Benjamin Encz

Ashby Culture

When the Ashby team met for the first time, we took a moment to reflect on and codify the attributes we value most in those we hire, and on the operating principles that guide our work. We'd like to share that with you here.

Ashby’s Operating Principles

Alan

Altura

aronow.io

Assured is a claims automation insurtech backed by leading Silicon Valley investors.

Assured

Astronomer

Attentive

Aurora Solar

Aven

Our camps give kids both a place to start and plenty of room to grow outdoors as they build skills in a wide range adventure sports, including mountain biking, hiking, kayaking, rock climbing and paddling.

Avid4 Adventure

Benchling

iPaaS integration platform with a worldwide reach

Boomi

Boulevard

Brightline brings virtual behavioral and mental health care to kids and teens, with a focus on also supporting families. 

Brightline

The Browser Company

Calm

Census

Character.AI

Clay

Clever

CloudTrucks

Coder is a remote infrastructure development platform that makes working with code easier than ever. Coder enables everyone from industry rookies to experts to develop code faster than ever before, using templatized starting points and ultra-secure workspaces.

Coder

Cognition Labs

Cohere

Cointracker

Color

Convictional uses technology to make logistics easier for retailers and their suppliers by automating supplier integration, onboarding, and merchandising.

Convictional

Costanoa Ventures

Enterprise-grade accounting, audit, and tax software for your digital assets

Cryptio

Cursor

Dave

Decimal

Deel is payroll for modern business. No matter where you're hiring, Deel helps customers run payroll, supporting 150+ countries with hundreds of worldwide experts. Deel helps their customers know that hiring, paying, and managing stayed compliant and easy in their all-in-one platform.

Deel

Deepnote

Deliveroo

Docker

Dune

Duolingo

EightSleep is more than a mattress company - it's a suite of products devoted to sleep fitness. Their goal is to make sure that your sleep is as high-performing as you are, helping you meet and exceed the bar for excellence in your waking life. Athletes and scientists alike love their range of highly customizable sleep tech because it helps them live healthier.

EightSleep

ElevenLabs

Flock

Form Energy

Format One

FullStory is an insight platform that aims to create a more perfect web experience by capturing website data to give clients like GNC, Carvana, and Lowe’s greater insight into how users access their websites.

FullStory

Galileo

Gorgias

Granola

GrowthAssistant

HackerOne

Harvey

Help Scout

incident.io

Infinite Lambda

Ironclad

January transforms the lives of borrowers by bringing humanity to consumer finance. Their data-driven products empower financial institutions to streamline collections, providing borrowers with straightforward and compassionate solutions to regain financial stability and control over their lives. 

January

Juni

Kustomer

Leapsome

Lemonade

Lime

Linear

Linktree

Lovable

Machinify

Marqeta is a modern card issuing platform dedicated to empowering innovators to launch their products to the world. They have over a decade of experience as a trusted, high-tech solution for builders who need simple, scalable payment solutions.

Marqeta

Mastodon

Mercury

Metaview

Modern Treasury

Monte Carlo is a Series D data observability company helping its customers accelerate the adoption of data to eliminate downtime. 

Monte Carlo

Multiverse

NETGEAR

Notion is the go-to for notes, tasks, wikis, and databases, blending everyday work apps into one. It serves as an all-in-one workspace for note-taking, task management, and project management. 

Notion

Compensation software that offers 5,000+ companies clarity for every pay decision.

OpenComp

Opendoor

Plato

PostHog

PostHog is an open source analytics platform. Their product is used by product, engineering, and marketing teams to understand user behavior, including product analytics, session recording, user paths, a/b testing, heatmaps, and more. The suite, founded through Y Combinator in 2020, has since been installed by over 10,000 companies.

Pragma Platform

ProAmpac

Pulley

QFinds

Quora

Rad AI

Ramp

Readme

Recruiting Pundit

Reddit

Replit

Resend

Retool

peer network for senior in-house resourcing leaders

RL100

Scratchpad

With over 2k clients and 20+ years of experience, Sequoia Consulting Group  is a services, tech, advisory business that provides clients with a platform for rich analytics.

Sequoia

Shelby Wolpa Consulting

Shopify

Sierra

Sift

Snowflake

Engineering Updates

Recruiting Articles

Product Updates

In just over a year since our Series C, Ashby has scaled from 1,300 to over 2,700 customers, grown revenue by 135% year-over-year, and increased the number of interviews scheduled through Ashby by 170%. We achieved that growth with best-in-class efficiency — a burn multiple of under 1x — leaving most of our Series C capital untouched.

That combination of rapid growth and discipline sparked pre-emptive interest from investors.

Today, I’m excited to share that we’ve raised a $50 million Series D, led by Mark McLaughlin at Alkeon with co-lead support from existing investor Lachy Groom and participation from F-Prime, Elad Gil, Gaingels, and other new and returning backers. While the round was significantly oversubscribed, $50 million allows us to maintain a healthy valuation (2x our Series C), stay disciplined on dilution, and invest meaningfully in our next phase of growth.

I first connected with [Mark](https://www.linkedin.com/in/markmclaughlin16/) in 2021 and was immediately struck by his deep understanding of the HR tech space. Alkeon has backed a number of Ashby customers — including UiPath, Confluent, Zip, AuditBoard, Deepgram, and Verkada — which gave Mark a unique lens into the challenges and opportunities talent teams face as they scale. As a later-stage investor, he brings a perspective that’s increasingly relevant as we grow Ashby into a generational business. We treat adding investors with the same [scrutiny as hiring a key executive](https://www.ashbyhq.com/blog/culture/ashbys-operating-principles#5---be-frustratingly-patient-about-hiring), and after getting to know Mark over several years, I’m excited to work with him in this next chapter.

