Tech companies that value work/life balance for their engineers

Work/life balance is precisely why we started this company.

When we started in 2000, engineers were often siloed. There seemed to be a lack of respect for both the work engineers were doing and their balance between work and personal commitments. Carbon Five was founded by a group who saw value in people’s ability to focus very intensely during the day and then completely unplug at night. To us, work/life balance means that when you come into work, you work hard and when you’re done, you’re completely done. You get to work on really interesting things without the overhead of politics, harsh deadlines, working weekends, or pagerduty. This holds true even after 20 years in the business and now with a team of 70+ software engineers, designers, product managers, and an operations crew spanning our U.S. offices.

We also offer sabbaticals. One of the benefits of being a consulting company is that it’s natural and easy for people to take time off. After one project ends, there’s a wrap up period, which provides an opportunity to take time off without disruption. Once you’ve been with the company for two years, you can take three months off (unpaid). It is an uninterrupted block of time that people use to spend the entire summer with their kids, surf, launch an album, or go rock climbing.

We work hard, but believe everyone should lead full lives outside of the office, too.

Whether you’d prefer to be in our Seattle office or work from home, engineers have the flexibility to work wherever they’d like. As a distributed team that spans the globe, we have coverage across different time zones. For example, Cynthia (senior director of product management) lives on the east coast and prefers to start her day around 11am and finish later in the evening so she can help homeschool her son in the morning. That said, if you’re on the east coast and prefer to work 9-5, we encourage that too. “My team spans Seattle, England, and New Zealand, so we’re very conscious and accommodating of each other’s schedules,” says Thien-Kim (TK) (director of product management). Core meetings happen during overlapping periods of time (a small window that depends on your team’s schedule), but otherwise we trust you to get your work done when it suits you best.

In addition to 20 paid holidays and flexible time off (that people actually use!), engineers typically work ~40hr weeks. To keep our on-call system fair for everyone, we regularly rotate the schedule and have a bidding, auction-like system for holidays. Whatever your passions are outside of the office, we want you to take time to enjoy them, too. For example, Edgar, an interview engineer coordinator, is an avid photographer and Jason (staff software engineer) is passionate about puzzling. We also have several talented musicians on the team.

For us, work-life balance isn’t just proverbial time in and out of the office, we also believe in engineers having heads-down time during the workday. In fact, engineers block this time on their calendars and are very diligent about respecting it. That said, we also value time together in-person, whether it’s gathering around the kitchen table to have lunch at the office during an “onsite” or at a summer get-together.

We practice what we preach.

We’re dedicated to improving health outcomes not just for others, but for ourselves, too. In addition to nine wellness days that can be used for self-care or anything that comes up in life, we also have half-day Fridays year-long. Team members have access to fitness and mindfulness programs, and we believe in actually taking vacation to recharge, which is why we have a company-wide ~5-day mid-year break and a ~5-day end-of-year break. In addition to 15 days PTO and 18 paid holidays, employees are also eligible for a one-month (20 working days) sabbatical after their four-year anniversary. Folks have used this time to travel (one team member who lives in Brazil is taking his daughter to Disney World in Florida), visit loved ones, or take up a new hobby. During the pandemic, we’ve been flexible so that folks who wanted to travel could wait to take their sabbaticals. We even have some team members who are coming up on their second sabbaticals!

Tatiane (Software Engineer, fourth from left) enjoying one of her favorite hobbies Muay Thai.

We promote a healthy work/life balance during the workday, too.

To us, work/life balance isn’t just about making time for your friends, family, and passions outside of work (although of course, that’s important). We also encourage people to take breaks during the day to connect with others in the company. This could be a monthly team lunch (since we're a remote company, we’ll expense your meal and often play an online game together) or a fun social to learn from others.

We also have remote team weekly events to bring the entire company together. They’re optional, and we record them for people who’d like to enjoy them on their own time. What’s more, we have over five hundred pages of #fun- Slack channels, such as #fun-cooking, #fun-fitness, #funDND, and #fun-adulting, just to name a few.

