Smooth Sailing Ahead

On the evening of our cruise, eight of us took the subway together from our office down to one of the piers on the west side of Manhattan. We climbed aboard a grand, 158-foot-long ship with Manhattan by Sail and settled into our spots on deck with a drink. 

In addition to the sound of the breeze and distant city noises, a live jazz performance was the soundtrack of our evening. The peaceful atmosphere was the perfect way to admire the impressive city skyline from the water.  

A Sailor’s Life

The team agreed that seeing the Manhattan skyline from the water was the highlight of the evening. It was unique to see the views looking uptown from the harbor. It was incredible admiring landmarks like the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, Governors Island, and the city’s bridges from this impressive perspective. The summer sunset glowing on the water only added to the impressive views. 

Our sailing experience was more than just pretty views; we got hands-on experience. The crew allowed passengers to hoist the square-rigged ship sails on the 120-foot-tall masts, and a few of us jumped at the opportunity. When we weren’t raising the sails, we were able to roam the deck and explore new views from every angle. 

Our team took turns raising the sails and pointing out NYC landmarks from the sailboat. The fun experience sparked conversations about other New York Harbor adventures we could plan in future summers. In addition to embodying our core value, “Have Fun,” our memorable cruise inspired us with new perspectives and even some sailing skills. 

Learn more about DMC’s company culture and check out our open positions. 

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“Usually, it was Boston and New York offices putting together a ski trip on the East Coast. This year we made it a YOE [Yearly Office Event] for the first time and invited anybody from DMC to come and join us,” Abby Greentree, Project Engineer based in Boston, said. “We had 30 people come, which was awesome. It was mostly people from the Boston and New York office, and then we had a couple outside people so that was very fun!”

DMCers headed up to Stowe Ski Resort in Vermont and spent a long weekend skiing and hanging out! “Most people went skiing or snowboarding and some people went winter hiking,” according to Emily Blackman, Application Developer based in Chicago. 

While most of the time was spent outdoors participating in various winter activities, there was a memorable trip taken to the Ben and Jerry’s factory.

“We went to tour the Ben and Jerry’s factory. It was the original factory, and they have an ice cream store with exclusive flavors,” Emily said. “The ice cream I asked for had giant pieces of cookie dough. The pieces were so big I’m sure those could be baked and would be the size of a standard cookie.”

Sweet treats and factory tours were not the only highlight of the trip. Abby’s favorite memory was sledding!

"A bunch of us went sledding on Saturday, and that was super fun,” Abby said. “We actually made a chain! Three people were on each sled, and we all linked together. That was very fun!”

A favorite ski trail for both Abby and Emily was the long, green scenic route called the Toll House Road. 

“Emily Blackman and I skied together on this really long run called Toll House Road. It is just really long winding through the woods. That’s my favorite, just like a nice, easy, fun, beautiful view run,” Abby said. 

There were more beautiful views just outside the rented lodges. 

“There was one night when it was really clear, and a bunch of us went out to see the stars,” Emily said. “The night sky was filled with stars, it looked so nice!”

After a long fun weekend of ice cream tours, long scenic ski runs, and chain sledding, DMSkeast 2024 came to an end. Opening the event to all offices proved to be a great idea, and many DMCers are already looking forward to next year! 

Learn more about DMC’s company culture and check out our open positions!
 

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Explore our open positions!

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The Houston office went on a bike/food tour for Caroline Courbois’ welcome party!

Denver folk jump for joy after completing the Donut Dash (not seen: the donuts)!

The Dallas office put their noggins together and conquered the Escapology Escape Room!

The Cincinnati team introduced Tim Johnson to Skyline Chili!

The Chicago office fulfilled their need for speed at K1 Speedway! (Let’s Go!)

The BOLE project team visited the Kennedy Space Center!

They even became the SLS Rocket!

NY gang visited Brooklyn for some grub from Hometown Bar B Que!

Denver enjoyed the sunshine with a day at the park! (Hi Nola!)

Learn more about DMC’s corporate culture and explore our open positions! 

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Denver Office Party

This year's celebrations looked different for every DMC office. Some kept the party at home by throwing the event in the office. DMC Denver ordered catering to the office and had game night. They reminisced on "How Far We've Come" while toasting with beers and tasting whiskeys in true DMC Denver style.

