Flyclops

We base work around the idea that "we work to live, not live to work." We prioritize mental health and well-being above everything else. We do that by giving no less than 4 weeks vacation, operating on a flexible schedule, paying 100% of healthcare costs, maintaining a 32-hour work week (during the pandemic), encouraging learning, working to keep people interested in their work, and encouraging employees to put their own needs first, even if it means moving on to a new opportunity.

We have paid maternity and paternity leave and paid leaves of absence for health purposes. We have flexible hours, understanding that not only do people naturally work better on different schedules, but also make room for consideration of family obligations.

We are a small team with several products in various stages of development and deployment, so we're often working on disparate things. We expect people to be able to see chunks of work from conception to completion, to be able to coordinate work between themselves and others proactively, and to be able to explore and evaluate various solutions to problems on their own. We do not micro-manage, but do make ourselves available at all times.

While we do use Slack as a primary method of communication (chosen by the team over email) we do not have expectations of immediate responses, and treat Slack as mostly asynchronous. We do encourage and make available the tools of synchronous work for people working together on a project where appropriate.

We do actively encourage and work to seek out a diverse set of applicants. We've followed professional guidelines to remove potential bias from job postings, and actively post jobs in female- or minority-based engineering groups. We seek diversity over homogeny, and find stereotypical startup culture to be toxic. It's an ongoing effort, and diversity of the team fluctuates depending on the availability of talent, and when people choose to move on to new opportunities. We value curiosity and knowledge above all else.

Because of the disparate nature of the products we build, and the constantly changing landscape of mobile devices, we are always evaluating (or being forced to adopt) new technologies. We allow the team to drive evaluation and selection of the tools we use, and make sure to understand the work desires of our employees. Some prefer to work in a larger array of languages and technologies, and some prefer to work for longer periods in the same arena. We encourage people along the paths they're most comfortable and try to, when possible, direct work based on their proclivities. While our sending people to conferences or learning opportunities is less policy and more one-off at this time, it is something we do encourage and hope to solidify in the future.

Our professional development allowance is not codified or quantified, but is currently informal. That said, we do encourage professional growth via paths self-selected by employees.