Gearset started out as a small and tight-knit team of 7, with a shared goal of solving a problem that had been frustrating Salesforce teams for years. Now, with 300 brilliant Gearcitizens and acquiring Clayton, we’ve grown into something we’re incredibly proud of. But the journey getting here has been just as important as the number itself.
To celebrate these milestones, we’ve asked Oli Lane — one of the original team of 7 — to take us on a tour of Gearset’s growth.
2014
Where it all started
In 2014, a group of developers from Redgate were finding Salesforce deployments painful, error-prone, and impossible to bring under DevOps best practices. They set out with a plan to change that and create a solution that could bring DevOps to Salesforce.
2015
7 Gearcitizens and a big idea
By 2015, the initial foundation of Gearset had been created — it was a platform that could compare the metadata between orgs, build and deploy a package, and monitor orgs for changes.
After a lot of back and forth deciding on a name and logo, we went to Dreamforce as a vendor which was the springboard for our very first sale! At the time, we didn’t know just how far this idea would take us.
“I’ve seen Gearset grow in every way imaginable — we’ve gone from a very small team within engineering who would cover everything, to now having dedicated specialists for every role.”
Stephen Chambers — Head of Product Design, Cambridge
2016
7 Gearcitizens building a better product
By establishing a culture of trust and giving ourselves the freedom to learn through trying, we could innovate rapidly and collaboratively, pushing the boundaries of what the Gearset platform could do.
But we wanted to do more than just streamline Salesforce deployments. We wanted to build an all-in-one solution to bring DevOps to the Salesforce ecosystem in a way that was accessible to all role types — so the app continued to grow.
“Our culture of trust and transparency is so unique. I’ve never worked anywhere else where there is such an ingrained high-trust culture. That gives people the space they need to grow and do great work, whilst providing support and discussion where it’s useful.”
Jason Mann — Chief Operating Officer, Cambridge
2017
13 Gearcitizens entering a new era of sales and marketing
Sales were really picking up pace, so it was time to start expanding the team by bringing in new expertise to the Sales and Marketing teams to keep up with demand.
That year also saw us introduce support for Salesforce DX, Jira integration, and static code analysis.
“It’s been incredible to be part of Gearset’s journey — watching the company grow, learn, invest in great people and remain committed to keeping the culture as strong as ever has been such a special experience.”
Ellis Toms — Senior Marketing Manager of Customer Marketing, ABM and Salesforce Partnerships, Cambridge
2018
26 Gearcitizens moving to a brand new office
In early 2018, we were still working out of a spare room in Redgate’s HQ. But after doubling in size, we needed more space. So we packed up all our equipment and officially moved to our first office: the Bradfield Centre in the Cambridge Science Park. You can still find the pull request notification in Slack to update our address on the Gearset website!
The Gearset platform continued to grow, too. Data loader was added to help teams seed sandboxes, so teams could deploy with confidence.
On our quest to make DevOps accessible to all members of the Salesforce ecosystem, we also added integrations for all major version control providers — so anyone can get up and running with version control with clicks, not code.
“I’ve been lucky to ride the wave of Gearset’s growth, and I feel I’ve really developed over the last 5 years. The people I work with are smart, kind, and care deeply about getting stuff done — I can’t wait for the next 5 years, as we continue scaling Gearset rapidly, but in a fun and human way!”
Ben Tozer — SVP, GTM Strategy and Operations, Cambridge
2019
47 Gearcitizens already outgrowing the new office
We quickly started taking over more and more space at the Bradfield Centre, to make room for our ever-increasing number of Gearcitizens. By the end of 2019, we had to set up an additional space on the first floor of the Bradfield Centre!
The platform grew massively too, as data backup was a new pillar of Gearset. We continued to build on our existing functionality too, adding data masking and the ability to create pull requests from the Gearset UI.
“The culture is like no other place I’ve worked — everyone genuinely wants to help each other achieve. And what’s really amazing is the fact that we’ve managed to maintain our strong culture as we’ve grown.”
Sara Turkentine — Talent Acquisition Manager, Cambridge
2020
79 Gearcitizens navigating growth in a pandemic
As we already had a flexible working environment, moving the team fully remote during the pandemic wasn’t a big shift. We did everything we could to make sure all of the team were set up for success, and worked hard to ensure we stayed as connected as we would’ve been in person despite being fully remote.
This was also the year that we set up DevOps Launchpad — a Salesforce-specific DevOps learning platform that’s free for everyone! The Gearset app also introduced high frequency backups and deletion auditing, to ensure customers could be compliant with key frameworks.
“Gearset really trusts people to do their jobs well, and gives them space and autonomy to do that. Sure, other companies do this too, but nowhere near to the extent that I’ve seen at Gearset. I really appreciate that we still focus a lot of effort into making sure we aren’t losing our way with how we’re working and communicating together.”
Alice Easy — Development Manager, Remote
2021
128 Gearcitizens go international
Gearset officially became international, after opening an office in Chicago! We’ve always put our customer’s success at the heart of what we do and want users to get prompt help when they need it — by opening an office in the US, we expanded our support hours even further.
