“What do you love most about working at Dribbble?”
Candidates ask me this question in almost every interview.
This question is my favorite because I actually love everything about my company. I love the people I work with. The job I get to do here. And I really love the culture and the perks. I honestly have to pinch myself every morning when I sit down at my laptop and fire up Slack.
It’s also my least favorite question to answer because it’s tough not to make the above sound cheesy. Before I give the full benefits run down to candidates, I usually find myself blurting out “Oh man, what don’t I love!” and then cringing at how lame that sounds. But it’s true!
At Dribbble, we’ve tried to deliberately and thoughtfully put together an impressive benefits & perks package that keeps our employees happy, healthy, and lets them do the work they love however they work best. As we’ve grown the team (it was 8 people when I met the team in January — we now have 22 on our payroll!) we’ve added and formalized more perks, hoping to make being a part of the Dribbble team a dream job and something to be really proud of. Here’s what our benefits look like:
Work from anywhere
There is no Dribbble Head Office. We don’t have a centralized HQ anywhere; We’re a fully distributed company spread across all of North America (we also have a fellow in the UK — hi Dave!), and we don’t ask employees to relocate to work here.
Daily communication happens via Slack, and we hop on lots of video calls that help us stay connected. We know face-to-face time is valuable, so we get the entire team together in real life a couple of times a year in a new city each time. Otherwise, you’re welcome to work from home, from a coffee shop or a co-working space, from the top of a mountain (if you can get wifi up there)…seriously.
One of our employees is a self-proclaimed nomad and works while traveling across the United States. Where you want to work is totally up to you! I love telling my friends about this one and watching their jaws drop.
Work your perfect day
Some people prefer working in the morning; others find they are most effective in the late afternoon. Working here is unique in that we don’t enforce office hours, and encourage 40 hour work weeks.
You’re welcome to define your schedule however you like so long as the work being completed is high quality and you check-in with your team. Despite being spread across several different time zones, this has worked incredibly well for us and has allowed us to successfully work asynchronously.
Meeting-free Mondays and Fridays
We designated Mondays and Fridays as meeting-free days in order to allow people solid heads down time free of distraction to get their best work done. On the days we do have meetings, we keep them to 30 minutes, with the exception of our all-hands Team Call on Thursdays, which can go a full hour.
We’ve found that by breaking the week up this way it helps keep everyone productive and…well, not stuck in meetings all the time!
Education & Equipment
We want to make sure we’re providing our team with the tools they need to do their best work; we provide MacBooks for our employees, which enable everyone to take advantage of our often mobile workflow.
We also recently introduced our Equipment Fund, which gives each employee $1,000.00/a year towards their workspace and professional growth. Whether it’s a spiffy laptop stand, an ergonomic keyboard, a book on leadership or learning Ruby on Rails… whatever helps you work the way you work best, it’s yours. The Equipment Fund can be used for pretty much anything relating to your work, including attending a conference or a membership at a co-working space.
Time off and Holidays
Because most of our team is equally spread across Canada and the USA, we found that our slack channels got awfully quiet during Canadian holidays that weren’t also observed in the United States, and vice versa. We didn’t get a whole lot of work done without the majority of the team online, so now we have a “CanAmerican” holiday schedule. The whole team observes both Canadian and American holidays. This gives folks a few extra days off a year to spend time with their family and friends or just get life’s errands done.
Additionally, we offer an extremely flexible unlimited vacation plan with no cap on the number of designated vacation days granted. We’ve found this is the best way to support our employees taking the time off that they need to come to work feeling refreshed and at full capacity.
Health benefits
Fully paid extended medical and dental coverage is provided to all our full-time employees. These benefits kick in on your start date, with no waiting period! Your spouse and children are welcome to join your company paid plan as well.
Family leave
Because we love babies (seriously, there’s a lot of cute photos of people’s kids in our Slack channels), and we’re a family-friendly company, we formalized some stellar baby benefits so that everyone has a chance to enjoy changing diapers, stepping on legos… erm, I mean parenthood!
At Dribbble we offer up to 3 months paid parental leave for both Moms and Dads. For our Canadian employees, we help top up the government’s EI Parental leave payments.
Coffee Fund
Being a remote company, we know our employees spend a lot of time at coffee shops, so we tack an extra $25 onto everyone’s paychecks as a coffee fund allowing employees to enjoy a couple of nonfat-extra-whip-half-sweet-double-shot-caramel-lattes while they work!
Retirement Planning
We believe planning for your future is essential. We offer the opportunity to contribute pre-tax savings to our 401k program or our group RRSP. Employees are eligible to participate right away, on their first paycheck.
The Fitness Fund
We know that getting away from your computer once and awhile and blowing off some steam is integral to your wellbeing and your performance at work — we help facilitate that for our staff! Each year our employees are given $500 towards gym memberships, fitness classes, sports fees, or sports equipment (running/ lifting shoes, a new tire for their bicycle, yoga mat, etc.).
Last but not least — The Team
Although all these benefits are amazing, truthfully what I love most about working at Dribbble is the people that I get to work with everyday. It turns out, that working with an amazing, inspiring team is a huge, and sometimes rare perk! Despite being miles apart from each other, being a part of the Dribbble team often feels more like being a part of a family than it does a group of work colleagues — complete with (terrible, depending on who you ask) puns and dad-jokes! But jokes aside, they are some of the most talented, positive, supportive people that I’ve ever worked with, and I’m proud to call them my team.
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