your arms around it. I am in HR, but I really feel like we are contributing to something that is important for us, and to the world, about how technology will change the lives of millions of children. So, it is a mission that we feel strongly about and I think it does not really matter what department you are in.
Everybody in the Linux scene assumes that when one vendor competes on the basis of legal fear, uncertainty and doubt, programmers are more likely to work for other vendors -- since Red Hat has been fairly clean FUD-wise, is this helping to attract talent?
I think that focusing on FUD is not something that resonates the core values in a lot of the open source software community. I think that [ Linux columnist] Jeremy Allison said that his contributions would not support FUD efforts. So, I think our efforts and our mission are not attracting FUD. This helps to attract developers to us. Our developers want to contribute to our work and to keep their eye on open source, as opposed to participating in these FUD campaigns. I think that that is the thing that our CEO always says: "keep your eye on the customer."
From your perspective, what will employees find at Red Hat that is not found anywhere else?
Well, recently, because we have been maturing as a company, we have developed what the older companies already have, and that is our total-rewards philosophy. But what we are trying to do from the ground floor up, as opposed to from the top to down, is figure out what Red Hat's philosophy is all about. What are our rewards? Our work experience is one of those rewards. Compensation is part of that too, as are benefits. But our work experience is a big part of that.
After really talking and interviewing a huge cross section of our population across the globe, what we have determined is that our work experience distinguishes Red Hat. We certainly are competitive and want to make sure our compensation is competitive and our benefits are competitive. But what is our defining differentiator is that work experience. So what about it is unique?
Probably, the top one related to this particular discussion is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to participate in the global development and deployment of the structured technology that is going to change the social fabric of the community in which it touches. That is one key differentiator in this work experience.
This is our culture. We are nonhierarchical. We limit the number of hierarchies in the organization, because we want to make sure that we are fostering collaboration and leadership at all levels. We want to make sure that we are celebrating achievements across the company, as opposed to growing the number of managers in the organization. We are really focusing on growing innovators. So, it is a culture that is characterized by open communication and collaboration.
We are offering greater professional-development opportunities and training. We have created Red Hat University. There are different tracks for people so they can continue to grow and learn.
Clearly, a big focus is technical training, so that individuals that are on the technical side can come in and progress right after school. If they are one of the key maintainers of of our core strategy, there are opportunities for them to actually give back and to become one of our secondary experts for Red Hat University. So, I think that these are all factors that really distinguished our work environment and work experience.
What are some of the biggest misconceptions in the IT community about open source and open source talent?
I do not know what others are saying about open source, other than they often get it wrong about what you can use this for, or what you can do with the code, but there are a lot misconceptions about the licensing aspects of open source
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