National Capital Region's Top Employers (2025) - Flipbook - Page 32
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NATIONAL CAPITAL REGION’S TOP EMPLOYERS (2025)
Qlik employees connect with the future and each other
J
acob Martin says he was unfamiliar with Qlik until a posting
about a hackathon Qlik was
hosting caught his attention.
He was studying computer engineering at Carleton University at
the time and thought it would be a
good learning experience.
He was right. Qlik is a global
leader in data integration and analytics solutions that help businesses derive value and insights from
their data. Their solutions provide
advanced, enterprise-grade AI and
machine learning, data integration
and analytics. The hackathon was
Martin’s hands-on introduction to
Qlik’s products.
“The competing teams worked
with Qlik’s data visualization
tools on a real challenge designed
around the company’s typical
day-to-day demands,” says Martin,
who also used the hackathon as an
opportunity for networking.
His initiative led to a summer internship with Qlik in Ottawa and
ultimately full-time employment
as a software engineer in 2019.
He has since been promoted to
technical lead, resilient engineering. He provides technical
leadership to a team of software
engineers in France who ensure
Qlik’s customer-facing developers
have the tools they need to serve
organizations worldwide.
Since he started, Martin says,
several colleagues have celebrated
10th anniversaries. In that period,
he adds, friends who launched
their careers elsewhere have more
typically “jumped around.”
Indeed, the demand for workers
with tech skills has traditionally
meant the tech sector has a high
turnover rate. But chief people
officer Ruthann Wry says that’s
simply not the case at Qlik.
“We’re the kind of place where
people come and stay,” Wry says,
citing herself as a typical example.
“A former boss asked me to come
work at Qlik and I told her that I
would only stay for six months.
That was 10 years ago.”
Overall, Qlik’s annual attrition
An employee at Qlik participates in the Ottawa summer party longest drive competition.
rate is less than nine per cent, Wry
says. She attributes the belowindustry-average number, in
part, to the pride and satisfaction
people feel working on the leading
edge of technology and innovation, including Qlik’s data-driven
AI revolution.
We are genuine, we listen,
and we care.
— Ruthann Wry
Chief People Officer
Still, Wry says that when employees are asked what they like
about Qlik, “the product” is only
one of the three usual answers.
The other two centre on its people
and culture.
She says that’s held true even
throughout a series of acquisitions, notably Talend in 2023. It
took resilience and perseverance,
Wry says, but the efforts and
goodwill of key leaders from both
companies ensured a smooth
integration.
That included, for example, harmonizing both companies’ fitness
and wellness programs into what
Wry describes as the “Cadillac” of
all benefits programs.
“We are genuine, we listen, and
we care,” she says.
Those core attributes are key to
Qlik’s thoughtful approach to the
post-pandemic workplace. Unlike
some other organizations, Qlik
chose not to impose an official
five-days-a-week return to office
policy, says Wry.
Qlik believes face-to-face
connections are important, so it
