Our mission: to protect consumer data and restore trust in internet businesses.

How we got here: Vanta was founded in 2016, in the wake of several high-profile data breaches that shook our collective faith in internet businesses. Online security was only becoming more important, but we knew firsthand how hard it could be for fast-growing companies to invest the time and manpower it takes to build a solid security foundation.

We started by automating security monitoring for compliance certifications like SOC 2, HIPAA, and ISO 27001. But that’s just the beginning. Vanta’s vision is to restore trust in internet businesses by enabling companies to improve and prove their security and compliance posture to their customers, prospects, and partners.

Our values are our operating principles: Impact, Ownership, Growth mindset, and Frameworks thinking.

• Impact: We always start with customer needs, not internal constraints. By putting our users first, we’re more likely to solve their most significant security problems.
• Ownership: We acknowledge how each person is responsible for Vanta’s overall success and default towards transparency so Vantan’s can do their best work.
• Growth Mindset: We learn from the world and people around us to understand a problem space. Then we tackle the problem in a hypothesis-driven way.
• Frameworks Thinking: We make decisions based on frameworks, not impulses. This helps us accelerate and improve decision making and articulate the “why” behind what we choose to do.

• Medical insurance (PPO plans and HMO plans)
• Dental insurance
• Vision insurance
• Commuter benefits
• 401k
• All workspace equipment provided or reimbursed for remote workers
• Unlimited PTO
• 16 weeks paid Parental leave (equal time for primary and secondary caregivers)
• Flexible working hours + work location
• Team in-person offsites

We’re about 130 people now and growing! We are seeing rapid growth across the whole company: Engineering, Product, Design, Sales and Partnerships, Customer Experience, Marketing, Finance and Operations, as well as Recruiting and People.

Women now make up two-thirds of Vanta’s leadership team.

We have a universal interview process at Vanta, where the stages are consistent though the interview types vary depending on the role. Candidates can expect:

1. A Recruiter Phone Screen / Introductory Call
2. A Mid-Stage Interview, either with a member of the team or the Hiring Manager (depending on the role)
3. An “Onsite” Interview with 3-5 interviews (via Zoom Video)
4. (For candidates we intend to move forward with) 1-2 reference calls
5. Offer!

If a candidate has had a call and/or reached the mid-stage in our process, we’ll follow up with feedback via email and let them know -- we would offer to answer questions, too. If a candidate has reached the “onsite” stage, we’ll let them know we cannot move forward via email, but proactively set up a call to discuss feedback, too.

Articles on Elpha:

On the power of generalists and the future of security with Christina Cacioppo, CEO and founder of Vanta

We have regular reviews that are a combination of self, peer, and manager review, in alignment with role-related goals and our company values. Employees also have weekly 1:1s with their manager to chat through feedback and should expect to receive (and share) consistent and direct feedback (of both positive and constructive nature).

We don’t have distinguished rules on working hours, but folks tend to sign on by 9am and off by 6pm. You’ll find folks on earlier or later from time to time, but more so depending on how they want to align their day vs. a hard expectation of “when folks are online.” We are flexible with working hours, and mindful of our remotely distributed team when it comes to setting mandatory meetings and calls.

It is the exception and not the rule to find people working at night -- even rarer on weekends. We authentically believe that most of this is also due to personal ambition, and while we can’t say that there are never urgent pieces that pop up (we are a start-up, after all), it is certainly not the norm nor the expectation.

In an interview process, a candidate asked each interviewer their favorite part of working at Vanta. Unprompted, each interviewer unanimously agreed “The people”. We’ve built a culture of folx aligned by shared values, but diverse in background, race, sexual orientation and gender identity, family status, and skillset. We believe we’re both similar and different in the most important ways.

We hold regular virtual team events and in-person happy hours for SF locals. We have “hubs” in NYC, Austin, LA, Seattle, and Indianapolis where Vanta’ns will meet in-person for fun events, team bonding, or dinners! We’ve built an onboarding experience where new hires meet representatives from each team and we have bi-weekly company wide All Hands. For our events, we aim to be inclusive in the event types and event times, with events ranging from book club to fitness-focused to trivia to games to paint night.