Five reasons you should work at Gartner with me

Gartner is hiring again! We’ve got a number of open positions, actually, and somewhat flexible about how we use the headcount; we’re looking for great people and the jobs can adapt to some extent based on what they know. This also means we’re flexible on seniority level — anywhere from about five years of experience to “I have been in the industry forever” is fine. We’re very flexible on background, too; as long as you have a solid grasp of technology, with an understanding of business, we don’t care if you’re currently an engineer, IT manager, product manager, marketing person, journalist, etc.

First and foremost, we’re looking for an analyst to cover the colocation market, and preferably also data center leasing. Someone who knows one or more other adjacent spaces as well would be great — peering, IP transit, hosting, cloud IaaS, content delivery networks, network services, etc.

We could also use an analyst who can cover some of the things that I cover — cloud IaaS, managed hosting, CDNs, and general Internet topics (managed DNS, domain registration, peering, and so on).

These positions will primarily serve North American clients, but we don’t care where you’re located as long as you can accomodate normal US time zones; these positions are work-from-home.

I love my job. You’ve got to have the right set of personality traits to enjoy it, but if the following five things sound awesome to you, you should come work at Gartner:

1. It is an unbeatably interesting job for people who thrive on input. You will spend your days talking to IT people from an incredibly diverse array of businesses around the globe, who all have different stories to tell about their environments and needs. Vendors will tell you about the cool stuff that they’re doing. You will be encouraged to inhale as much information as you can, reading and researching on your own. You will have one-on-one meetings with hundreds of clients each year (our busiest analysts do over 1,500 one-on-one interactions!), and get to meet countless more in informal interactions. Many of the people you talk to will make you smarter, and all of them will make you more knowledgeable.

2. You get to help people in bite-sized chunks. People will tell you their problems and you will try your best to help them in thirty minutes. After those thirty minutes, their problem is no longer yours; they’re the ones who are going to have to go back and fight through their politics and tangled snarl of systems to get things done. It’s hugely satisfying if you enjoy that kind of thing, especially since you do often get long-term feedback about how much you helped them. You’ll help IT buyer clients choose the right strategy, pick the right vendors, and save tons of money by smart contract negotiation. You’ll help vendors with their strategy, design better products, understand the competition, and serve their customers better. You’ll help investors understand markets and companies and trends, which translates directly into helping them make money. Hopefully, you’ll get to influence the market in a way that’s good for everyone.

3. You get to work with great colleagues. Analysts here are smart and self-motivated. There’s no real hierarchy; we work collaboratively and as equals, regardless of our titles, with ad-hoc leadership as needed. Also, analysts are articulate, witty, and opinionated, which always makes for fun interactions. Your colleagues will routinely provide you with new insights, challenge your thinking, and provide amazing amounts of expertise in all kinds of things. There’s almost always someone who is deeply expert in whatever you want to talk about. Analysts are Gartner’s real product; research and events are a result of the people. Our turnover is extremely low.

4. Your work is self-directed. Nobody tells you what to do here beyond some general priorities and goals; there’s very little management. You’re expected to figure out what you need to do with some guidance from your manager and input from your peers, manage your time accordingly, and go do it. You mostly get to figure out how to cover your market, and aim towards what clients are interested in. Your research agenda and coverage are flexible, and you can expand into whatever you can be expert in. You set your own working hours. Most people work from home.

5. We don’t do any pay-for-play. Integrity is a core value at Gartner, so you won’t be selling your soul. About 80% of our revenue comes from IT buyers, not vendors. Unlike most other analyst firms, we don’t do commissioned white papers, or anything else that could be perceived as an endorsement of a vendor; also, unlike some other analyst firms, analysts don’t have any sales responsibility for bringing in vendor sales or consulting engagements, or being quoted in press releases, etc. You will neither need to know nor care which vendors are clients or what they’re paying (any vendor can do briefings, though only clients get inquiry). Analysts must be unbiased, and management fiercely defends your right to write and say anything you want, as long as it’s backed up by solid evidence and is presented professionally, no matter how upset it makes a vendor. (Important downside: We don’t allow side work like participation in expert nets, and we don’t allow you or your immediate family to have any financial interest in the areas you cover, including employment or stock ownership in related companies. If your spouse works in tech, this can be a serious limiter.)

Poke me if you’re interested. I have a keen interest in seeing great people hired into these roles fast, since they’re going to be taking a big chunk of my current workload.