Chicago Homecoming Celebration

In our headquarters located in Chicago, we decided to throw a Homecoming-themed anniversary party including a Spirit Week leading up to the party. We decorated the whole office with crepe paper streamers and balloons.

In true homecoming fashion, we had a place to take posed pictures, a punch bowl, and plenty of snacks. We even had some four-legged friends in attendance to make the night a little more fun. It was wonderful to see each other again and to meet our newest coworkers who joined the team during our time working from home.

Anniversary Dinners

Other offices decided to take the team out for a lovely dinner. DMC Boston celebrated at a Japanese tapas-style restaurant in Cambridge. After the delicious three-course meal, the team ended their night with a few rounds of pool at a nearby arcade.

DMC St Louis went for a Tuscan flare to their fancy night out, while DMC New York found a speakeasy disguised behind a pawnshop entrance.

An Athletic Anniversary Party

Other teams hosted event outings to celebrate DMC's anniversary. Houston celebrated DMC's 25 years by marveling at the beauty and athleticism of acrobats at Cirque de Soleil. 

Anniversary Olympics

Then there's DMC Seattle, who took party planning to a whole new level. DMC Seattle planned an entire evening of events with their Olympics-themed 25th Anniversary celebration!

Their events utilized a range of skills to showcase how diverse our DMC talent pool really is. There were the more typical events of pool or ping pong, but the more interesting events happened later on in the day. We might not know who can code the fastest in the office, but now we do know who can type the fastest, thanks to the typeracer competition.

The DMC Olympics gave a bit of a different flare to the game of hockey. Instead of a hockey stick, they used a pool cue. Instead of a puck, they used a taped wire spool. Instead of other hockey opponents, there were more wire spools. Ok, maybe this was less like hockey and more of a silly obstacle course, but it was very entertaining.

To test the team's face flexibility and dexterity, they had an Oreo eating competition that determined who was the fastest to get an Oreo from their forehead into their mouth without using their hands. Closing out the evening, no Olympics would be complete without an awards ceremony and presentation of metals.

We've had 25 years of expert solutions and look forward to many more. Thank you for being part of it!

Learn more about DMC's company culture. 

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Our motto is “Smart People Expert Solutions,” and we’re looking for more smart people to join our team. DMC is currently about 180 people strong with eight locations nationwide, and we are looking to expand. Our headquarters was named one of Chicago’s “Best Places to Work” by Crain’s Chicago Business for six consecutive years. We are always looking for talented individuals to make DMC an even better place to work and help us continue to solve real-world problems.

Who are we?

DMC is a project-based engineering consulting company offering software and engineering services to wide-ranging industries and companies. Our company’s core values drive our guiding principles and help us deliver expert solutions to our clients.

What do we do?

We are a technology solutions company that focuses on providing custom software development and engineering services to manufacturing, testing, and product development organizations throughout the world. Our projects vary in their size, industries served, and technologies used. We aren’t tied to any particular hardware or software platforms. This ensures our team members have the freedom to find the best solutions for our clients. 

The DMC Advantage

Our team works with the latest innovations in nanotech, robotics, motion control, machine vision systems, and more. The DMC team has face-to-face contact with our customers, allowing them to grow their project planning and execution skills from day one.

We offer a great benefits package including health, dental, and vision coverage as well as 401K matching, generous paid vacation time, and a well-stocked kitchen full of snacks. Since one of our core values is “share information,” we have a comprehensive training program as well as a mentor program to help you grown in your career. We maintain an active company culture; DMC hosts many fun activities and outings, where participation by all employees is encouraged!

FOMO is real – Don’t miss us!

We want to meet you! We’ll be visiting schools all over the U.S. both virtually and in person this fall to meet engineers just like you.

Please submit your resume through your school’s database to be considered for a virtual or on-campus interview. Feel free to reach out to me (Natalie!)  at jobs@dmcinfo.com with any questions.

Check out our Fall 2021 Career Fair Schedule below:

Learn more about careers at DMC.

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While Activity Fund Events have traditionally been for bonding with your local office, when everything became virtual we were able to hang out with DMCers from offices across the country. This allowed us to experience events planned altogether highlighting each office's unique set of personalities.

