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Why Shakers is Among the Most Loved Companies to Work For in Europe.
CULTURE 100 AWARD WINNER I 2026
The Culture Behind Shakers’ Mission to Reinvent Work
Shakers was built around a belief that work is changing, and talent should be at the centre of that change.
Across Europe, more people are choosing flexible careers, more businesses are building hybrid teams, and the best talent is no longer always sitting inside one permanent workforce. Shakers exists for that new way of working, helping companies and senior tech talentcollaborate, build and grow together.
The Madrid-based scale-up connects businesses with elite freelance talent across software, design, marketing and other high-demand skills. Its platform helps companies move faster while giving freelancers access to meaningful projects, stronger relationships and a more flexible way to work.
Since launching in 2021, Shakers has grown quickly. The platform now works with +600companies, supports thousands of validated freelancers and has completed thousands of projects. After raising €14 million in Series A funding, the team has continued expanding across Europe while building AI-powered features designed to make hybrid teams easier to create and scale.
At the heart of that growth is a simple mission: reinventing work.
Earlier this year, Shakers was named a winner of the Culture 100 Awards, which recognise Europe’s most thriving companies to work for. After reviewing more than 5,000 companies and surveying over 20,000 employees, Shakers stood out for building a culture where ambition and a full life outside work are treated as things that can grow together.
The same belief behind the Shakers platform runs through the way the team is building the business.
Shakers wants to be a place that can grow with people as their lives change. Someone might join the team early in their career, ready to move fast and take on as much as possible. A few years later, that same person may have different priorities, a family, a desire to travel, or more responsibility outside work. The aim is to build a workplace that can still fit.
The pace is high because the ambition is high. Shakers is a fast-growing scale-up with major funding rounds ahead and a clear appetite to become the leading platform for flexible work in Europe. The team is trying to design the business in a way that makes high performance more sustainable.
AI plays a major role in that. Shakers sees artificial intelligence as a way to remove repetitive work and create more space for the work that moves the business forward.
When internal tools and automations take busywork out of the day, people have more room for better thinking, stronger execution and life outside the laptop.
That connects directly to the deal Shakers makes with its people: 10 out of 10 in both directions. The team is given strong opportunities, growth, stock options, salary, support, perks and a culture worth showing up for. In return, Shakers asks for quality, pace, ambition and real ownership.
What makes that deal work is that it is said clearly. People know from the start that the environment is intense, but they also understand what they can expect back from the business. That clarity helps turn pressure into something more purposeful.
Ownership sits at the centre of how people work. Shakers wants employees to make real decisions, take responsibility for their outcomes and learn from what does not work. If people are trusted with real ownership, they need the freedom to make the call and the confidence to try again.
That trust creates space for experimentation. One of Shakers’ values is “Fail 1x. Chase 10x.” The team is expected to test ideas, take risks and put the learning back into the business. A failed experiment becomes useful when people bring the result back to the team and use it to move forward.
This matters in a business trying to shape the future of work. Shakers is operating in a market where habits, technology and expectations are changing quickly. The team needs people who can move before a perfect playbook exists, because the playbook is still being written.
The culture is also built around a strong sense of team. Shakers talks about being a winning team, but that comes through humility as much as ambition. The best people there want to win together. They share ideas, challenge each other openly and stay grounded when things go well.
That spirit comes through in how employees describe the workplace. Nuria Sebastián, Talent Lead, describes Shakers as an environment she never expected to find in her career, where people are eager to help each other while also challenging one another openly and honestly.
Verónica Rosario, Content Specialist, points to the clarity of the mission and the feeling that the team is making a real impact on how people think about the future of work. Soraya Salgado, Marketing Manager, describes being part of Shakers as a gift, highlighting the pace of professional growth and the talent and energy around her.
Those comments matter because they show the culture being felt by the people building the business every day.
Managers play a key role in making that real. Shakers invests in middle managers because they shape how the culture is experienced day to day. Their training focuses on helping them grow as leaders while finding their own leadership style, so they can support people without turning the culture into a fixed script.
That is especially important in a fast-moving team. Goals need to be clear, and people also need freedom in how they reach them. Managers are encouraged to make room for context and growth in their 1:1s, so people understand the purpose behind the work as well as the task in front of them.
The people who thrive at Shakers tend to have high agency. They see something broken and move towards it. They ask questions, look for the reason behind the work and take responsibility for getting better before someone else maps out the next step.
They are also generous with what they learn. The strongest people share time, wins and the lessons from mistakes because they understand that the business moves faster when knowledge travels.
Curiosity matters too. The team is working at the centre of how AI is changing work in Europe, which means people need to keep learning as the market develops. The people who do well are the ones who want to understand what is changing, then use that knowledge to build something better.
The environment is demanding, and Shakers is honest about that. It asks a lot from people. But the people who thrive there give that energy back on purpose, because they feel part of something ambitious and enjoy the team they are building it with.
Recognition through the Culture 100 Awards reflects the workplace Shakers has built during a period of fast growth. Across thousands of companies considered and tens of thousands of employee voices gathered, Shakers stood out for showing that ambition can feel energising when people are trusted to own the work and supported to build a life around it.
As Shakers continues redefining how companies and senior tech talentwork together, its direction remains clear. Build the platform for the next generation of work, keep talent at the centre, and create a team where people can grow quickly with purpose, ownership and a life beyond the laptop.
