Empowered and Connected: How Vantage Built a Great Place to Work

What started as a small group in Toronto is now a remote-first team of 120 people spread across North America and Europe. We've grown the business, welcomed new teammates and customers, and advanced an industry that hasn't stood still. 

Regardless of the momentum, one belief has been consistent from the start: when Aran and Brandon founded Vantage, they wanted to build a company people would be proud to be part of.

Today, that commitment still shapes how we show up for work and for each other. And after three consecutive years as a Certified Great Place to Work®, we think we might be on to something.

The best workplaces are built on intention, not proximity

Lately, remote work is often being framed as a problem. For a lot of companies, the story goes something like this: people feel isolated, collaboration suffers, culture erodes. The solution? Bring everyone back to the office.

But location was never the problem. Disconnection was.

At Vantage, we went fully remote during COVID and never looked back. Instead of focusing on where people sit, we've been deliberate about how they connect. The result: 89% of our team says Vantage is a great place to work, compared to 62% at a typical company. That doesn’t happen accidentally—here's how we did it.

We didn't set out to build a "certified Great Place to Work." Brandon and I set out to build a place we'd actually want to work, which turns out to be a decently high bar.

‍‍Every early decision about culture was a conversation between the two of us: what kind of people we'd hire, our values, what we'd tolerate, what we wouldn't. ‍

Years later, the part that gets me isn't the badge. It's that our team continues to anonymously tell a third party that the thing we were chasing from day one is what we've built.” Aran Hamilton | Vantage Co-Founder and CEO

What holds us together

At the heart of how we connect and maintain a great culture is a weekly rhythm anchored by three company-wide meetings, each designed to serve a different purpose.

Monday standups keep everyone connected to the bigger picture. We come together for company updates, welcome new teammates, celebrate birthdays and work anniversaries, and hear from leaders and departments across the business.

Thursday lunches make room for curiosity and connection. Whether it's a lunch and learn, a teammate sharing their passions about a new AI tool, or simply time to be social, it's a chance to learn from each other and spend time together over a shared meal beyond the work itself.

Friday closes the week with reflection and recognition. Every Friday afternoon, we set aside time to celebrate wins, recognize teammates who made an impact, share opportunities for improvement, and end the week together. For us, recognition isn't an afterthought. It's part of the structure of every week, and our team feels it—100% say special events are celebrated here. That's what a culture of recognition looks like in practice.

Together, these meetings become something bigger than calendar invites. They create intentional moments for our team to connect, learn, celebrate, and support one another. That’s our culture.

Trust isn't created by proximity. Belonging isn't created by desk assignments. Recognition doesn't happen because someone walks past your office. It happens when connection is built into the way a company works.

We show up, authentically

Remote work should allow people to share their true selves, not make them feel invisible.

At Vantage, we're a cameras-on company. When you're a regular presence in each other's workspaces—the familiar bookshelf in the background, the dog that always wanders into frame, the kid who pops in to say hello—you stop feeling like a Slack profile picture. You become someone your teammates (and their families) actually know.

That familiarity betters how we work together. It's easier to ask questions and support one another when you know the human behind the screen. It also creates space for people to bring more of themselves to work. Whether it's a company-wide game of Two Truths and a Lie, an icebreaker before a meeting, or the kind of healthy banter that makes people stick around after the agenda ends, we've learned that connection grows in the moments that aren't strictly about work.

These experiences don't just make meetings more enjoyable. They lay the foundation for better collaboration. You can see it during our company hackathon. Cross-functional teams come together to build ideas from scratch, with non-engineering teammates working alongside engineers and learning each other's work from the inside.

This kind of collaboration is built over time, through hundreds of small interactions that help people know and trust one another. 99% of our team says management is honest and ethical—and when people trust who they're showing up for, they show up authentically.

Belonging starts on day one

When a new hire joins our team we don’t just mail them a laptop and hope they figure out the rest. Every new teammate at Vantage is paired with two onboarding buddies whose job is to make sure they feel connected from day one. Buddies introduce new hires during their first all-company meeting, answer the questions they might not want to ask their manager, and help make the organization feel a little more familiar.

We also walk every new hire through the values that guide us—being open and transparent, embracing innovation, and building a diverse, empowered team. The goal isn't just to show someone how we work, it's to make sure they know that they belong and that they’re going to get a chance to do great here. 98% of our team says they were made to feel welcome when they joined Vantage, and that's exactly what our onboarding experience is designed to do.

You can feel the difference whenever we get together in person. At our monthly in-person days and retreats, it doesn't feel like meeting strangers. It feels like picking up where yesterday left off. The relationships are already there. Being together simply makes them stronger.

We built a great place to work

From the very beginning, Aran and Brandon set out to build a company people would be proud to be part of. They knew that kind of culture couldn't be left to chance.

That commitment has earned us three consecutive Great Place to Work® Certifications and recognition as one of Canada's Best Workplaces™, where Vantage climbed from #88 in 2025 to #33 in 2026. What makes those recognitions especially meaningful is that they're based entirely on anonymous feedback from our team, the people who know our culture best.

We didn't get here by forcing our team to spend hours commuting, or mandating where they should sit. We got here by being intentional about how we connect. 

We're proud of what we've built together. Even more, we're proud that the amazing people who make Vantage what it is continue to tell the world that they’re proud to be here, too.