## Starting with a thank you

It goes without saying that none of this would be possible without the amazing support from our customers. Customer love has been one of the biggest drivers of Ashby’s growth—and this was put nicely by our investors’ observations as they surveyed customers for this round:

> “We’ve watched Ashby evolve from a comprehensive applicant tracking system (ATS) to what it is today: the leading intelligent hiring OS powering the most sophisticated talent teams in tech (and increasingly beyond). Through it all, the signal in the noise has been how loved Ashby is by talent teams.” 
>
> — Mark Mclaughlin,  General Partner at Alkeon Capital Management
>
> “Ashby is clearly setting the pace in recruiting software. Not only through rapid product innovation but through a deeply thoughtful approach to applying AI. It’s rare to see a company so aligned with the needs of its community while also defining the future of its category.” 
>
> — Lorenzo Thione, Managing Partner at Gaingels.

Beyond excitement for what we’re building, you all have actively helped shape Ashby through feedback, feature requests, early pilots, and honest conversations about where the product should go next. We’re incredibly grateful for the level of partnership you’ve brought to this journey. Expanding the Ashby community will continue to be a major focus for us going forward.

I also want to give a huge shoutout to the Ashby team. We’ve now crossed 220 employees across 20+ countries, and I couldn’t be more excited about the caliber of execution I see across every function. Customers, Investors, and Partners frequently tell me how surprised they are by how much we’ve been able to build with a relatively small team. Internally, it’s been rewarding to see Ashby become a true talent magnet, letting us grow while maintaining a very high talent bar.

## Why now? Three shifts reshaping recruiting

When we started Ashby 6.5 years ago, we observed that TA teams were becoming increasingly sophisticated. Recruiting Operations was growing in relevance, data was becoming central to how TA teams worked, and many teams were investing more in tools and automation.

We saw a gap open up between what TA teams needed and the tools offered on the market. We built Ashby to fill that gap.

Today, we are seeing a number of forces in the market that are once again accelerating the overall pace of change TA teams are facing:

### 1 | AI usage is moving from novelty to necessity

[Gartner](https://www.gartner.com/en/documents/4480707) now projects that by 2026, more than 60% of recruiting teams will rely on generative-AI copilots to manage high-volume tasks. Yet most AI pilots stall because the underlying data is scattered across point solutions. Platforms that already hold well-structured, end-to-end recruiting data are uniquely positioned to unlock AI’s full value, turning large-language models from clever demos into daily workflow.

### 2 | Quality of Hire displaces vanity funnel metrics

Talent density is the metric that boards are increasingly paying close attention to over time-to-fill. [McKinsey](https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/increasing-your-return-on-talent-the-moves-and-metrics-that-matter) links top performers as being 800% more productive than average performers in the same role; [LinkedIn](https://business.linkedin.com/content/dam/business/talent-solutions/global/en_us/c/pdfs/GRT16_GlobalRecruiting_100815.pdf) reports that Quality of Hire is the most important metric to HR professionals, but only 33% of respondents felt confident in their reporting methodology. Measuring and communicating Quality of Hire and linking it to talent density is shifting from HR aspiration to a business expectation.

### 3 | Hiring teams need an operating framework that keeps pace with change

Hiring plans now swing quarter-to-quarter, technology is changing rapidly, and the types of roles companies need are starting to show shifts, too. TA leaders must recalibrate roles, processes, and headcount in real time while still raising the talent bar. They need a practical framework and a tool with the flexibility and scale to adapt in real-time to those changes.

Supporting you in addressing these shifts is a big priority across both our product and our customer-facing teams. That’s why these shifts make up a big portion of our focus areas after this round. Let’s dive into these next!

## Where this Series D takes us

### Investing in the most powerful, compliant, and thoughtful AI capabilities in the market and the fastest evolving product in TA tech

One of the promises we make to you as an Ashby customer is that you can expect fast and relevant product innovation from us.

We strongly believe that advancements in AI are bringing huge changes to how TA teams operate. In response, we’ve already added a lot of product and engineering bandwidth to ensure that Ashby customers are the first to benefit from the efficiency gains of real-world AI applications.

Ashby is uniquely positioned to embed AI where it truly matters because we already provide an All-In-One platform that delivers ATS, CRM, Scheduling and Analytics.

Today, [AI in Ashby](http://ashby.ai) already unlocks ways of operating that would have been hard to imagine just two years ago. Here are just a few examples:

* **Enabling you to objectively and thoroughly evaluate thousands of candidates in a fraction of the time through [AI Application Review](https://www.ashbyhq.com/product-updates/ai-assisted-application-review)**. A feature that has already processed millions of resumes, letting recruiters triage in minutes, not days; [Jim Miller reviewed 1,500 applications in six hours](https://www.ashbyhq.com/blog/recruiting/ai-assisted-application-review-in-practice), a task that would previously have taken several days.
* **Complete and immediate context on every aspect of the candidate journey and broader pipeline with [AI Candidate Assistant](https://www.ashbyhq.com/product-updates/ai-candidate-assistant)** which surfaces next steps, salary expectations, or interview themes instantly. Over 50% of customers already use Ashby AI in daily workflows and adoption is continuing to increase rapidly.
* **Communicate thoughtfully with candidates in a fraction of the time with AI [feedback summaries](https://www.ashbyhq.com/product-updates/ai-generated-feedback-summaries-for-interviews) and [tokens](https://www.ashbyhq.com/product-updates/ai-generated-feedback-summary)**. These help recruiters write thoughtful, personalized candidate update emails and rejections based directly on scorecards, turning a 15-minute task into a 30-second review. 
* **Quickly generate insights with [AI Reporting Assistant](https://www.ashbyhq.com/product-updates/ai-assisted-report-builder)**. This makes the advanced reporting in Ashby a lot more accessible to all types of users.

Going forward we’re continuing to make major investments in AI. Our native AI Notetaker will be launching Q3, helping draft feedback forms and bringing the rich data of all conversations your team is having in Ashby and making them easily searchable and accessible to all existing AI capabilities.

AI Talent Rediscovery, launching later this year, will automatically surface candidates across the ATS and CRM who could be a strong fit for newly opened roles, unlocking a historically hard-to-tap source of talent.

Today, most of our AI functionality is assistive. Behind the scenes, we’re laying the groundwork for autonomous & agentic AI features that automate multiple steps of complex tasks - there’s a lot more to come on this front in the coming months!

Across all of our AI investments, we’re continuing to build on top of our [five pillars of responsible AI development](https://www.ashbyhq.com/ai#responsible-ai): Accountability, Transparency, Fairness, Safety, and Privacy & Security.