One event, in particular, was our June’s Whiskey Tasting. While many of our offices have whiskey enthusiasts, our resident spirit-tasting expert is John Sullivan of DMC Denver. During the pandemic, John went from just being a whiskey connoisseur to becoming the host of multiple virtual tastings. If you think his engineering projects are expertly managed and executed, just wait until you hear about his whiskey tasting experiences. This guy does not spare any detail.

The Pitch

Months in advance, the game plan was laid out. First came the idea pitch. Sullivan’s subtle post in Slack asked if anyone would want to do a mystery whiskey tasting. Obviously, there was a lot of interest. Who doesn’t want to learn more about whiskeys and have a tasting in the comfort of your own home?

The Logistics

Once we had a gauge of the interest and the number of participants from each office, we were able to fine-tune the logistics. The tasting would consist of four whiskeys. With DMC spread across the country, we needed to figure out which interesting whiskeys were available near each office. A private Slack channel and subsequential spreadsheet were created to track the process of researching local liquor stores and delivery services. We wanted to make sure we could have consistent tasting across all offices.

Once the four whiskeys were located and decided upon, next was the act of distributing them among the tasters. This was going to be a blind tasting, so consistent anonymity was important. We found the perfect 2oz bottles and a brilliant labeling system. It got a little touch and go when Amazon ran out of the bottles we wanted, but because of our expert solutions and planning, we were able to get enough bottles to each office's event coordinator.

A Family Affair

Once we had the whiskeys in their individual portions, we needed a way to differentiate the bottles. One might think that labeling the bottles one to four would be enough, but not for our team. We crowdsourced for alternative names. While our engineers' creativity was wonderful with the naming process, the show's real star was our honorary five-year-old artist Scarlett, Sullivan’s daughter.

The DMC Whiskey Tasting really became a family event when John commissioned her to create the custom labels for each bottle.

For every DMC event, DMCers are allowed to invite a +1 so that friends, family, and significant others can join in on the fun too. In this case, they even jumped in to help with the logistics. We had someone’s significant other put together a tasting menu to coincide with each mystery bottle for this event. Emily Marlatt, Project Accounting Lead, then took those tasting notes in addition to Scarlett’s drawings and made a tasting guide.

The Method of Tasting

June 22 was the day it all came together. DMCers from across the country called in via Zoom, ready to experience the tasting that had been months in the making. As the master of ceremony, Sullivan opened the call with a reminder of the proper tasting etiquette and a description of the first whiskey.

Our tasting will go like this: 

1. Pour a small amount and drink a few sips neat.
2. Add a few drops of water with the straw and finish the glass.
3. Pour a small amount and add an ice cube.
4. Drink the rest your favorite way!

A few notes while tasting: 

1. When smelling it, put your nose over the glass and breath in through your mouth.  If you sniff like you would a wine the alcohol overpowers the smell.
2. For sure try to pour small amounts when you taste the different ways so you can drink most of it in your favorite way.
3. Try to have a few snacks around if your office didn’t supply you any specific ones.

The Tasting

During the tasting, tasters went into Zoom breakout rooms to drink, discuss, and enjoy the evening experiencing the whiskeys with others.  It is events like this that show off the personalities that makeup DMC. We work together to bring our customers quality solutions while also creating quality experiences for and with each other.

Learn more about DMC's company culture and contact us to start your next project. 

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We are so excited for the opportunity to be back in our eight offices and to see some friendly faces in person! Here's how we have prepared to return to our offices and how we've been safely socializing.

Preparing to Reopen the Office

Our offices needed a deep clean after we spent over a year away from our desks while working remotely during the pandemic. In addition to the year worth of dust that had accumulated in the office, there was also an assortment of items stacked up on people's desks that sat unused. We decided to donate these items that weren't used in a year and had a designated "yard sale" area where people could drop off unneeded items for donation. 

We continue to encourage donations as more DMCers come back to the office.

As part of our deep clean, we tackled the office refrigerators. To make things interesting, we held a contest among each of our offices to see who had the most expired foods in their fridges. The Houston office had a container of Nestle Milo that expired in August 2018!

In addition to cleaning up the offices, we prepared to welcome new employees and wanted to ensure they felt comfortable at their new desks in the office. Brian Nolan, our Infrastructure Specialist on the IT team, worked with vendors a month before our offices' reopening date to get everyone the equipment they needed for their successful transition to the office. 

