Why I chose to join Eight Sleep as the VP of Engineering
By
February 29, 2024
Caglar Oner, VP of Engineering
In January 2024, I had the pleasure of joining Eight Sleep as the VP of Engineering. Since then, I have had the opportunity to interview many qualified candidates. The most common question during these interviews is, “Why did you join Eight Sleep?” Due to my curiosity, I thought I would share my decision rationale in a blog post.
A job change is a crucial decision, one that has the potential to change the trajectory of your life. Considering the importance, I approached this decision with a framework like most professional decisions. My framework focused on evaluating three pillars: mission, people, and technology.
Mission:
“Fuel human potential through optimal sleep.” I have been honored to work for many top-tier technology companies throughout my career. That being said, I have never been more aligned with a company's mission than that of Eight Sleep’s. Eight Sleep understands the impact of sleep on physical health, cognitive function, emotional well-being, and overall quality of life. Going beyond understanding, Eight Sleep’s mission is to revolutionize how we sleep. I firmly believe being part of a team that improves the quality of life for all its happy customers is an incredibly worthy cause. Check!
People:
During the interview process, I had the distinct pleasure of meeting all three co-founders: Matteo, Massimo, and Alexandra. They are brilliant, hard-working people and their passion for making a difference in human lives was extremely evident in my conversations. They are experts in their respective areas and have fostered the company’s growth from their own homes into the homes of thousands of satisfied customers. After meeting the rest of my peers and my team, I knew I could learn from them and contribute with my knowledge. Check!
Technology:
Our product, the Pod, uses thermal regulation to improve our customers' sleep quality, allowing them to wake up more rested and offset poor sleep's negative physical and mental health impacts. To control and provide the best customer experience, our company builds and operates at each layer, from hardware using sensors and micro-controllers to the backend that channels petabytes of data to our ML clusters, all presented through a beautifully designed, elegant app. Check!
So here are my top 3 reasons! Check! Check! Check!
Changing jobs is a very personal decision, but I hope my decision-making framework may help you as you explore opportunities in the future. If any of this sounds interesting to you and/or you’re obsessed with sleep like me, we are hiring! I would love to find out how you evaluate a company and (hopefully) your reasons for joining Eight Sleep!
My engineering team is currently hiring for Lead Mobile Engineer, Senior Mobile Engineer, and Senior Firmware Engineer, and you can find out all other open roles here