Emergent Software Named to Inc. Best Workplaces for the Third Time

Workplace culture is easy to describe, but much harder to sustain. It is shaped by how employees experience their work every day, including the trust they have in leadership, the opportunities they receive to grow, and the flexibility they have to do their best work.

That is why employee-driven recognition carries particular weight. Emergent Software has been named to Inc. magazine’s Best Workplaces list for the third time, reflecting the company’s continued commitment to building a workplace centered on its people.

The award is determined entirely by anonymous employee surveys measuring engagement, trust, and satisfaction. For Emergent, earning the recognition for a third time represents more than a single successful year. It reflects the culture the company has worked to maintain as its team, capabilities, and geographic reach have grown.

Quick Answer: Emergent Software has been named to the Inc. Best Workplaces list for the third time. The employee-driven recognition highlights the company’s remote-first model, investment in professional development, flexible work environment, and continued focus on creating a place where talented technology professionals can do their best work.

In This Blog

• Why Employee-Driven Recognition Matters

• Building a Remote-First Workplace

• Investing in Employees and Their Growth

• Bringing a Distributed Team Together

• A Continued Record of Workplace Recognition

Why Employee-Driven Recognition Matters

Unlike workplace awards based primarily on company applications or outside evaluations, the Inc. Best Workplaces recognition is shaped directly by employee feedback. Anonymous surveys ask employees to evaluate areas such as engagement, trust, leadership, and overall satisfaction.

That process makes the award an especially meaningful measure of culture. It reflects how employees experience the company, rather than how the company describes itself.

For Emergent Software, receiving the recognition for a third time shows that its people-first approach has remained consistent through years of growth and change.

“We built Emergent to be a place where talented engineers do their best work,” said Jamie Anderson, Co-Founder and CEO of Emergent Software. “Being recognized by Inc. for the third time is a reminder that culture isn’t something you declare once. It’s something you earn, year after year.”

That idea has guided Emergent’s approach to workplace culture. Rather than treating culture as a collection of perks or one-time initiatives, the company has focused on creating an environment where employees have the support, flexibility, and opportunities they need to succeed over time.

Building a Remote-First Workplace

Emergent Software has operated as a remote-first company since 2020, with employees working flexible schedules from locations across the country. Since 2023, the company has also expanded its recruiting reach into Latin America.

The remote-first model allows Emergent to recruit experienced Microsoft professionals without limiting its search to a single geographic market. It also gives employees greater flexibility in how and where they work while remaining connected to colleagues and clients across different locations.

Maintaining a strong remote culture requires more than simply allowing employees to work from home. Distributed teams need clear communication, trust, shared expectations, and opportunities to build relationships beyond individual projects.

As Emergent has grown, the company has continued to develop its remote workplace around those principles. Employees have the independence to manage their schedules while collaborating on complex technology engagements that often bring together expertise across software development, cloud infrastructure, data, artificial intelligence, and security.

Investing in Employees and Their Growth

Professional development is an important part of Emergent’s employee experience. Each employee receives 100 hours of paid professional development annually, giving team members dedicated time to strengthen their skills, pursue certifications, explore new Microsoft technologies, and stay current as the technology landscape evolves.

This investment is particularly important in areas such as Azure, data, AI, and custom software development, where tools and best practices continue to change quickly. Giving employees time to learn helps them grow professionally while also strengthening the expertise they bring to client work.

Emergent employees also receive competitive compensation that includes quarterly profit sharing. This structure allows employees to participate in the company’s success while recognizing the role each team member plays in delivering strong outcomes for clients.

At the same time, employees have the opportunity to work on full-stack Microsoft engagements spanning data platforms, AI solutions, Azure environments, application development, and broader modernization initiatives. The variety and complexity of this work gives employees opportunities to solve meaningful problems while collaborating with specialists across the Microsoft ecosystem.

Bringing a Distributed Team Together

Although Emergent operates remotely throughout the year, the company also recognizes the value of bringing employees together in person.

Each year, the distributed team gathers for Emergent Connect, an all-company event focused on building relationships, sharing ideas, and strengthening connections across teams. This year’s event was held in San Antonio as part of Emergent Software’s tenth anniversary celebration.

For a remote-first organization, events like Emergent Connect create space for conversations and relationships that can be harder to develop through scheduled meetings alone. Employees who collaborate virtually throughout the year have an opportunity to spend time together, reflect on the company’s progress, and look ahead to what comes next.

The tenth anniversary also provided an opportunity to recognize how far Emergent has come since its founding. As the company has expanded its team and capabilities, its focus has remained on creating a workplace where experienced professionals can continue learning, take on challenging work, and contribute to the company’s direction.

A Continued Record of Workplace Recognition

The 2026 Inc. Best Workplaces recognition adds to a broader history of workplace and business awards for Emergent Software.

The company’s previous recognition includes the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal Best Places to Work, the Star Tribune Top 200 Workplaces, and multiple appearances on the Inc. 5000 list.

Together, these recognitions reflect both the company’s growth and its continued focus on employee experience. However, the third Inc. Best Workplaces award is particularly significant because it is based entirely on feedback from the people who work at Emergent every day.

As the company enters its next chapter, Emergent Software remains focused on preserving the qualities that have shaped its culture so far: trust, flexibility, professional growth, meaningful work, and a shared commitment to doing excellent work together.