Refocusing Diversity & Inclusion at Amplitude

About a year ago, we formed the first real iteration of the Diversity & Inclusion Team at Amplitude. Since then, we’ve made a public commitment to embracing individual differences and making Amplitude an inclusive workplace for everyone. We’ve also shared our growth, learnings, and strategies related to this on the Amplitude blog. With 2016 coming to an end, the D&I team has spent some time thinking about how we can evolve in order to be even more effective and results-driven. For that purpose, we recently did a visioning exercise, led by our Chief Revenue Officer (and D&I liaison to the executive team) in order to more explicitly define the overall goal and operating principles of the team. We’re refocusing the D&I Team at Amplitude by asking ourselves 1) why we exist, 2) how we’ll behave, and 3) how we’ll succeed.

Why the D&I Team exists at Amplitude

If you’ve been following our story on the blog, you might recall our (kind of complicated) mission statement that we published back in May. While this statement is still very much true, we’re now expressing the same sentiment in a much simpler way: The D&I Team exists to make Amplitude a workplace where people of any background can be successful and thrive.

How the D&I Team will function

The D&I team will also embrace Amplitude’s cultural values at every step of the way:

• Growth mindset: The lack of diversity in tech is a complex problem. We will always stay open to learning more and discovering ways the team can improve.
• Humility: Since all us come from different backgrounds, it’s important for us to listen and empathize with different viewpoints, as well as stay receptive to feedback.
• Ownership: Every single one of us (not just the D&I team) is responsible for owning our biases and making sure Amplitude is inclusive, welcoming, and supportive.

How we will we succeed

Finally, in order to stay focused as a team, we came up with four pillars of success to help guide the D&I projects and goals we set every quarter.

1. We want to measure the impact of the D&I team by setting both qualitative and quantitative goals and tracking our progress over time.
2. We want to recruit candidates from a diverse pool.
3. We want to enable the whole company with processes to standardize communication, hiring, and promotion criteria.
4. We want to cultivate a better culture of diversity and inclusion through internal education and external participation in community and partnership events.

Planning for 2017

For a good part of 2016, our focus was on auditing the state of D&I at Amplitude and educating ourselves and the rest of the company. We established D&I training for the whole company and made small, but not insignificant strides toward inclusion in the workplace. Inclusion will always be an ongoing effort for this team and for Amplitude as a whole; and now, with these four pillars in place, we can also begin to focus on other ideas.

In the coming year, we’ll focus on two major pillars: measure and** recruit.** With our plans for rapid growth, we’ll be placing a big focus on external efforts like hiring and sourcing diverse candidates and hosting and participating in community events. In tandem, we’ll be exploring ways to quantitatively measure and set goals against diversity and inclusion. We’re always interested in hearing from others who are working on D&I efforts at their workplace. What are your goals for 2017? Let us know in the comments, or reach out to us directly.