At Lender Toolkit, building better mortgage technology starts with building a strong team.
For Brittnee Syrett, Head of People Operations, that means supporting employees through nearly every stage of their experience with the company, from the first interview to onboarding, benefits, professional growth, major life changes, and all the unexpected questions in between.
As a People Operations department of one, no two days look quite the same. But the goal remains consistent: create an environment where talented people feel supported, trusted, and empowered to do meaningful work.
We sat down with Brittnee to talk about healthy company culture, the realities of building connection in a fully remote workplace, what makes someone successful at Lender Toolkit, and why she is officially ready to retire “Sweet Caroline.”
Supporting the Full Employee Journey
When asked to describe her role to someone outside the company, Brittnee puts it simply:
“I am the first stop, last stop, and many stops in between for the people who add Lender Toolkit to their professional journeys.”
Some people may interact with Lender Toolkit briefly while exploring a new career opportunity. Others join the company and become part of the team for years. Brittnee supports the details throughout that entire journey.
“From recruiting and onboarding to parental leave and the occasional IT issue, difficult conversations, or benefit explanations, as a department of one, I am doing something different every day to support our team and help LTK reach our goals.”
Her interest in People Operations began long before she officially entered the field.
As a teenager, Brittnee worked at her local amusement park and eventually became the supervisor of its waterpark. While she enjoyed the job, she found herself particularly drawn to the work happening behind the scenes.
“My favorite parts of the job were training the lifeguards each year, helping with scheduling, resolving conflicts, and getting to know all the people around me.”
Someone pointed out that those interests aligned naturally with a career in Human Resources or People Operations. At 18, Brittnee was simply thrilled to have identified a potential career path. The more she learned about it, the more certain she became.
She did, however, have to endure more than a few Toby Flenderson jokes along the way.
“For The Office fans out there, I was committed to being anything but Toby.”
What she enjoys most today is building the systems and processes that help people succeed.
“I am there for the good and the bad, but every day I am impressed by the resiliency, creativity, and passion people show when they are really in their element.”
What a Healthy Company Culture Actually Looks Like
“Company culture” can easily become one of those phrases that sounds important without saying very much.
Brittnee believes it matters, but only when a company is willing to look beyond surface-level perks.
“Every company has its own flavor of culture. What’s healthy for one company is not necessarily the best fit for another.”
The real test, she says, is what remains when the highly visible cultural elements are stripped away.
“In a healthy company, you’re left with a group of people who are engaged in their work and who support one another in service of collective goals.”
At Lender Toolkit, she describes the result much more plainly:
“Cool people doing cool work together.”
That culture becomes especially important in a fully remote company, where connection cannot depend on running into someone in a hallway or gathering around an office coffee machine.
According to Brittnee, remote culture requires deliberate communication.
“It’s no secret that remote work makes connection harder. There have to be places that invite connection.”
Lender Toolkit creates those opportunities through watercooler conversations, wellness sessions, games, and other spaces where employees can gather and discuss things that have little or nothing to do with work.
Those activities are valuable, but Brittnee also recognizes that they will not appeal equally to everyone.
“Many people who work remotely do so because they simply aren’t interested in work filling that need in their lives.”
That is why connection cannot depend solely on scheduled social events. It has to be incorporated into the company’s everyday rhythm.
“Connection has to be designed into the day through creating spaces where people can communicate openly and be human in meetings, or through sending GIFs or making small talk before status updates. That’s what reduces friction.”
Trust is equally essential.
“Our people are professionals who are given the trust to work in their own comfort while using outputs to measure success, not the number of hours spent in a desk chair. When success is measured that way, accountability follows.”
The People Who Thrive at Lender Toolkit
Lender Toolkit has spent more than a decade challenging traditional ways of working in the mortgage industry, and Brittnee looks for people who are energized by that kind of environment.
“The people who thrive here are the ones who get genuinely excited about building something better.”
Technical experience and professional skills matter, but Brittnee also looks for curiosity, adaptability, and a willingness to bring genuine ideas to the table.
“We look for people who are human and bring their real thoughts forward.”