That said, if you’re not taking enough vacation, your manager will give you a friendly reminder to do so. While we have flexible time off, we recommend Zapiens take at least 2 weeks, and most of us take 4-5 weeks per year in addition to local holidays.

We protect our weekends and practice no-meeting Wednesdays!

We want you to enjoy all aspects of your life at ReadMe, not just your work. Our friends, families, health, and hobbies are important to us! You don’t need an excuse to work from home or go climbing during daylight hours, and we genuinely encourage everyone to take advantage of their $150/month gym membership stipend. We offer full medical, dental, and vision coverage as well as 12 weeks of paid parental leave.

No one works late at ReadMe, and our Slack channels go silent on weekends. Luckily, our customers use ReadMe during typical work hours, which means traffic is highest during the weekdays and lower on the weekends. As a result, issues rarely take place during weekends or holidays, engineers don’t need to dread being on-call, and we can all truly take days off.

During the week, we like to spend time not working, too! We host happy hours and plan activities (like owl painting!) because we enjoy spending time together (and we love our mascot, Owlbert). We also go on quarterly offsites to make sure we mix play and work together as a team. In the past, we’ve gone to Hawaii, Austin, Chicago, Boston, Disneyland, and Lake Tahoe. We have a tradition of getting lithographs made for each location we go to and having everyone who was there sign them!

Fridays are reserved for personal development.

Engineers typically work 8-hour days. There’s no expectation of an on-call schedule and we never ask you to work on weekends or holidays. We don't manage hosting ourselves, and set the expectation with our clients that we will respond to code issues during business hours. That said, teams manage their own schedules and deliverables, so of course, it’s possible that during particularly busy weeks this can lead to spillover and some people might work outside of typical hours to have time for deep work. However, these overages are almost always self-inflicted, and if we notice it becoming a trend for anyone, we have direct conversations to make sure they know it should be a very rare occurrence. This comes from the top, from people that have worked in environments where burnout is the norm, and with full knowledge that dedicating 24/7 to anything is damaging not only to your mental well-being but also to your creative output and quality.

What’s more, we reserve Fridays for personal development, with the goal of building new skills and improving Upstatement as a whole. For example, a recent “semester” of Upstatement Fridays involved 10 projects with team sizes ranging from 3-6 people. Project types included marketing/publicity, product, and self-care. We've used this time to make improvements to upstatement.com, to explore new topics like Machine Learning, to create and improve internal tools and processes, and as outreach for our Friday speaker series.

We also allow for an "Independent Study," which is a lot more free form. For instance, one engineer chose to focus on writing blog posts. This personal development time is communicated upfront with our client teams from day one, so everyone is respectful of these boundaries.

Finally, we also close between Christmas and New Year’s Day to give everyone that extra time to recharge!

As a healthcare company, we practice what we preach.

Given that what we’re building is aimed at improving the health of millions of people, it’s no surprise that our employees’ health is equally important. We cover 100% of medical, dental, and vision insurance for team members, and 70% for their dependents. We have company-wide rejuvenation days to rest and recharge and encourage folks to take vacation and make time for the hobbies and commitments they’re passionate about outside of work.

If you’re expanding your family, we offer fertility benefits through a partnership with Kindbody and 14 weeks of gender-neutral paid leave. We also have a dedicated Slack channel for parents (fun fact: 20% of the team are parents!) and we totally get it if you need to leave early for school pick-up or take time off to care for a sick child. There are also several pet parents on the team, and you’ll often see dogs at our New York City office or other furry friends popping up on Zoom calls.

We’re remote-friendly, but for those in the New York area, we embrace a flexible, hybrid approach where folks can come into the office or work from home. At the office, we make sure to find time to relax and have fun during the day, too, whether that’s gathering for catered lunch or celebrating wins with a unique awards ceremony. For the tech org, we have a creed – we will help patients make smarter decisions by being Focused, United, and Nimble – aka FUN. At our monthly tech all-hands, we shout out someone on the team who has exemplified being Focused (and award them a miniature telescope), United (they’ll receive a wooden bridge for helping bridge gaps), and Nimble (this award is a metronome to symbolize being a pace setter). Whoever wins an award that month then nominates another person and hands out the prize at the following all-hands! Not only is this a lighthearted tradition, but it also exemplifies how we practice habits of excellence, another one of our core values.

