Actian acknowledged as one of the top workplaces in Austin By Bikram Gupta Sarma November 9, 2020 When I moved to Austin 10 years ago from the California Bay Area, little did I not know that I would be working in a company that gets acknowledged as the Top Workplaces in Austin today. This accolade was nominated and selected by the employees of the company. Actian Corporation came about as a consolidation of several companies worldwide from 2010 to 2013. In 2016, the company heralded a new leadership team which was very employee friendly and took various steps that benefited all of us in Austin. One of the first steps was to treat all employees in the US equally – irrespective of which constituent company they came from. The second step was establishing a modern office and workplace which gave everyone a reason to get up and come to work every day feeling happy. Friendly people at the workplace made it even more exciting and the office was a welcome location not just to work, but to enjoy the cafeteria and socialize. There were areas in the office that greatly helped us in collaboration. When Covid-19 struck us earlier this year, we all started to work from home. This was a great challenge for the company in general and the Austin office in particular. At the company level various teams were formed to ensure that we had a uniform corporate direction globally, while we followed local laws and were able to take decisions locally. All of us missed our workplace. Locally in Austin we organized regular team get togethers virtually where we would share work-from-home (WFH) challenges and the support needed. Many employees said that they “felt heard” and all “appreciated the help that the IT team put in place” procuring additional monitors to help making WFH experience better. Virtual coffee meets and virtual happy hours on Friday helped keep the community connected and socialize. The CEO of the company started weekly all hands to ensure that everyone knew what was going on. Leadership was in full display and all employees felt cared. As the early steps from 2016 to 2019 made everyone experience a great place to work, recent events in 2020 and the support from the company has made this a Top Workplace. Check out our Press Release. About Bikram Gupta Sarma Bikram is Vice President of Products and Operations at Actian. Previously he was VP of Platform Engineering at Actian, overseeing Zen embedded database, Integration engineering and engineering operations. He has over three decades of experience in executive operations, product development and global management. Prior to Actian, Bikram founded Straxium Corporation – a company engaged in global management of innovation and leadership in cloud and infrastructure technologies. He also held various leadership positions at Oracle as VP Global Center operations, VP Systems Technology and VP Platform Engineering. Bikram has a BS in Electronics Engineering and a MS in Mathematics from BITS, Pilani India. He also undertook certificate courses in Project Management, Finance, Disruptive innovation and Business Analytics from Stanford and Harvard Universities.