We want all of our AI functionality to live up to our high product standards and ensure it delivers immediate value to the TA teams we’re supporting.

As Tommy Hansen of Juniper Square says:

> “Ashby’s AI really enables us to get back to the roots of recruiting. A lot of people feel like AI’s going to take the human factor out. I have an opposing view on that. I think we’re going to be able to get back to why we all wanted to become recruiters. Ashby's leading the category in AI, and I think you're all just getting started.”

As always, our roadmap extends well beyond AI functionality. We are continuing to deliver on our “all-in-one and best-in-class” promise with continuous improvements across ATS, CRM, Scheduling Automation, and Analytics. Your ongoing feedback is leading to multiple meaningful product updates each week (you can see a full list of recent releases [here](https://www.ashbyhq.com/product-updates)).

As we have in the past, we intend to stay close to topics that are top of mind for the TA community and address these quickly. As just one example, we’ll be launching a suite of tools to address the increase in candidate fraud many TA teams are seeing in Q3.

We will also ensure that our product updates remain relevant across all of our customer segments. We are adding a lot of functionality for our largest Enterprise customers; at the same time, we’re ensuring that ease of use and streamlined onboarding continue to improve for our earliest stage customers.

### Doubling down on Customer Success

In our [last fundraising round](https://www.ashbyhq.com/blog/culture/series-c), we made a note that[ Customer Success was a big ongoing priority for us](https://www.ashbyhq.com/blog/culture/customer-success).

> "Excellent customer success is notoriously hard to scale. We’re committed to spending the time, energy, and money to make it happen."
>
> — Excerpt from [“Announcing Ashby’s $30M Series C”](https://www.ashbyhq.com/blog/culture/series-c)

Today, we are proud of the progress we have made in delivering a highly differentiated (and loved) experience for customers. We’re now doubling down on our Customer Success function, through Professional Services for complex roll-outs, publishing weekly Customer Education content, and this month introducing 24/7 human support. We’ve also launched our Ashby Experts program, which provides a network of TA professionals who are deeply skilled at implementing Ashby.

At Ashby, we think of Customer Success as an immediate extension of our product, and we will continue to invest in it as such.

### Investing in our Enterprise Segment

When we started Ashby we saw a gap in ATS options for Enterprise customers. They needed to choose between a solution with solid UX that their hiring teams would want to engage with and the customizability that is required to run a large-scale, complex, recruiting operation.

With Ashby, we’ve aimed to bridge that gap. Our Enterprise segment has grown 123% year-over-year. Customers like Shopify and Snowflake are benefiting from Ashby’s advanced customization capabilities and our turnkey [Workday integration](https://www.ashbyhq.com/product-updates/new-integration-workday).

Our Workday integration is a great example of how Ashby can seamlessly fit into a complex Enterprise tech stack. This quarter, we are launching similar integrations with UKG and ADP.

Across both Product and Customer Success, we’re continuing to make investments that make Ashby the ATS of choice for forward-thinking Enterprise TA teams.

### Operationalizing Quality of Hire

TA dashboards revolving around time-to-fill, offer-acceptance rates, and cost-per-hire remain useful but deeply incomplete. Because the simple truth is: hiring the wrong person is expensive. The U.S. Department of Labor estimates that a single bad hire can cost up to 30% of that person’s first-year salary, putting director-level misfires comfortably north of $60,000.

To tackle this, Ashby is approaching it in stages – to date, a lightweight and customizable survey that requests feedback from hiring managers at 30, 90, and 180 days that then feeds the data straight into Ashby Analytics. Usage of this feature is up 150% since January, and 25% of enterprise customers run live programs. [Flock](https://www.ashbyhq.com/customers/flock) boosted 90-day confidence scores 22% by adding an early technical screen.

I’m excited that we’ve been able to be a significant driver for the adoption of Quality of Hire programs, which historically have been very hard to get off the ground. This will remain a major area of investment for us going forward.

### Expanding our Ashby community programs

From our earliest days, the Ashby community has been a priority and grown organically, from our RecOps Community Slack and customer referrals to meetups and feedback calls. What started informally has become one of our strongest signals of long-term impact: when our customers level up, so do we.

This year, we made our biggest investment in community to date. [Ashby One](https://www.ashbyhq.com/ashby-one/2025), our first customer conference, brought together hundreds of practitioners in San Francisco across a week of sessions, panels, dinners, live streams, and experiential events. We’ve launched new cohorts of our Recruiting Operations and Hiring Excellence courses, created certifications to help customers grow their careers, and expanded our Talent Trends reporting to help teams benchmark where they stand. Our new Ashby Customer Expert (ACE) chapters—live now in Denver and Seattle—give local leaders the tools to host community dinners, share learnings, and stay connected beyond the screen.

Looking ahead, we’re using Series D funding to deepen that investment: expand our ACE chapter reach, scaling our education programs, and growing partnerships with groups like Talent Collective and Growth by Design. 

## Culture as Compounding Advantage

Since our Series C, we’ve achieved significant growth in key metrics such as our customer base, revenue, product usage and product velocity. The increase in metrics is an important part of the story, but the Ashby culture explains how it is possible. Ashby’s [Operating Principles](https://www.ashbyhq.com/blog/culture/ashbys-operating-principles) - from Apply First Principles to Thoughtful Communication - drive daily choices and help us to attract candidates who resonate with these principles. We value written, considered communication over meetings, protect focused time, and are frustratingly patient about hiring (and closely monitor our Quality of Hire metrics). 

The result is a team of 220 people across 20+ countries with zero attrition on the original executive leadership team, and a deliberate culture that allows for thoughtful connection and enables everyone to do their best work. If that sounds like your kind of place, good news: [We’re hiring across all teams](https://www.ashbyhq.com/careers).

## Back to Building!

I have touched on this as part of every fundraising round: While it’s exciting to top up the bank account and draw some additional attention to the business, fundraising does not lead to ongoing success in and of itself.

At Ashby, we like to keep distractions to a minimum. So today we’ll briefly enjoy this milestone, but at the same time, we’re already back to work with a strong focus on further improving your overall experience with us.

