After some time off with my family, I’ll be joining Apollo GraphQL at the end of the month to be one of the early members of their sales team. If you’re not familiar with GraphQL, it’s a query language that’s quickly becoming the de facto standard for front-end applications to exchange data with back-end services in the modern application stack.
While the spec for the query language is maintained by the GraphQL Foundation, Apollo’s implementation of the spec is by far the most popular. Apollo also offers services such as schema, client, and operations registries, a trace warehouse, and other features that are essential for managing and operating GraphQL at scale, in production.
The technology itself gets me really excited, but just as important in choosing Apollo was getting a sense for who they are and what they value. During the interview process, I never felt like I was being evaluated against a checklist of requirements for the role. It was clear Apollo was more interested in who I am, what I care about, what gets me excited.
At the end of a long day of interviews, Apollo’s head of sales asked me very pointedly “Peter, do you feel like you know Apollo?” He must have sensed I was confused. Was he asking me if I understood the technology or the value proposition of their products? He continued, “Peter, after spending the day with you, Apollo feels like we know who you are. I hope you also have come to really know who we are.”
I love joining companies early on because there’s a very palpable sense of hope and promise that we’re in the midst of creating something different. Sadly, many companies seem to eventually give up on that pursuit. Maybe because things get hard and they fall back on what’s tried and true? Or maybe because it gets too hard to convince prospective hires to believe in these crazy hopes and dreams of creating a new type of company?
I’m excited to be entering a place where I feel a strong sense of that hope and promise once again. Hope is so important. It’s the driving force for what motivates us to something better than the status quo. In Rogue One, Jyn Erso uses just a glimmer of this hope to motivate the rebellion to take on what seems like an impossible mission by proclaiming “Rebellions are built on hope.” I look forward to bringing my experience, my creativity, my personality, my whole self to Apollo towards this mission of creating a uniquely great company.
We’re looking to make some key hires in roles that will be critical to our future growth and success. Take a look and please let me know if you’re interested in joining us on this journey: https://www.apollographql.com/careers/positions
