Who we are

We are lucky to work together again.

We all worked with one another at different times at a previous company. This was important in building the founding team not for sameness or like-mindedness but for a common language of culture. Trust me, we argue, but in a good-spirited way, we employ the “best idea wins” of problem-solving, and we all get behind the chosen initial direction.

We also don’t take things too seriously. We're serious about building excellent software, ensuring the system is up, performant, snappy, and fun to use. We're serious about supporting one another. But besides that, we try not to take things too seriously.

We enjoy a good laugh and Friday Beers (or Diet Pepsi). We also understand that we have started a marathon of sprints, so personal time is important. We honor that.

We have also all worked in places that we didn’t love. So, we're excited and grateful for this opportunity to make an amazing product for the software community everywhere. Each of our baker’s dozen are founders.

Our rituals

We are working remotely today. Its good and bad. To make sure we're building relationships we have several tools:

Daily standups. We run a daily standup for 15 or so minutes. The hot potato is passed and any updates are shared. The typical format: what I did yesterday, what I will focus on today, where I am blocked. Team members volunteer to help with blockers, and if we have extra time, we size stories. Monthly all-hands meetings are not really needed because daily updates are shared. When we get big and stodgy, we'll bring back the beloved AHM.
Hometown meetups. Every other month, we get together in our local geography for a day (1/2 in Victoria, BC, and 1/2 in Vancouver, BC). We spend 1/2 of the day on shared topics and 1/2 of the day working in the same space.
Full team meetups. Every other month (the other month from the above month), the entire team gets together in either Victoria or Vancouver on a rotating basis. We generally spend 1/2 the day on shared topics and 1/2 of the day doing something else, like watching Dune 2.
1-1's. One-on-ones are held weekly for 30 minutes. Similar format to the standups - what's going well, what's not, and where are you blocked? We exercise candor to make sure we are improving.

Chapters

Chapter 2

Who we are

We are lucky to work together again.

We enjoy a good laugh and Friday Beers (or Diet Pepsi). We also understand that we have started a marathon of sprints, so personal time is important. We honor that.

Our rituals

We are working remotely today. Its good and bad. To make sure we're building relationships we have several tools:

Daily standups. We run a daily standup for 15 or so minutes. The hot potato is passed and any updates are shared. The typical format: what I did yesterday, what I will focus on today, where I am blocked. Team members volunteer to help with blockers, and if we have extra time, we size stories. Monthly all-hands meetings are not really needed because daily updates are shared. When we get big and stodgy, we'll bring back the beloved AHM.
Hometown meetups. Every other month, we get together in our local geography for a day (1/2 in Victoria, BC, and 1/2 in Vancouver, BC). We spend 1/2 of the day on shared topics and 1/2 of the day working in the same space.
Full team meetups. Every other month (the other month from the above month), the entire team gets together in either Victoria or Vancouver on a rotating basis. We generally spend 1/2 the day on shared topics and 1/2 of the day doing something else, like watching Dune 2.
1-1's. One-on-ones are held weekly for 30 minutes. Similar format to the standups - what's going well, what's not, and where are you blocked? We exercise candor to make sure we are improving.