Once again, thank you for your trust - we’re excited to accelerate our product, community, and most importantly, the impact our users have using Ashby every day.

An update from CEO Benjamin Encz on Ashby's Series D round of funding. 

Announcing Ashby’s $50 Million Series D

Kelsey Peterson

I drafted this reflection the week before [Ashby announced its Series D](https://www.ashbyhq.com/blog/culture/series-d) on 22 July 2025. Fundraises create a natural moment to reflect – and it’s due time for me to capture where our Customer Success organization stands and where we’re headed. I’ll continue to update this post as we grow, but now feels like the right time to articulate the promises we make to customers, the expectations we set with the team, and how the two thread together to shape our next 12–18 months of investment.

## My Perspective

I’ve spent over a decade in Customer Success roles at HubSpot, in the People Analytics world, and now at Ashby. I have come to hold strong opinions about what makes for an excellent CSM — some of which depart from the industry norm. ​​Too often, CSMs are cast as part Account Manager, part Relationship Manager. At best, this doesn’t fully solve for the customer. At worst, it’s a thinly veiled upsell strategy.

In my experience, the best CS orgs live at the intersection of 1) market insight, 2) product expertise, and 3) customer context. When these three circles overlap, customers experience what I think of as the spotlight effect: their team’s work shines because someone backstage knows exactly where the beam belongs. This belief drives how we’ve built the team at Ashby:

> “Customers should get what they need just in time… We have to meet them not just where they are, but where they’re going.”

 Every CSM is hired for curiosity and product acumen. Within a year, they’re true experts who can oscillate effortlessly between tactical improvements and C-Suite conversations.

![](/images/great-cs-at-ashby.png)

## **Market → Product → Customer**

While I maintain that the spotlight effect is an imperative agnostic of industry, it’s especially critical for Talent Teams.

### Market

Talent Acquisition trends move fast — and often contradict themselves. One quarter: *hire* *300 engineers yesterday*. The next: *freeze everything and justify every role*. McKinsey calls it the *yo‑yo economy of talent*. It’s real, painful, and expensive (reactive recruiting can cost 40% more per hire). The reality is that Customer Success is kneecapped from truly helping customers unless we're deeply familiar with the customers’ world. A good CSM should be able to explain to a Series B founder in San Francisco why their compensation ratios look different from a FinTech in Berlin — no deck required. This level of fluency only comes from being a student of the market: reading analyst notes, sure, but – more importantly – taking the time to learn from TA folks directly (and ultimately understand patterns across the talent landscape).

### Product

Our job is to help customers adopt Ashby in ways that directly support their business outcomes (thank you [Casey](https://www.linkedin.com/in/caseyfroberts/) for connecting the [Hiring Excellence Framework](https://www.ashbyhq.com/blog/recruiting/hiring-excellence-framework) to our customer outcomes framework). To do this requires mastering every corner of Ashby, from advanced scheduling rules to the statistical underpinnings of Quality of Hire dashboards. But fluency alone isn’t enough. We anticipate how features land in real hiring environments. New alerting logic? We model what happens when a Hiring Manager ignores Slack. New benchmark report? We begin to shape the board-level narrative. It’s a muscle we’re continuing to build — because even the best features don’t drive impact on their own. A (slightly brutal) reminder from Gartner: 75% of SaaS features are underutilized at renewal. Does every customer need to use every feature to see value? No – that’d be Ashby-centric and not customer-centric. But it is our job to ensure customers are equipped to get the most out of the functionality that supports their goals.

### Customer Context

Finally, none of this matters if we don’t understand the day-to-day reality of any given organization. A Director of Recruiting might care about Quality of Hire, while their team is laser-focused on speed. When priorities seem misaligned (or are), CSMs must lead with curiosity and candor to drive clarity – better to ask one question too many times than one too few. With greater alignment, our Customer Success Team helps customers focus on what matters most.

![](/images/ashby-great-cs-bad-cs.png)

When these three lenses overlap, the experience feels effortless, like a well-lit stage. As an audience member, you don’t think about the spotlight operator – you simply see the actor in perfect clarity. When one lens is missing, however, the spotlight drifts. 

Our precision in CS keeps the focus where it should be.

## What We’re Building (and Why It’s Different)

We could’ve followed the standard SaaS playbook: strict ratio targets, QBRs, churn scores. (Forgive me, but yawn). Instead, we kept what worked — and rewrote the rest.

### 1. Customer Informed Roadmap

When I joined in February 2023, Ashby already had a strong feedback loop between CS, Support, and Product. Today, we track friction points across the lifecycle and hold a P-level company goal to reduce them. Our CS Team takes pride in uncovering the driving force behind customer suggestions, why those are important to the unique goals of a talent organization, and championing customers internally by influencing product decisions. While I could dedicate an entire post to our commitment here, the snapshot below is just one example from our internal product expert [Sheanee](https://www.linkedin.com/in/sheanee-michaud/)’s recurring digest email. 

![](/images/example-voice-of-customer-ashby.png)

Ultimately, customer suggestions are one of the three key inputs we consider when shaping the [roadmap](https://www.ashbyhq.com/blog/culture/product-velocity), alongside our long-term product vision and consideration of market shifts.

### 2. Hiring for the “Product‑Market‑Customer” Gene

 Most CS orgs hire for archetypes: relationship-first, commercial-first, or product-first. At Ashby, we hire utility players who can traverse elevations on a topic – people who can move from deeply nuanced product questions about the [Recruiting Planner](https://www.ashbyhq.com/product-updates/recruiting-planner-visualizations-forecasting) to elevated headcount strategy discussions without breaking stride. In interviews, I look for candidates who respond to ambiguity with curiosity: They ask for context, data, and seek to define outcomes. Excellent CSMs feel “itchy” when something isn’t quite right for the customer — and channel that instinct into action. For me, this quality matters materially more than the logos on their resume.