Lender Toolkit is not an environment where employees can rely indefinitely on what worked in the past.
“The industry shifts, the tools evolve, AI changes the game, and our people have to move with it.”
People who question assumptions tend to do particularly well.
“If someone hears, ‘That’s how we’ve always done it,’ and wants to know why, they’ll do well.”
That same openness helps create an environment where employees can speak up, ask questions, acknowledge mistakes, and solve problems together. In a fast-moving technology company, consistency does not have to mean rigidity. Instead, clear goals and expectations give people the freedom to find better ways of reaching them.
Taking Care of People in Ways That Matter
One of the cultural decisions Brittnee is most proud of is Lender Toolkit’s continued investment in employee wellness.
“Wellness is a big part of our culture here at LTK. We are fortunate to have a Wellness Director who educates us on various topics and guides us through weekly meditation practices.”
The company has paired that ongoing focus on mental and emotional well-being with another significant investment: offering employees medical and dental insurance at no cost.
“At a company our size, that’s not a given. A lot of companies of this size are passing those costs to employees or offering the bare minimum.”
Brittnee knows that health insurance may not sound like the most exciting example of workplace culture, but that is precisely why she believes it matters.
“Insurance is one of those things often viewed as a necessary evil, but taking care of people in the ways that matter is the most impactful thing we can do.”
Lender Toolkit frequently talks about keeping the human in the loop when designing and deploying technology. That same philosophy applies internally. Systems, policies, and processes are necessary, but they should support people rather than reduce them to numbers or transactions.
Building Something That Lasts
When Brittnee looks at the company and its culture, she is especially proud of Lender Toolkit’s longevity and the people who made it possible.
“It’s not easy growing a company from the ground up. To have stayed steady and grown purely on our own merits over 11 years is a feat unto itself.”
She credits founder and CEO Brett Brumley for building that foundation, while emphasizing that the company’s growth has always been a collective effort.
“Lender Toolkit has had the opportunity to work with really great minds to make it what it is today.”
She describes the team as imaginative, innovative, and resilient, with the ability to weather the mortgage industry’s inevitable shifts while continuing to build products that make a tangible difference in people’s work.
Customers and partners may primarily encounter Lender Toolkit employees during polished presentations, implementations, demonstrations, and strategic conversations. That professionalism is genuine, Brittnee says, but it is not the complete picture.
“Internally, we’re also a bunch of mortgage and technology geeks who love a good GIF and get excited about new AI tools and flawless workflows.”
Beyond People Operations
Outside of work, Brittnee is an avid reader, particularly of fantasy and adventure fiction. Some of her favorite authors include Charlie Holmberg and Brandon Sanderson.
She is also a dedicated collector of partially completed crafts.
“I’m currently in the middle of two different crochet projects and have a partially finished resin dice set I hope to find time for.”
The process of learning something new is often more appealing to her than finishing the final product.
“I like trying new things more than I like the output of my crafts. It’s a problem, I know.”
The rest of her time is happily occupied by her husband, their one-year-old son, and a miniature dachshund, all of whom, she says, constantly demand her attention.
Should anyone unexpectedly need a 20-minute presentation delivered with no preparation, Brittnee is also ready to speak at length about parenthood.
“I could go on about car seat brands, diaper comparisons, and the bottles-versus-straw-cups debate all day long. Point the way to a certification course on car seat brands and safety, and I’ll proudly display that on my LinkedIn.”
There is, however, one topic where compromise is no longer possible.
“It’s time for ‘Sweet Caroline’ by Neil Diamond to ‘bum bum bum’ right into the history books.”
Brittnee acknowledges that friendships have been built through the song’s familiar chorus, but her position remains firm.
“It’s done. It’s tired. Let it go.”
People Do Their Best Work When…
For Brittnee, the conditions that help people succeed do not require a complicated corporate slogan.
People do their best work when:
“They’re geeking out alongside good people.”
At Lender Toolkit, that means bringing together talented, curious people, trusting them to do their jobs, supporting them through the realities of life and work, and giving them the freedom to build something better.