Welcome Back Week

DMC Dallas welcomes others back to their office.

To welcome our team members back in person, we held a series of fun events both in and outside of our offices. 

In Chicago, we celebrated with a visit from the Big Star taco truck in our parking lot on "Taco Tuesday!" After updating our rooftop deck with a fresh stain, we also enjoyed a BBQ cookout with views of the Chicago skyline. During this week, team members additionally visited the "Welcome Wagon" stocked with cleaning products, mousepads, cables, and anything else needed to set up their desks. We also battled on the nearby Whirlyball court!

The Houston team celebrated with a sushi-making party, a visit to Cidercade, and a dinner and wine bar night.  

Our Boston team had a great time reconnecting over bowling, rock climbing, taco tasting, and celebrating pie day.

In Dallas, the team enjoyed a Whirlyball outing and an evening of Cidercade. 

The New York team held a low-key picnic in the park so that their newest addition baby Noa could join in on the fun!

In St. Louis, the team hung out and watched the women's U.S. Olympic Gymnastics Team Trials together. 

Our Seattle team headed out of the office and out on the water for a scenic boat cruise and also had a "good old-fashioned office game night," according to Elizabeth Goodnight, Systems Engineer. 

In Denver, the team enjoyed a game night in the office as well as an evening of axe throwing (not in the office!).

All in all, it's been wonderful to reunite with our colleagues in person at our offices around the country. We’re happy to be offering expert solutions directly from our office locations again as we return to working in person!

Learn more about DMC's company culture and contact us to start your next project. 

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In 2019, I was a soon-to-be-graduating engineering student, unsure of what I was looking for in a job or a company. One job position caught my attention, Automation Engineer at a company I had never heard of called DMC. I applied and unlike many of the other companies, they responded to me in a timely manner and scheduled an interview!

The Interview Process

I don't mean to claim that the interview was what someone would call “fun”. It’s rare for an engineering interview to be all laughs. One thing I can say is that everyone I met at DMC was friendly, welcoming, and knew what they were looking for. Instead of trying to weed out entry-level engineers with unnecessarily specific questions about obscure topics, the technical interviews focused on general engineering topics and how quickly an engineer could learn. One of DMC's core values is to hire smart people. The best way to do that is to find engineers who are good at what engineers do best: solve problems.

Culture Shock

I had interned for a large and established consumer-based technology company. Being onsite at DMC was a bit of a culture shock. The majority of DMC engineers were young and diverse. There were so many female engineers! Which was amazing! I was so excited to accept the position. Even though I was not entirely sure what my day-to-day would look like, I couldn’t wait to find out!

Training Program

All new DMC engineers spend their first three weeks training in Chicago at the DMC headquarters. This training period fosters DMC's motto of "One DMC." Even with offices and engineers spread across the country, everyone in the company is there to support each other with a common knowledgebase.

Interesting Projects

After training, my first impression of the day-to-day work at DMC was that there is certainly no shortage of interesting projects to work on. The projects span a wide range of technologies. Even if you’ve never worked in certain areas before, everyone is encouraged to try new things. DMC has a built-in support system for learning and growing your skills. And at the end of a project, there is something concrete for you to say "I made this", which, personally, is why I wanted to become an engineer.

Company Culture

Feeling accomplished is important, but DMC is also a company that plays as hard as they work. There are numerous opportunities to participate in company-funded activities. These “Activity Fund” events are a great time for you to let loose with your coworkers outside of work. DMC is a company that understands that overall client satisfaction comes from happy and cared for employees.

Even though I've only been at DMC for a few months, I am happy to say that I feel like I made the right choice. I look forward to continuing working for a great company with great people!

Learn more about DMC's Company Culture.

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As our core values say, DMC is full of smart people and expert solutions, so our onboarding team has been able to meet this challenge head on. We are excited to announce that although we've pushed the start dates back a few months, DMC plans to welcome at least 11 new engineers to our team this summer/fall!

A Warm Welcome

DMC prides itself on engineering a welcoming onboarding experience. We welcome our new employees to the team before their first day by sending a backpack full of DMC SWAG to enjoy while walking around campus. Within their first week, we schedule opportunities for the new employees to meet their coworkers in casual settings like a welcome lunch their first day and happy hour their first Friday. When the new employees are more settled, we gather their ideas and plan a personalized Welcome Party for even more bonding experiences.