### 3. Force Multipliers, Not Solo Stars

Knowledge grows when shared. CSMs at Ashby codify their learnings into playbooks, articles, and enablement resources. This creates compounding value. Advanced Scheduling metrics become a Lunch and Learn (thank you, [Christian](https://www.linkedin.com/in/novicks/)); clever reports become a templated dashboard ([Emily](https://www.linkedin.com/in/emily-withers-a7770a84/), appreciate you); an onboarding best practice becomes an [Ashby Academy](https://academy.ashbyhq.com/) module (shout-out to [Jace](https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacetala/)).  Our team knows that if they hoard knowledge, they’re failing the mission.

### 4. A Single Definition of Customer Health

Ask a handful of SaaS companies for their health score and you’ll receive a litany of responses. We’re simplifying our assessment to four core leading indicators: achievement of customer outcomes, product usage data, intent signals, and – drumroll please – human input. Each has sub‑metrics, but the point is clarity. A yellow account means the CSM can pinpoint which of the inputs needs attention and why (big thank you to [Britney](https://www.linkedin.com/in/britneytalty/) for all your work here – it has certainly been a labor of love).

### 5. Investment in Specialized Roles

In 2025, we tripled the size of our Support Engineering Team and doubled our Contract Management function. Next up: expanding our team of Recruiting Operations Consultants. Each of these specialized roles strengthens our ability to lead with a proactive, customer-centric approach — and reinforces that Customer Success is a team effort.

## A Promise to the Team

Yes, I’m obsessed with customer outcomes — and equally committed to building an environment where every team member across Customer Success, Support, Professional Services, RecOps, Implementation, and Contract Management discovers their strengths, stretches well beyond their comfort zone, and accelerates their career.  In practice, that means:

* **Force Multiplier Culture**. You non-negotiably make your teammates better — and they do the same. Expect steep growth in both hard and soft skills (sometimes uncomfortably steep).
* **Product Mastery**. You will arrive with strong product acumen; within your first year, you’ll become an Ashby expert capable of designing and teaching complex workflows.
* **Ownership**. In alignment with our Operating Principle of [Prioritize Ownership](https://www.ashbyhq.com/blog/culture/ashbys-operating-principles#4---prioritize-ownership) – own your book like a founder, share your learnings like a teacher, and continue to raise the bar with peers and customers alike.
* **Empowerment**. If you know the right move, make it. We trust you.
* **Informed Product Decisions**. You’ll influence what we ship next via regular engagement with our product roadmap software, our Friday Product Stand Ups, weekly round-ups, and more.
* **Career Growth**. Whether you want to double down in CS or explore other functions, we’ll support you in mapping your path to identify opportunities at the intersection of your strengths, joy, and Ashby’s needs. We’ve seen colleagues migrate to Marketing (congrats, [Elizabel](https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabel/)), Product (hello, [Ravan](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ravan-c-43a95140/)!) and promoted within CS (most recently, shout-out to [Morgan](https://www.linkedin.com/in/morgan-omarro/) as the newest Manager of our Implementation Team)!
* **Data-Driven**. We make every reasonable effort to equip you with the information you need to do exceptional work
* **Aligned Go-To-Market**. In no uncertain terms, our Sales Team is excellent at accurately depicting the product and the post-sale experience; this means we get to hit the ground running with customers at kick-off – no surprises.

This is how we multiply our impact — and that of our customers.

## A Promise to Customers

Over the next year, our investments align with our strategic approach:

* **24/7 Global Support** (365 days a year) across AMER, EMEA, and APAC
* **A Support Engineering Layer** to resolve complex issues faster
* **A New Knowledge Base and Ticketing System** optimized for your experience
* **AI‑Powered In-App HelpHub** — already 50,000 questions answered with more than 90% rated excellent (yes, we review every single response)
* **Enterprise‑Grade Professional Services** packages that remove lift and accelerate time-to-value
* **Community Programming**: user webinars, Ashby Academy, Ashby Customer Expert programming, and more

Our north star is simple: understand your opportunities, elevate your workflows, and ensure your team looks brilliant under the spotlight (spoiler: you make it easy).

## Closing Thoughts

Customer Success at Ashby is not a cost center. It’s not insurance for renewal. It’s a strategic growth driver. 

When we anticipate market shifts, translate product complexity, and explore the unique context of every customer, we create a flywheel: customers realize more value, they share with others, the market elevates expectations, the bar raises further. That virtuous cycle earns Ashby our seat at the table — and helps how our customers earn theirs.

If you’re already with us, I hope this reflection deepens your confidence in our partnership. If you’re just getting to know Ashby, know this: the product you buy comes with a team obsessed with your success. We’ll keep the spotlight right where it belongs: on you. 

And if you’re a CS professional looking for your next challenge? [Let us know](https://www.ashbyhq.com/careers).

At Ashby, Customer Success isn’t about renewals—it’s about helping talent teams shine. Learn how our team blends industry know-how, product mastery, and customer insight to keep the spotlight on our customers.

Customer Success at Ashby: A Core Differentiator

Will Ducey

I’m Will Ducey, and I’m starting my new role as Head of Recruiting Operations at Ashby.

For over ten years, I’ve built and led global recruiting teams. My journey has taken me through a variety of experiences, but the one that really changed my path was a work trial at Automattic. It gave me the opportunity to transition into Recruiting Operations, a field that perfectly aligned with my curiosity, my love of learning, and my passion for making teams better.

For the past three years, I’ve had the privilege of leading internal recruiting operations. What we accomplished together through many different hiring cycles is truly incredible. From centralizing our coordination team to transitioning from a legacy ATS to Ashby All-in-One, every step we took was an intentional move towards leveling up how we operate.

I’ve always prided myself on staying ahead of the game when it comes to hiring, and specifically, RecOps. Whether it was [email automation](https://www.ere.net/articles/email-automation-tips-to-increase-candidate-response-rates-by-will_ducey) in 2015, [structured interviewing](https://www.ere.net/articles/why-structured-interviews-are-the-best-way-to-hire) and [recording interviews](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/my-journey-brighthire-will-ducey/) in 2019, or the many other topics I’ve written about [here](https://www.willducey.xyz/), I’ve always looked for ways to innovate. So in 2023 as we were implementing Ashby, I was curious to see what opportunities would present – namely in the areas of automation, standardization, alerting, reporting, and hiring transparency.