Our backup offering got some big upgrades in 2021, with support also added for Salesforce Industries (Vlocity) to the metadata deployment workflow.
“All the cultural sayings most companies tout are actually true here. Having product-led founders makes selling the tool easier than those with other backgrounds and motivations. It’s also refreshing to work for a company that sets realistic and fair sales goals, as well as valuing opinions from all job levels.”
Ryan Nebuda — Sales Engineer Manager, Chicago
“I’ve loved being a part of the growth of Gearset’s Chicago office over the last 2.5 years. When I started, our Chicago team was ~3 people strong — now, we’ve more than quadrupled that number! Gearset’s emphasis on continuous learning has been instrumental in my career growth and the supportive culture ensures that everyone’s input is valued — I feel excited to contribute every day.”
Taylor Volk — Account Executive for Key Accounts, Chicago
2022
199 Gearcitizens winning awards
This was the year that we took the Best Companies Awards by storm, bagging a total of 4 awards! This was a great acknowledgement of the trusting and transparent culture we’d worked so hard to build and maintain in the midst of rapid growth. We also opened a new product development centre in Belfast, an up-and-coming city for exciting tech development.
Our CI functionality got a huge upgrade in 2022, with the introduction of Gearset Pipelines and we removed the headaches associated with CPQ deployments by integrating configuration data into our metadata deployment flow.
“It’s rare for a company to have values that you feel proud of, and that genuinely reflect how people work day-to-day. It’s also rare for a company to be so transparent and open in its communication. And it’s even rarer for a company to have such good engineering practices that it can deliver updates to customers multiple times a day. So I think it’s especially unique that Gearset does all of these things and does them well.”
Andy Knox — Development Manager, Cambridge
“The whole place is built on trust, which sounds nice on paper, but I feel Gearset genuinely delivers on that. I’m trusted to work in whatever way I deem best for us and our customers, and it really is a pleasure to come to work everyday and be surrounded by such a smart, driven, interesting and funny group of people.”
Will Addison — Executive Customer Success Manager, Belfast
2023
233 Gearcitizens putting the customer first
In 2023, we focused on making sure we continued to deliver an outstanding employee experience and making sure every team was fully set up for success. But that didn’t pause the growth of the app and our mission to put our customer’s needs at the heart of what we do. And all of our hard work was rewarded with 2 wins in the DevOps Excellence Awards!
Continuing our DevOps evangelism, we set up the DevOps Leaders programme which celebrates frontrunners in the Salesforce DevOps space and enables them to share their expertise and knowledge with the wider ecosystem. DevOps Launchpad also hit a key milestone, having reached more than 10,000 users!
“My Gearset colleagues are all a genuine bunch of people who are allowed to bring themselves to work and there’s a culture that allows people to learn through doing — you’re not expected to know everything and finding out new things is encouraged. I’ve been able to step into a role that felt uncomfortable when I started it but have been given the space to grow and learn whilst doing it.”
Jodie Wilkinson — Salesforce Partnerships Manager, Cambridge
“Even in the short time since I joined, we’ve seen a number of new engineering teams be created so we can deliver more to our customers and I’m now a development team lead which is a new role for me — it’s great to have been supported by Gearset to take the next step of my career.”
John Dilley — Development Team Lead, Cambridge
2024
300 Gearcitzens with more on the way
So here we are — 300 strong and still growing! Though our core mission hasn’t changed: we’re still committed to delivering meaningful solutions that help Salesforce teams deliver quickly, accurately and without the stress. Data archiving is now in general availability; we’ve added long-term projects in Pipelines; and developed a visual way to deploy Flows.
But Gearset is more than just a Salesforce DevOps platform — from day one, we’ve focused on building a culture that’s open, collaborative, and human. We’ve worked hard to make sure the same culture we had as a team of 7 is still thriving despite being 40x the size we were at the beginning. And with the Clayton team joining as Gearcitizens from across the globe, we can’t wait to see what 2025 has in store!
“A few years ago I worked with Gearset alongside a client of mine — at the time Gearset was celebrating reaching 150 employees. Having recently joined the company, it’s incredible to see the same tight-knit culture and sense of community has been maintained, even though the business has almost doubled.”
Maroof Abdul-Aziz | Scale Customer Success Manager, Cambridge
“One of the standout aspects of Gearset’s culture is the genuine sense of community among the team. From day one, I felt welcomed and valued, with colleagues always ready to offer help. This supportive environment has made settling in so much easier!”
Sophie Light-Wilkinson | Chief Marketing Officer, Cambridge
Ready to take your career to the next level?
While reaching 300 Gearcitizens has been a fantastic achievement, we have no plans to stop there! Gearset continues to grow and we’re always looking for talented people to continue our mission to deliver world-class DevOps solutions to the Salesforce ecosystem.
If you’re keen to get your teeth into the world of Salesforce DevOps, take a look through our current vacancies — we might just have the perfect opportunity for you.