CIENCE won 4 Comparably Best Places to Work awards — #30 Diversity, #32 Culture, #67 Women, #42 CEO — based on 10,393 anonymous ratings with 97% employee satisfaction vs. 57% U.S. average. Now part of graph8, that culture didn't disappear during the transformation to Forward Deployed Engineers and AI — it drove it.
CIENCE won four Comparably Best Places to Work awards in a single year, based on 10,393 anonymous employee ratings — and that culture is the reason the graph8 transformation succeeded.
Last Refreshed: March 2026 — Updated with graph8 transformation narrative and current performance data.
From Thomas Cornelius, Founder & CEO, graph8: “Culture isn’t a benefit program — it’s the only thing that determines whether a company can actually transform. The same workforce that earned us top Comparably rankings became the team that rebuilt CIENCE into graph8’s Forward Deployed Engineer model. You can’t engineer that willingness. You have to build it over years.”
Comparably’s 5th Annual Best Places to Work Awards honored CIENCE in four categories: #30 Best Companies for Diversity, #32 Best Company Culture, #67 Best Companies for Women, and #42 Best CEO. These rankings came from 1,364 employee reviews across sixteen core workplace metrics, placing CIENCE in the top 5% of large companies evaluated.
The 97% employee satisfaction score — against a 57% U.S. average — wasn’t just a feel-good number. It was the foundation for the hardest thing a company can do: transform itself completely while keeping the people who made it great.
What the Awards Taught Us
Most companies treat culture awards as marketing material. We treated ours as a signal.
When 10,393 anonymous ratings tell you that employees feel empowered and genuinely care about the company’s growth, you have something rare: a workforce that won’t break when you ask them to change everything. And that’s exactly what we asked.
The outsourced SDR model that built CIENCE was hitting structural limits. More SDRs didn’t mean more pipeline. Ramp times stretched longer. Client expectations outpaced what a people-powered operation could deliver. The market was moving toward AI-powered, data-driven systems — and we needed to move with it.
A weaker culture would have collapsed under that kind of change. Ours accelerated it.
“People feel empowered and seem to genuinely care about the success and growth of the company.” — Anonymous CIENCE employee, Comparably review
The same employees who earned us a 4.9/5 culture rating became the first to adopt the new tools, learn the new systems, and evolve from SDR operators into technical contributors within the graph8 platform.
Does This Sound Familiar?
If you’re leading a B2B sales development team, you’ve probably felt the tension between your people and your process. Your SDRs are talented. They work hard. But the model they’re working within — manual research, templated outreach, linear scaling — is structurally capped.
You can’t fix a go-to-market architecture problem with a motivation speech. And you can’t ask people to transform their work if you haven’t built a culture strong enough to survive the transition.
That’s the paradox most companies face: they need to change everything about how they sell, but they’re afraid the change will destroy the team. We proved it doesn’t have to.
Your team isn’t the problem. The model they’re working in is. And transforming it doesn’t require starting over — it requires the right system.
From People to Platform
CIENCE is now part of graph8, and the transformation story is inseparable from the culture story. graph8 was built on the thesis that go-to-market should be an engineering discipline — not a staffing exercise. But that thesis only works if the people executing it believe in the mission.
The graph8 model replaces outsourced SDR teams with Forward Deployed Engineers — technical operators modeled on Palantir’s approach to defense and intelligence. Palantir embeds engineers who understand both the platform and the mission. graph8’s Forward Deployed Engineers for GTM work the same way: they build, deploy, and tune your revenue system rather than executing a static playbook.
What makes this work at CIENCE is the culture we built before the transformation:
- Diversity (#30 on Comparably) meant we had perspectives from across the globe — employees who understood different markets, different buyer behaviors, different outreach approaches. That diversity now powers better targeting intelligence.
- Culture (#32) meant people trusted leadership enough to embrace radical change. When we said “the SDR model is over,” the team didn’t panic — they leaned in.
- CEO rating (#42, 95/100) meant the leadership team had earned the right to ask for transformation. You can’t pivot a company where employees don’t trust the people making the call.
The result: clients see cost-per-meeting drop 40-60% within the first two quarters. New campaigns deploy in days. And the graph8 system compounds — learning from every interaction, getting sharper over time.
“They definitely supersede our internal capabilities.” — Candice Long, Learning Ally
Why This Matters Now
In 2026, every B2B company is talking about AI transformation. Most of them are bolting AI tools onto broken processes and wondering why nothing changes.
The difference between a transformation that works and one that stalls is culture. Not the word on a poster — the actual willingness of your team to do hard things differently. CIENCE had that. It’s why graph8 exists today instead of being another failed pivot.
graph8’s Forward Deployed Engineers bring that same cultural DNA to every client engagement. They’re not consultants dropping off a deck. They’re embedded operators who own outcomes — targeting accuracy, channel optimization, conversion improvement — and keep tuning the system as your market shifts. Engagements start at $5K one-time setup + $2,499/mo managed, with the graph8 platform at $499/mo.
The companies pulling ahead aren’t the ones with the best technology or the biggest teams. They’re the ones where the culture is strong enough to actually use both. graph8 has now served 2,500+ clients across 250+ industries — and the ones who get results fastest are always the ones where the seller’s culture is ready to change.
“Increased monthly appointments over 500%.” — Silicon Valley Insight
FAQ
What Comparably awards did CIENCE win? CIENCE won four Comparably Best Places to Work awards: #30 Best Companies for Diversity, #32 Best Company Culture, #67 Best Companies for Women, and #42 Best CEO. These came from 10,393 anonymous employee ratings with a 97% satisfaction score versus the 57% U.S. average.
How did CIENCE’s culture affect the graph8 transformation? The same culture that earned four Comparably awards enabled CIENCE to transform from an outsourced SDR operation to graph8’s AI-powered GTM platform. Employees who trusted leadership and cared about company growth embraced the shift to Forward Deployed Engineers rather than resisting it.
What are Forward Deployed Engineers for GTM? graph8’s Forward Deployed Engineers are technical operators — modeled on Palantir’s FDE approach — who build, deploy, and continuously optimize your go-to-market system. They own outcomes, not just outputs, and the system compounds over time.
Get a Free GTM Diagnostic
Here’s what happens when you reach out: our Forward Deployed Engineers run a diagnostic on your current outbound motion — your targeting accuracy, your channel mix, your conversion rates at each stage — and show you exactly where an engineered system would outperform what you’re doing today.
Whether or not you work with us, you’ll walk away with a clear picture of your pipeline math.
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