## Why I’m excited about Ashby

Jim Miller wrote a job description for an [audience of one](https://www.willducey.xyz/job-descriptions-built-for-hiring-performance-and-business-success/). Multiple colleagues saw the job post and said, “it was written for you.” I took a look and agreed. I have been very intentional over the last couple of years to share my ideas, start a podcast, and ensure that I would be ready for a role like this.

I was an Ashby customer for three years. I started using Ashby Analytics and then transitioned to All-in-One. I recognized the Ashby team that drove our experience and knew firsthand what the product could do. I can still remember pushing our business leaders to make the switch to Ashby All-in-One. At the time, recruiting wasn’t a huge focus, and no one was complaining about our hiring stack. But I knew the next phase of growth was coming, and we’d need the full capacity of Ashby to hit our hiring targets. We couldn’t throw more people at the problem, and we certainly couldn’t have our recruiters bouncing between multiple systems. We needed a streamlined, efficient process, and I had conviction that Ashby was the solution.

After moving to Ashby All-in-One,  we focused on improving our processes to scale and improving key performance metrics. Even as we onboarded brand-new team members, Ashby gave us a streamlined, scalable way of working that kept everyone aligned and moving fast. We accomplished this while architecting the system, migrating candidate records, launching new reporting dashboards, and adapting quickly to frequent product updates and evolving needs.

We delivered a step-function improvement in Recruiting in just a few months. With the foundation in place and the team positioned for long-term success, I made the decision to join Ashby and bring that level of impact to more organizations.

My second week at Ashby began in San Francisco for [Ashby One](https://www.ashbyoneconference.com/). Who doesn’t love speaking at their company’s conference on week two?! I made the most of the opportunity and even danced on stage to my [walk-up song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qparhhC1YB0).

![](/images/_c1a1062.jpg)

It’s rare in a distributed company that you get to meet so many colleagues this quickly. Everyone I met exceeded my expectations. Benji greeted me with a hug and genuine excitement for me to be there. When I accepted my offer, so many of my future colleagues reached out to congratulate me. I have never felt so welcomed to join a company.

I have experienced the power of Ashby in rapidly and systematically scaling hiring, and I could not be more excited to champion market adoption across all businesses that want an efficient, fair, and effective hiring process.

## What I'll be focusing on

Like all thoughtfully scaling organizations, I’ll be diving into Ashby’s internal hiring operations first. I’ll drive internal adoption of yet-to-be released capabilities while also focusing on the long-term architecture of our [Hiring Excellence Framework](https://www.ashbyhq.com/blog/recruiting/hiring-excellence-framework). 

* Scale. I am a team of one, and my goal is to stay this way for as long as possible. Our hiring process is hiring manager-led, and I know what Ashby is capable of. We’ll use the Ashby product to increase our leverage as we scale.
* Experimentation. As the best-in-breed hiring stack, we need to understand how to hire effectively and have an opinion on what works, what we’ve experimented with, and constantly evaluate our perspective.
* Knowledge Sharing. Once I’m fully settled in, I look forward to connecting with our current and soon-to-be customers to better understand their challenges. This will deepen my understanding and help me figure out how to share best practices with our industry. 
* Product Influence. Like a puppy who sees his owner return home and open the door, I am so excited to learn about our [immediate product roadmap](https://www.ashbyhq.com/ashby-one-whats-new) and influence enhancements and new offerings for better hiring. As we continue to evaluate the first principles of hiring, I am certain we will re-imagine new workstreams and processes that enable companies to bring in the best person for the role.

Ashby is the real deal. The [product](https://www.ashbyhq.com/enterprise), the [people](https://www.ashbyhq.com/team), and the [product philosophy](https://www.ashbyhq.com/blog/culture/product-velocity) will continue to elevate hiring for everyone.

Even as a customer, I always felt like I was part of the Ashby story. Now, I’m grateful to be part of it from the inside.

I know considering a change of your hiring management system can be intimidating. I am here to tell you, with Ashby, anything is possible. As a RecOps practitioner, if I can help you with any questions or considerations, please reach out.

## Thank you

For everyone who has been a part of my career journey so far. Thank you! I wouldn’t be here without you. ♥️

Thank you to [Christian](https://www.linkedin.com/in/novicks/) (best CSM), [Jim](https://www.linkedin.com/in/jmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm/), [Benji](https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjaminencz/), and the rest of my interviewers for the opportunity! LFG!

A letter from RecOps expert Will Ducey on joining Ashby.

A Letter from Will Ducey on Joining Ashby

Max Butler

During my first week at Ashby, I had some time to reflect on all the conversations and detailed onboarding sessions I’ve been part of. It’s given me a glimpse of what the next chapter of my career will look like — and got me excited! A number of people have asked “Why did you join Ashby?” 

I thought I’d share my answer publicly.

## My Entry into Recruiting

To provide some background, I was first introduced to recruiting by my brother and cousin. While still in college, I watched them both start their careers while also encouraging me to explore it. They both seemed pretty happy and (perhaps more importantly at the time) were making money (shoutout to [Preston](https://www.linkedin.com/in/prestonbutler/) and [Tricia](https://www.linkedin.com/in/tricia-holderbaum-99b78335/)). 

A week after graduating, I dove headfirst into recruiting at a large agency. The first half of my career involved a bit of everything — sourcing, coordinating, and recruiting for companies big and small. In 2016, I was given the chance to transition from Tech Recruiting to Recruiting Operations — and I was hooked. 

Over the last eight years, I’ve built and led recruiting ops teams, helping companies hire top talent efficiently. I’ve seen what good looks like… and what bad looks like. I have demoed and/or purchased what feels like every recruiting tool on the market, revamped recruiting processes, and put together awesome (and some not-so-awesome) reports and dashboards. At the end of the day, I love working with teams to elevate their hiring practices and achieve [hiring excellence](https://www.ashbyhq.com/blog/recruiting/hiring-excellence-framework).

## Discovering Ashby

In 2022, I started hearing whispers about a new analytics tool that plugged into your ATS called Ashby. Naturally, I was intrigued. But when I finally got to see it in action during my time at CaptivateIQ, I felt like a kid in a candy store. I was blown away by its ability to do what so many ATS and analytics products couldn’t — it was user-friendly, gave me real-time data, and it actually *worked*.

