What's the Company Culture Like at Benchling?

How does your culture influence hiring and retention as you grow?

Our mission does a lot of the heavy lifting. We’re working to unlock biotechnology and help bring ten times more life-saving therapies to the world. That attracts a specific kind of person — someone who wants the intellectual challenge of building enterprise software but also wants their work to matter beyond the screen. When your product helps scientists accelerate drug discovery, you don’t have to manufacture meaning.

We also rally around a concept we call “team science.” It’s our way of describing how we work: like a high-performing sports team that believes deeply in what science can do for the world. That framing shapes everything from how we run interviews to how we celebrate wins. It gives candidates a clear picture of what they’re joining and reminds us who we want to be.

Finally, one of our earliest leadership principles is “recruit and develop the best.” It’s not just a hiring mandate — it’s a retention strategy. When you surround talented people with other talented people and invest in their growth, they tend to stay. Excellence attracts excellence.

What values or behaviors most define your company culture today?

Curiosity runs through everything here. One of our leadership principles is “stay curious,” and it’s not a poster on the wall — it’s how people actually operate. We’re building for scientists, so asking good questions matters. That shows up in how engineers dig into the biology behind what we’re building, how product teams challenge assumptions and how people treat mistakes as chances to learn rather than something to hide.

We also live by “play for the front of the jersey.” It means the mission comes first — ahead of personal agendas or team politics. In practice, people step up for problems that aren’t technically theirs, share credit generously and make decisions based on what’s best for Benchling and our customers. There’s not a lot of ego here.

And we’re direct with each other. Feedback flows freely because people want the work to be excellent. That kind of honesty only works when there’s trust underneath it — and there is. People know the feedback comes from wanting everyone to succeed.

Can you share an example of how your team recognizes or celebrates one another’s contributions?

Twice a year, we run Leadership Principle Awards where anyone in the company can nominate a colleague who’s embodied one of our principles — Stay Curious, Play for the Front of the Jersey and the others. The nominations come from everywhere: peers, cross-functional partners, direct reports nominating their managers. It’s not top-down.

What makes it meaningful is how we share it. At our all-hands, we ask nominators to record a short video explaining why they nominated that person. So it’s not just “congratulations, here’s a trophy” — it’s a colleague telling the whole company, in their own words, what that person did and why it mattered. It puts the winner and their work on stage for a moment.

Winners also get a cash prize, which is a nice way to say thank you. But honestly, the videos are the part people remember. Hearing a teammate describe how you showed up for them — that sticks with you.

To me, successful cross-functional collaboration hinges on well-organized meetings and clear documentation. Ensuring the right representatives are present and that everyone is in alignment on decisions and actionables by the end of each meeting helps to keep folks on the same page and maintain momentum.

What measurable progress have you made on diversity and inclusion — and which program drove it?

At Benchling, our diversity and inclusion progress hasn’t come from a single program — it’s come from embedding equity into the systems that shape everyday employee experience. We’ve integrated inclusive practices across hiring, development, pay, promotions and internal mobility, with tools like structured interviews, clearer performance frameworks and pay equity reviews. The goal is to reduce bias, expand access to opportunity for underrepresented talent, and create a more equitable experience for everyone. We’ve also made this a leadership expectation. Leaders are accountable for how equity shows up on their teams through opportunity distribution and inclusive environments. 

We measure progress through outcomes that reflect real experience: retention of underrepresented employees, belonging scores and ERG feedback. These signals show not just who joins, but who stays, grows, and feels they belong. Our shift has been from standalone programs to embedding equity into how we operate, making progress both measurable and sustainable.

Which practice increased fairness in hiring or promotions — and what metric improved as a result?

The practice that’s most meaningfully increased fairness in our hiring process is having evaluations anchored in leadership principles. Each interviewer assesses a specific competency using a shared question bank and structured scorecards, creating consistent standards across candidates and interviewers. This reduces individual interpretation and aligns how we evaluate skills like collaboration, problem-solving and impact. We’ve paired this with strong accountability. 

Through our quality of hire framework, leaders reflect on hiring decisions at 45, 90 and 180 days, with HR business partners reviewing patterns and identifying opportunities to improve. This ensures we’re continuously learning from outcomes, not just making thoughtful decisions in the moment. As a result, we’ve seen greater consistency, stronger alignment across interviewers and increased confidence in the fairness of the process. Today, 98 percent of new hires meet or exceed expectations within their first 180 days at Benchling.

What ritual consistently builds belonging — and how do you know it’s working?

Belonging doesn’t begin months into the job; it starts the moment someone says “yes.” At Benchling, we’ve intentionally designed onboarding to create connection from day one. One of the most impactful rituals is our “First 45 Conversations.”

Within their first 45 days, every new hire has a structured set of connection points not just with their manager, but with cross-functional partners, ERG members and peers outside their immediate team. These aren’t performance-driven meetings; they’re designed to help people understand how work gets done, build early trust, and see where they fit in the broader organization. Managers play an active role by curating these connections and helping new hires reflect on what they’re learning: what’s clicking, where they feel included, and where they may still feel like an outsider. This makes belonging a shared responsibility, not something left to chance. 

We measure the impact through our 45-day quality of hire check-ins and engagement data, looking specifically at early indicators of connection and clarity. The signal is clear: Employees who build strong networks early ramp faster, stay longer, and report a stronger sense of belonging.