We’re careful not to praise over-working.

Everyone has their own preferences for when and how they work best. We have team-based standups at the beginning of the week (i.e. engineering or product) and a company-wide all-hands at the end of the week. Beyond that, it’s up to teams to self-organize. Even once we’re a much larger company, we want each team to create a personalized meeting schedule based on team members’ needs and preferences, with a few exceptions of timezone-friendly company-wide events. Generally speaking though, we want you to work whenever that makes sense for you.

Having experienced burnout before firsthand (a topic Dan is especially happy to discuss), we’re really careful not to praise over-working. We are well aware that, sometimes, people are motivated to stay late and work long hours. We certainly won’t discourage anyone to stop working when inspiration strikes, but we also don’t expect this type of behavior. We want everyone we work with to feel energized at work and also have time for their out-of-the-office hobbies. Whatever your passions are outside of work, we want you to enjoy them! (For Fouad, that means trying new recipes. He loves to cook!)

Trade-offs: We believe people are most productive when they’re fulfilled during and outside of work, and that starts with having enough time to enjoy life away from the computer. There will be an endless stream of important tasks and it’s our responsibility as a team to identify the few truly urgent issues from the ones that we can pick up as a group on Monday.

We work hard, but make sure to take time to recharge, too.

It is inevitable that your work life influences your life outside of work (and vice-versa), and we strive to ensure that those influences are positive. Everyone at Repeat is empowered to take ownership of their health. Whether it’s getting outside for a lunchtime walk, taking a mental health day, or going on vacation, we support and encourage one another to take breaks.

We won’t tell you, “You’ve been working hard, take a day off,” because that robs you of your agency to make the choice for yourself and sets a precedent of asking for permission. We will, however, thank you for taking care of our team and yourself when you tell us about your upcoming vacation.

From spending time with friends and family to playing pickleball (Cory is a big fan) or traveling around the globe, we all have full lives outside of the office and make sure to take time to enjoy them!

Our goal is to maintain an intense but sustainable working pace.

We work hard to deliver for our customers and grow quickly, but there’s a healthy middleground where this can be done without burning out the team. Andy, one of our engineering managers, joined as employee #10 and says it’s because our founders do a great job of leading by example. This summer Dimitri, our CEO, went on a rafting trip in the Grand Canyon and Matt, our CPO, spent a couple weeks in Europe.

Dimitri firmly believes the number one thing you can do for your team is to not burn out. While this runs counter to many people’s hero-mode thinking of “I have to grind to ship this because it’s best for the company,” we think differently. That’s why folks at Modern Treasury are encouraged to take time to recharge and enjoy their passions and hobbies outside of work.

Engineers at the company who have worked in a variety of startup environments confirm that Curai's work/life balance and flexibility are highlights of the Curai experience.

There are many reasons for this, but one forcing function is what we call "stage of life diversity" – some of our team members are fresh out of college while others have two kids in college, so as a team we are very respectful of coworkers' boundaries and commitments outside of work. Many of our team members have time-intensive hobbies that they are immensely passionate about, too, which we love! We think that being able to be your full self outside of work allows you to bring your best self to work. Those based in the U.S. align (loosely) around a 10 am to 5 pm Pacific Time working schedule and almost all engineers take weekends as a time to unplug and recharge.

Whether you prefer a hybrid or remote work environment, we support both.

Our main office is located in Palo Alto, but we have team members who also work remotely across the United States. Upon joining, we provide a one-time $500 remote office stipend for all team members as well as a monthly $150 stipend to cover WFH costs such as internet and office supplies. Since the engineering team spans different time zones, we strive to overlap during core hours of 10am-2pm PST. However, we’re flexible and make sure to find meeting times that work for everyone. Outside of that, we trust you to manage your schedule and work in a way that suits you best. We also enjoy getting together for fun virtual and in-person events such as game nights and BBQs. Recently, we hosted our first semi-annual Ladder Meetup, where the team got together for a few days in Palo Alto.