But as cool as [Ashby Analytics](https://www.ashbyhq.com/analytics) was, what really blew me away was the support we got from the Ashby team; whether it was customer success, product, or engineering, every interaction was next level. I was ready to be among them.

## Why I Joined Ashby

Three main reasons:

### 1. The People 

As mentioned, my interactions with Ashby’s team as a customer were always positive. As I’ve gotten to know several more employees over the years, I was blown away by their expertise, kindness, and work ethic. Every single person I’ve met is damn good at their job. It’s rare to find that level of talent and character in one place.  Being here myself I can see that the company really does live by their [Operating Principles](https://www.ashbyhq.com/blog/culture/ashbys-operating-principles) and  pushes me to be better.

### 2. The Product 

I’ve come across maybe two or three “holy sh!t” products that I knew had the potential to change the industry. Ashby is one of them. Seeing it spread like wildfire throughout the recruiting world — especially during a time when recruiting was facing some tough challenges — has been inspiring. I’ve watched recruiting teams consolidate their tools and systems into Ashby’s all-in-one ATS, saving money and increasing efficiency. 

It’s the kind of solution RecOps leaders dream about. And Ashby doesn’t just stop at efficiency; they’re paving the way for practical use of [AI in recruiting](https://techcrunch.com/2024/06/03/ashby-injects-recruiting-with-a-dose-of-ai/) and tackling important topics like Quality of Hire. Watching Ashby turn these concepts into [game-changing features](https://www.ashbyhq.com/product-updates/quality-of-hire-an-actionable-approach) quickly sealed the deal for me.

### 3. Prioritization of Recruiting Operations 

Since staking my career in RecOps back in 2016, one of the biggest challenges I’ve faced is finding tools that not only solve real problems, but can support the overall recruiting strategy and various workflows. Unlike most products, Ashby has Recruiting Operations at its core – whether it’s embedding sourcing to build a powerful CRM and ATS together or [effective scheduling for a better experience](https://www.ashbyhq.com/product-updates/ashby-scheduling-2-0) for all. 

This didn’t just mean I’m able to elevate the quality of work I could produce, but it also enables me to have an entirely different type of conversation with leaders across the business. In addition to the product, Benji and the team do a lot to support the community – if you’re in RecOps and not already in the community, [apply here](https://www.ashbyhq.com/resources/community) (and shoot me a note).

## My Role and Vision

I joined Ashby as a Recruiting Operations Consultant, working alongside the talented [Olivia Roberts](https://www.linkedin.com/in/oliviaroberts08/). While this is a big (and maybe uncomfortable) shift as I now become part of a Customer Success team, it’s also a huge opportunity to learn from a ton of talented RecOps folks, recruiters, coordinators, and sourcers across Ashby’s customer base. If I do my job well:

* Customers will not only get the most out of Ashby, but they will have a dedicated thought partner to help with process improvements, develop recruiting strategies, and plan for both long-term and short-term goals.
* Team up with Ashby Customer Success Managers to guide customers through reports and dashboards, use industry benchmarks to assist with goal setting, and educate users on sharing insights with stakeholders.
* Customers will never be left in the dark and will have access to content and ‘pro tips’ on how to setup and scale with Ashby.

I have a lot to learn, but here’s what I know for sure: We will continue to take care of our customers, improve, and push the boundaries of what’s possible in recruiting and HR.

A letter from RecOps expert Max Butler on joining Ashby.

A Letter from Max Butler on Joining Ashby

Frank Weigel

<Hint>Since this post was published, Frank Weigel has moved on from Ashby to pursue a new opportunity, and we’re grateful for the impact he made during his ~1.5 years with us. During this time, Frank was an integral part in helping Ashby scale. From completing our first SOC1 to setting up our Trust Center to prototyping candidate fraud detection, Frank reinforced our belief that security should be treated as a first-class product.
Everything below remains as a reflection of Frank’s perspective and commitment to Ashby at the time it was written, and it continues to represent how we think about security today.</Hint>

From various roles at companies like CreditKarma, SigFig, and Lattice, my career in Information Security and IT has been focused on building reliable frameworks that grow with the company. At Lattice, for instance, I developed a security program that supported the company’s growth to 700 employees.

The challenge of security is that it protects against risks that are sometimes hard to quantify and not very tangible. A company is doing a good job if nothing bad happens — but nothing bad happening is often the result of a lot of work behind the scenes:

* It requires senior management to recognize the importance of security and give it priority and budget. 
* It succeeds off a commitment to staying in pace or ahead of evolving technology and legislation (GDPR is now a norm versus a future goal).
* It thrives when there’s an early commitment to the processes and tools required for proper security.

From my early conversations with leadership at Ashby, it was evident that all the above was very mature given the size of the company. That makes the opportunity of taking security to the next level an exciting opportunity and one I was excited to drive. 

## Why I Chose to Come to Ashby

Beyond the company’s commitment to security, Ashby for me is the people and the product. Throughout my career, I’ve seen the limitations of various Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS’) from both hiring and candidate perspectives. Ashby, however, stands out with its thoughtful approach and dedication to improving the hiring landscape.

From my first interactions with the team, I was impressed by the humility and professionalism of everyone at Ashby. This is a company where people genuinely care about their work and each other. And as importantly for me, Ashby treats security as a first-class product, recognizing its critical importance. The leadership at Ashby understands that investing in security and staying well ahead of industry norms is essential. This forward-thinking approach makes Ashby an exciting place to work and ensures that, as a Security leader, I feel valued.

## What I Hope to Achieve at Ashby

At a high level, the goal of Information Security is to protect the:

* **Confidentiality of information**: For instance, keep the data of individuals confidential as public exposure might cause them harm.
* **Integrity of information**: For instance, ensure their data cannot be tampered with so that hiring decisions can be trusted.
* **Availability of information**: For instance, make sure Ashby customers can use the Ashby system since there might be a financial loss for them if they can't.

My goal is to enhance our security measures across all these even further; it’s critical work that requires a proactive and comprehensive approach.

