This page outlines our values. As we've covered already, this stuff is hard to capture! We've had a strong sense of our values since the founding of hx (they were one of the first things Amrit wrote up on Day 1!). After three years, we've had the chance to reflect on, and refine them to better capture the spirit within the letters.

You'll notice that this section differs from that of most companies (and also, for some hxers, from our previous values wording). We care far more about actions than talk at hx; our values are now shaped as such!

Initiative is essential in any high-growth business, but we look for more than that - hxers actively look to improve hx in ways that we may not have collectively thought about before. We are a very bottom-up organisation in our execution (and even in parts of our strategy) - we prefer autonomy and accountability over micromanagement and task-lists (this doesn't mean we don't have lists - it's that you set what goes in, as long as it helps you get the job done and works for your teammates). hx has been shaped by this "owner mindset" and it drives many aspects of our success.

So, while hx does have "lanes", they are not barriers. We encourage you to push the boundaries - as long as you do so in the right way, with the buy-in and collaboration of your team. Many of our most impactful teammates are those who have operated at the periphery of their role, whether that's bridging parts of our engineering stack, or connecting functions together.

The flipside of this is that you should expect your role and purview to change, possibly significantly, over the course your career at hx. This applies even if you are very senior, and not making "level-based progression". It's been said that high growth businesses regularly reincarnate themselves in an almost completely new form - the faster the growth, the more this happens. This is part of the fun - embrace it!

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hx wants to make a material change to the way one of the largest financial industries in the world uses data to make decisions. This is a difficult challenge! hxers are accordingly fussy about doing things exceptionally well (and this tends to apply to all walks of their life). We used to describe this as "excellence" but this doesn't quite capture it - it's better described as a hunger to do what it takes to be at the top of our game. To do this consistently, even when things get tough, requires intrinsic commitment and drive.

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We do a lot of learning at hx. It's a necessary precondition for lots of the creative, boundary pushing work we do, and a key reason many people join us - one of our aphorisms is that we perennially have more interesting, hard problems to solve than we have brains to throw at them!

hx isn't an R&D lab however. We learn by making something tangible and useful, reflecting what works by listening to clients, partners and each other, and going again. This desire to try things, see what works and change what doesn't also regularly surfaces as part of our approach to personal development and fun, e.g. in hackathons or side projects.

While many hxers have extensive formal educations in their areas of expertise, it's by no means a must-have, and some of our highest performers don't have degrees or formal professional qualifications. We value practical, experienced-based, prowess over book-learning every time.

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This is arguably the value that has served hx best to date. hxers are unusually good at assessing and analysing the universe of possibilities opened up by decisions we make and how they map to current and future customer requirements. This has been a key factor in how we've outpaced many of our competitors.

Thoughtful doesn't mean needlessly complicated or heavy-handed! hxers care much more about thinking deeply and rigorously about the audience, priorities and time-horizon that applies to the work we are doing. We also invest time upfront to reason about the complexity, trade-offs and one-way doors that are inherent in any solutions we create.

Lastly, we aren't afraid to take on feedback and criticism. This can be hard for a business and product that feels like our baby to many of us! However we are incredibly focused on making hx the best that it can be - and we are grateful to our clients and competitors for shining a light on areas which we can improve, or assumptions that we need to update.

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At hx, the way we engage with each other matters as much as the work we do. This is an important baseline for an enterprise technology company, but that's not the root cause of why we care - we believe kindness has a leveraged impact on team effectiveness by reducing friction, increasing the safety of less confident team members and creating an environment where collaboration and serendipitous interactions are more likely. It's also inherently the right way to treat people!

It's important to note that we make a clear distinction between nice and kind:

Both are important, but kindness has a long-term uplifting effect and we prioritise it at hx - even if sometimes being kind means not being so nice (for example, in giving someone constructive, but tough, feedback, we can help them understand where they can learn and improve).

However, even in such circumstances, we are never disrespectful to anyone that we engage with at hx, inside the team or out. One of the nicest complements we've ever received was from an early customer: "we've never met such a bunch of amazingly smart people who are also really enjoyable to work with". This summarises our attitude succinctly - we don't believe that intelligence/capability has to come at the expense of respect and empathy. We are always conscious of our teammates' time, energy and wellbeing, whether this is in a code review, sales pitch, or "watercooler" conversation.

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