager of Software Development. Since she started managing teams in 2019, she’s tried to lead by example and be accessible to her team, no matter how busy she is.
Connectivity is a priority for Ruth and her team, which consists of 10 people across four countries. When she started leading her team, before they knew one another well, she’d end each team meeting with a joke to get them laughing. Soon other team members started offering new ideas to interject fun and build connections during the meetings, like discussing the holidays celebrated on that day (think: World Smile Day or National Do Something Nice Day).
“It’s really important to me to have a good relationship not just with this developer or this analyst,” she said, “so I always try to do that during our standups so everyone can participate.”
Ruth said she’s worked with several great leaders at PCI who could recognize potential in people and create opportunities for growth and advancement.
“They always believed in me, even before I saw that potential in myself. They always gave me a lot of opportunities and a lot of challenges to grow within PCI,” she said. “That’s something that I really admire because it can be hard to make those types of decisions where you think, ‘OK, there’s potential,’ but you’re not 100% sure how it’s going to end up.”
David Christopher: Align your team with their passions and meaningful work
David Christopher, senior director of marketing, is intent on helping his team members grow, and that involves aligning them with what they’re passionate about and work that’s meaningful to them. But they won’t grow unless they’re pushed a little bit out of their comfort zone.
He sees empathy as a key trait for great leaders. To him, that means putting yourself in someone else’s shoes and trying to see the world through their eyes.
“If you can understand somebody, what’s important to them, and what makes them tick, you stand a much better chance of aligning them with the kind of work and the kind of situations that they can thrive in,” he said.
When it comes to leading beyond his role in the marketing department, David uses his skills as a communicator to better PCI. That can be emulated by any leader who recognizes how their unique skills can fill gaps within their organization.
“I’m always motivated by impact: How can I have the most impact on our organization?” he said. “Through communication, you can have an outsized impact. I’ve found that I can have a leadership-level impact by helping people and organizations — often leadership — to communicate first with their customer base, which is marketing, but then also with their staff, with investors, and with potential hires.”
Ryan Franklin: Good leaders ensure their teams' voices are heard
Ryan Franklin, director of Application Management, says the most successful leaders set their teams up for success by ensuring they have what they need to do their jobs — that’s everything from resources to expectations and priorities.
“On a more personal level, a good leader ensures their team members’ voices are heard and that their personal needs are met,” Ryan said. “And I think understanding where they want to be, and if they’re moving in the direction they want to go is really important.”
The most successful leaders operate on a level playing field with their team. They seek out collaboration, are comfortable with others challenging their assumptions, and not only give feedback but welcome it for themselves.
“One of the things that’s really important to me in a manager-employee relationship is the ability to have candid feedback, not just me to them, but them to me, and really see each other as colleagues,” he said. “Being able to have a constructive and collaborative relationship is way more important than being in a position where you dictate things and are just directing and telling people what to do.”
When it comes to his continued growth as a leader, Ryan looks to books, blogs, podcasts, and those around him who display positive leadership qualities.
“I think the other piece of that is just being introspective and understanding that I’m not there; I’m not ever going to be satisfied with where I’m at. As far as my skill level or areas to improve, there’s always going to be something that I can do better.”
Larissa Rodrigues: 'If my team succeeds, I succeed'
With 10+ years of engineering experience and technical know-how, Larissa Rodrigues, PCI’s development manager, finds she’s most helpful to her team when she can step in to guide her employees to solve problems. Larissa recognizes that, as a manager, success is no longer measured by her accomplishments. Instead, success is measured by how successful her team can be.
“I feel almost like a piece of a puzzle sometimes, that wherever I’m needed, I can jump in and help and be very hands-on if necessary instead of just delegating,” Larissa said. “I try to put myself to work with different people in different tasks and make sure they succeed. Because if they succeed, I succeed.”
She also understands the importance of gathering feedback as a manager. She often asks her team what they think of her approach to management and what she can do to improve.
“I tend to give them that space because I know how important it is to really listen so we can grow,” she said.
Larissa was hired as a software engineer in 2020 and had expressed interest in a managerial role. Her supervisor, Antonio Lopez, PCI’s vice president of Technology and Platforms, not only encouraged her to pursue her career path but sought opportunities for her to lead.
“Antonio saw the opportunity, and he listened to me when I said, ‘This is the career path I want to take,’” she said. “And he created that opportunity for me.”
Grow with us
PCI employees often say this is a great place to blaze your own trail and meaningfully contribute in a way you can’t at other larger organizations. On top of that, it’s also a great place for aspiring leaders to reach their career goals.
To that end, PCI offers individual manager training and company-wide development opportunities to ensure managers have the skills they need to help their teams and themselves succeed.
Often, top performers who’ve mastered their job duties are promoted into managerial roles, and it’s assumed they’ll become great managers and leaders, said Jeanne Neugebauer, PCI’s training and organizational development specialist. That’s where the ongoing manager training comes in. These trainings emphasize key managerial skills to all managers regardless of role or years in management.
On top of that, PCI managers receive ongoing individual training to address issues and concerns unique to them.
“While we agree that the ongoing manager training is important, and it does provide value, people are different, right? No situation is exactly the same,” Jeanne said. “We have different personalities, different teams, different projects, different everything. So we wanted to start helping our frontline managers with whatever they needed help with.”
PCI is always looking for great leaders and those who aspire to be one. Visit our Careers page to learn more about us and our open positions.