I believe that security measures need to be implemented in a way that doesn’t get in the way of employees or customers doing their work. Apart from just implementing security measures, security should be consulting the business on how to conduct their tasks in a secure fashion. I see security as the department of “How,” not “No.”

I plan to build on the strong foundation already in place by:

* Implementing stronger controls and processes in corporate, product, and cloud security — while still keeping the user experience in mind
* Ensuring we continue to meet international standards (such as GDPR, CCPA, and New York’s AI Bias Law)
* Using my Security and IT experience to support the development of excellent features and guidance that help our customers fulfill their compliance obligations
* Addressing any concerns directly and demonstrate our ongoing commitment to security and privacy

Being part of Ashby means joining a team dedicated to making a meaningful impact. I’m excited to contribute to our mission of improving the hiring process for companies and candidates alike. Together, we’ll continue to set new standards in the industry, ensuring that security remains a key part of our success.

I want to end by thanking the Ashby team for the warm welcome. I’m delighted to be here and look forward to working with everyone.

More on why Frank Weigel joined Ashby as Head of Security and IT.

A Letter from Frank Weigel, Head of Security

At Ashby, we don't have a long-term product roadmap. We've decided to take this approach for a number of reasons. In this post, we'll outline these reasons and our broader product philosophy.

## The problem with long-term roadmaps

While many companies publish 12+ month roadmaps, providing a sense of visibility of what is to come, they very often miss deadlines or kill features altogether, leaving their customers disappointed. Oftentimes, customers will also put off investment in additional tools (or hold out switching vendors) because they are expecting the promised functionality to be released on time. When that does not happen, they are stuck with a solution that does not meet their business needs.

Even if vendors deliver on all of their commitments on their long-term roadmap in time (something I personally have not seen in the past), this approach to product development still has a major issue: It is unclear if what was put on the roadmap 9-12 months ago is still the most pressing issue for customers.

I'm writing this in 2024, and if we look back at the last four years in the recruiting industry, the above point should be clear. The problems TA teams faced were wildly different every 6-9 months. On top of that, we witnessed a step-function improvement in AI capabilities that significantly changed the kind of functionality vendors could deliver.

## Why are long-term roadmaps so common?

There are a number of good reasons long-term roadmaps are used so frequently, despite their downsides.

[Enterprise customers](https://www.ashbyhq.com/blog/culture/series-c#expanding-into-enterprise-while-keeping-startups-front-&-center), understandably, want to know how the vendors they bet on will evolve over the coming years. But because long-term roadmaps are so often missed, we believe they mostly bring a misleading sense of comfort.

Vendors often feel the need to resort to long-term roadmaps because customers are pointing to significant gaps in their products. The vendor may not be able to address these issues quickly enough, so these "complaints" are turned into functionality that is added to the promised roadmap to buy time to solve them. Such vendors will also often use the allure of the future roadmap to help close deals despite missing product functionality.

## Ashby's Approach

**First and foremost, we're focused on product velocity**. We think that how often we ship *meaningful* product improvements is one of the most important metrics to track. It leads to fewer gaps in the product and, as a result, reduces the need to make forward-looking promises.

**Second, we make commitments to invest in specific product areas (instead of individual features)**. We've staffed all of our core product areas, Core ATS, Scheduling, CRM, Analytics, Enterprise, and Usability (and now AI), to ensure they receive ongoing improvements over time. This should give you an idea of what to plan for, as you don't need to worry that a specific product area will stagnate.

**Lastly, we have priorities within each of these product areas**. This is where we get to the exciting part — what do we pick to build and how? There are three main inputs to that:

1. Customer feedback (we look at both the impact of the potential change and the quantity of the request)
2. Our long-term product vision for each of these product areas
3. Changes in the market (e.g., [new legislation around Salary Transparency](https://www.ashbyhq.com/product-updates/pay-transparency-feature-announcment))

We are constantly reviewing the above, and it drives how we pick the next set of projects within each product area.

This means at any given point in time, we'll have several product updates that we know will be released in the next 1-3 months. At the same time, we're constantly evaluating what should come next based on your input.

For individual feature requests, this means they either have an ETA in the next 1-3 months or no ETA. No ETA certainly does not mean we won't ship an update for this request; it simply means we have not committed to it yet because we haven't started work on it yet. So, we're keeping it in the backlog as a candidate to be prioritized when the next set of projects in the relevant product area are completed.

There's one more benefit to this approach that is worth calling out: In addition to our ongoing major releases, we also ship dozens of smaller but impactful improvements that never make it onto the formal roadmap (which also means they don't have a public timeline). Vendors that cram their entire Engineering schedule with pre-planned releases lose the ability to invest in iterative and ongoing polish. Often, these smaller improvements have the strongest impact on day-to-day users of a product (and they come as a surprise and delight moments for our users).

## Interfacing with our CS & Product teams

We view all of our customers who provide material customer feedback as design partners. While we don't have a formal program today, our CS team works very closely with customers to understand their unique needs and how some of them should translate into future product improvements. They are always in sync with the product team and will often loop in individual Product Managers to connect with customers directly on individual product areas.

## Never say never

We may not keep this approach to long-term roadmaps forever. We continuously evaluate how to evolve our product development practice (once again, based on your feedback!).

But for now, we believe strongly that focusing on product velocity, [close partnership with customers](https://www.ashbyhq.com/blog/culture/series-c#investment-in-customer-success), agility in our roadmap, and not overpromising but rather surprising and delighting are the right way to go.

Ashby's perspective on product roadmaps and why we focused on product velocity instead.

Ashby Culture

Announcing Ashby’s $50 Million Series D

Customer Success at Ashby: A Core Differentiator

A Letter from Will Ducey on Joining Ashby

A Letter from Max Butler on Joining Ashby

A Letter from Frank Weigel, Head of Security

Why Ashby Focuses on Product Velocity Over Long-Term Roadmaps

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Announcing Ashby’s $50 Million Series D

Customer Success at Ashby: A Core Differentiator

A Letter from Will Ducey on Joining Ashby

A Letter from Max Butler on Joining Ashby

A Letter from Frank Weigel, Head of Security

Why Ashby Focuses on Product Velocity Over Long-Term Roadmaps

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