How Amplitude’s Learning & Development Stipend Fosters Our Growth Mindset

One of our core values at Amplitude is the act of bringing a “growth mindset” to everything we do. To continually learn new things, we challenge ourselves to combine curiosity with relentless tenacity.

Inside the office, our growth mindset is reflected into many of our day-to-day interactions: we seek and embrace constructive feedback, we take on stretch projects so we can expand our skills, and when we’re faced with a problem we’ve never seen before, we head into the unknown with humility and resilience.

To help foster this mindset, we enable our employees to keep learning about the things that spark their curiosity outside of the walls of Amplitude by providing a Learning & Development stipend: $1,000 annually to learn anything related to their professional development.

Ampliteers use the stipend for a wide variety of learning—everything from workshops to books to software to coaching. We spoke with a few employees about how they’ve been using the stipend, and the impact was clear: the program enabled them to grow professionally in interesting, outside of the box ways. And, their post-learning motivation is contagious. Here’s a closer look at how Ampliteers are investing in learning.

Trey Arnold, Strategic Customer Success Manager, NYC

I took the opportunity to join a strategy workshop in New York. It was a really fantastic opportunity for me and for my personal and professional growth because we focused on mindfulness. I was exposed to people that I’ve never come into contact with before. My experience helped me understand how others think creatively about solving customer problems. I also had the opportunity to get some materials that are going to add value to my life on a daily basis; since this workshop, I now wake up and do an exercise in mindfulness. It’s been a game-changer for me.

In addition, I’ve also taken on some coding courses. The classes are a great exercise for building empathy for my customers and for our internal engineers. The more I know how digital products work, the better I am at speaking confidently about those things. Without the L&D budget, this wouldn’t be possible.

Ran Liu, Senior UX Designer, SF

Before I took the workshop “Own the Room,” I’d always been a little afraid of public speaking—especially in front of cameras. What’s really interesting about the workshop is that the first thing isn’t an intro around the room, or coffee, or chit-chat. You start with recording a video of yourself reading off cue cards with strangers you’ve never met, using a prop that’s completely unrelated to the cue cards. And you have the use the prop some way! That was a sneak peek into the workshop—a lot of hands-on training, lots of video recording.

The workshop provided me with a collection of skills and tactics I can use for my talks. I’ve since given two talks on a public stage, and I think the workshop has really given me a framework and helped me tremendously with my talks.

Samantha Wright, Customer Success Manager, Corporate Accounts, SF

I signed up for a coaching session in May 2019 and was paired with a really remarkable personal coach—one that has been so relatable as she has also been in my shoes as a female in tech.

Turns out, she had worked at Google for several years! Without Amplitude’s Learning & Development stipend, I wouldn’t have been introduced to this coach nor would I have considered the long-term benefits of a coaching regimen.

Prior to my first coaching session, I saw myself as a black-and-white person, extremely introverted and self-defeating in my thought processes, struggling to get through the day while feeling very affected by every obstacle I encountered.

Through weekly coaching sessions, I’ve seen such a tremendous difference in my outlook on life, both personally and professionally. For one, I’ve been giving myself permission to say “yes” to the things that make me happy, have learned how to say “no” to things that no longer serve me. I feel more empowered and stronger everyday.

This coaching has also provided me with so much more confidence and inner-peace. I’ve found that I now worry less about others and focus on what’s going right. I have learned to stop projecting my fears onto social situations, and have since found myself thriving in what once used to be a very scary world as an introvert into a much more vibrant and radiant sense of self.”

We’re committed to supporting growth beyond the office

Enabling learning outside of the day-to-day experiences at Amplitude is a way for us to reinforce our value of growth mindset—we believe in the importance of professional growth, however it manifests. Encouraging our employees to seek opportunities to grow in the direction of their curiosity is core to who we are; we can’t wait to see what Ampliteers are going to learn next.