ClickMint Career Growth & Development

How does your team cultivate a culture of learning, whether that’s through hackathons, lunch and learns, access to online courses or other resources?

At ClickMint, learning isn’t something we squeeze in around the edges — it’s part of how we work. In CRO and AI, the landscape changes so quickly that if you’re not learning, you’re falling behind. We’ve built a few habits that keep things fresh. 

Every other week, we block off time to chase ideas called Experimentation Fridays. Some turn into features, some fizzle, but either way, we come out smarter.

Engineers take turns running short sessions on something they’ve been exploring during team-led deep dives — anything from traffic allocation models to new AI frameworks. It’s casual, collaborative, and usually involves snacks.

Everyone has a budget for courses, books or conferences through learning credits. The expectation is simple: learn something new and share it back with the group.

We use AI as a sparring partner. We actually use our own internal models as teaching tools — throwing tough questions at them, then breaking down the output together. It turns AI into more of a coach than a black box.

We try to keep it light and fun. The moment “learning” feels like a checkbox, you lose the curiosity that drives real growth.

 How does this culture positively impact the work your team produces?

You can feel the difference in the work. When people are constantly learning, the quality of our experiments and the speed of our problem-solving just go up.

A good example: one of our newer engineers gave a quick talk on Bayesian bandits. That sparked a rethink of how we allocate traffic in tests, and within a few weeks, we were rolling out a new system that cut time-to-results by 17 percent. For a client, that meant six figures in extra revenue — just from an idea that started as a lunch-and-learn.

Another time, someone used Experimentation Friday to mess around with anomaly detection. That little side project is now part of our Bloom dashboard, flagging weak test variants before they waste budget.

The real magic, though, is in the mindset shift. People feel comfortable saying, “I don’t know this yet.” That makes it easier to admit blind spots, learn faster, and ship with more confidence. When your team feels that safe, they’re way more likely to take bold swings — and that’s where the breakthroughs happen.

What advice would you give to other engineers or engineering leaders interested in creating a culture of learning on their own team?

Keep it simple. Culture isn’t built from big slogans or one-off events — it’s built from the little habits you repeat until they stick.

ClickMint's Director of Engineering Adam Flaxman’s advice for engineering leaders.  

• Make it safe to not know. The smartest teams admit gaps early and attack them together.
• Celebrate curiosity, not just output. Give people space to chase side projects, ask weird questions, and try half-baked ideas. That’s where a lot of the magic starts.
• Share the learning. Whether it’s quick talks, notes, or demos, make sure one person’s growth spreads to the whole team.
• Keep it fun. Hackathons, themed demos, lightning talks with snacks — it doesn’t have to be serious to be valuable.

If you get those things right, you won’t need to push a “learning culture.” It’ll just become how your team operates. And once it clicks, you’ll wonder how you ever built without it.