Streamlined Training

Making a new employee feel welcome is important for DMC's culture, but getting a new employee ramped up quickly is important for DMC's profitability. Over the years we have also developed a comprehensive training program for each service area at DMC. Each new hire's Employee Knowledge Plan (EKP) Trainings are tracked through our own custom software. This tracking software makes planning a new employee's classes as simple as clicking a few buttons and then adding events to the calendar.

Welcome to your (mostly virtual) First Day!

For their first day of work, we offered new employees the option to join a few of their team members in the office or have their laptop and all necessary supplies shipped to their homes. With masks and social distancing second nature at this point in the pandemic, a few new employees have decided to meet in person for their first day.

After being shown to their freshly cleaned workspace, the new employee jumped into a Zoom meeting with our IT Specialist, Brian. Brian helped walk the new employees through setting up Multifactor authentication, Outlook setup, Slack sign/MFA and answered any first day IT jitters questions.

Once they were properly set up with IT, the in-office new employees were taken on a tour of their offices. Since the majority of employees are working from home, we highlighted office features on the tour. In Chicago, we pointed out how all of our printers are named after '90s TV and movie characters. My personal favorites are Mr. T, Phoebe Buffay, Carrie Bradshaw, and Michael Bolton (from Office Space). We also highlighted that we have a collaboration room devoted to our patron saint of customer service, Patrick Swayze. 

Getting to Know You

Welcome lunches are an office favorite. When we were all working in the office, we'd gather for a catered lunch in our largest conference room. This year's format was a bit different, but hopefully equally as welcoming. Individually wrapped lunches were ordered for the handful of people who were in the office for the day and other team members called in to a virtual meeting.

It is DMC tradition to have new employees come up with an ice breaker question and have everyone in the meeting answer it. Some questions from past welcome lunches were "If you were a food, what would you be?" "What fashion trend do you wish would come back in style?" It's a fun way to get to know your colleagues!

At the conclusion of their first day, new employees were encouraged to take home anything needed to make their home workspace more comfortable. After monitors, chairs, and anything else from their desk were loaded into their cars, the new employees left to finish the rest of their training from the comfort of their own homes.

Training Remotely

One of the toughest challenges to overcome with new employees training remotely is to make sure they feel like they have the resources to answer any questions. It's not as easy as turning to your neighbor to ask a question when you're sitting at home in your living room. Each new employee is given a manager, technical advisor, and two mentors they can reach out to with any questions. These team members are also encouraged to regularly check in to make sure everything is going well.

Throughout their first days, new employees also meet a person from each internal operations team during trainings. This allows for more familiarity when asking questions for each department.

Staying Connected

We are fortunate to have a company culture that encourages asking questions. One example is through our company Slack channels. If anyone has a question, they can find a channel to post it in. With channels like #no-dumb-questions and even a channel specifically for #newbies, we encourage putting your questions out for crowdsourcing. The philosophy is, if you have a question, there's probably someone else wondering the same thing.

Since DMC plays as hard as we work, we also have fun channels to keep us all connected while we're away. I have a few favorite channels I watch regularly. #dm-schemes is where we brainstorm other industries DMC could branch into but mostly it's just infomercial products we wish we could have. #spamquotes where we share all of the weird spam emails and phone calls we receive and #wholesome-memes where people post throughout the day to give little rays of sunshine.

A few slack channels I've learned about since working from home are #receipeshare, #crafting, and #i-did-a-thing where everyone shares projects that their enjoying. Since working from home, we've also added a few channels. #cabin-fever is where we share how we're staying entertained at home. Our newest channel of #activity-fund-one-dmc is where we are working on planning virtual events for all of us to attend together. 

Despite wearing masks in the office and spending time on virtual meetings, our pandemic onboarding process isn't too different than our regular onboarding process. Our internal onboarding team keeps tasks organized in SharePoint with workflows firing for each step of the process. Our communication tools make virtual trainings easy to attend. While we look forward to a time when everyone can be back in our offices, we're happy that we have the tools to continue welcoming new employees in these interesting times. 

Learn more about DMC's company culture. 

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