We want everyone to take vacation and carve out time to enjoy their passions outside of the office. Many of us, including leadership, are parents. In fact, you’ll see Jack (our CTO) has time blocked off on his calendar for kid duty, which we greatly respect. If you’re looking to grow your family, we want you to have time to adjust without worrying about work, so we provide all parents (inclusive of adoption or fostering) 10 weeks of paid baby bonding leave.

Life is short, so it should be fun and fulfilling.

Sibi encourages a healthy work life balance by striving to maintain a traditional 40-hour work week. We never ask you to work on weekends or holidays. On-call pager duty rotations are scheduled and fairly divided by team so that no one is overwhelmed by off-hour emergencies. As we are a growing start-up, all Sibi employees maintain some flexibility to meet overall company needs and deliverables, but luckily our practices and processes limit any excessive asks.

You are responsible for managing your own time, in and out of the office; therefore, as long as your work is complete, your department covered, and your supervisor in agreement, full-time salaried employees have the flexibility to take time off when needed to simply recharge, spend time with family or recover from an illness.

Sibi team members don’t just strive for balance outside of the office, but we actively strive for balance throughout the workday, too. Whether it’s jamming to office tunes, pausing for a game of ping pong, or joining the team table for lunch, we understand the importance of having a healthy ebb and flow in your workday.

We also support your ability to grow and improve through self-development and education. Basically, we love our team and want them to kill it, so we are going to help you be the best you can be. If you want to go to a conference that makes you a badass, then we will pay for it. If you find a book that you think will make you a better salesman or better the organization, we will buy it. If you find something awesome that you think would benefit yourself and/or your team, simply outline your request and we will run it up the ladder for approval, with the stipulation that if you learn something amazing…you share it!

Over 70% of Big Healthers are remote.

We’ve been remote since 2010, which means we’re experts at setting distributed teams up for success. Whether you prefer more heads-down time in the morning or later in the evening, there’s plenty of flexibility to help you do your best work. Leadership is also very cautious about communication outside of normal working hours (which can get a little tricky sometimes given that we span the US and the UK). However, with Slack and Google apps, you can take advantage of the schedule send feature to send emails within a person’s normal working hours. We invest in maintaining healthy boundaries, for example, through workshops that teach people how to make room for themselves and say no when needed.

Another way we support work/life balance is with our monthly Wellbeing Days. Employees can choose how to spend their day, whether it’s catching up on work, taking the day off, or something in between – without the distraction of email, Slack or meetings. Big Health is also a great place to work for people who are growing their families. In addition to generous parental leave (which you’re eligible for starting day one), we offer an optional flexible return to work program: employees may choose to work a reduced schedule of 10 total hours per week for the first 4 consecutive weeks after returning from new parent leave, at 100% of their normal rate of pay.

We recognize you have passions, hobbies, and other commitments outside of work and want you to enjoy them!

A family-friendly, results-based management culture

Angaza offers flexible PTO (most people take around four weeks a year), paid parental leave (six weeks for all new parents and an additional six weeks for mothers giving birth), and an effective distributed culture that permits remote work. If you have any questions about working here while raising a family, you can ask one of the many Angazans who do.

As a broader team, we value personal connection. We get together in person when we can. We’ve played arcade games together, conquered escape rooms, gathered for picnics, and played frisbee. We hold regular team board game and movie nights. Within the company, you’ll often hear Angazans talking about “embracing their inner tembo”: this one of our five core company values. Tembo is the Swahili word for elephant. We take the mentality of being a part of the herd and supporting everyone in it.

There’s no one-size fits all work schedule.

Engineers are given reasonable chunks of work that we expect you should be able to finish in a week or two weeks – then we leave you alone to figure out how best to do that. There’s no expectation to work weekends and we’re mindful about keeping the pace sustainable. While there are of course dependencies on other people, collaboration between team members is frequent but generally ad hoc (see Flexible Work Arrangements above). This way, you’re able to set your own work schedule and make sure you have time to enjoy your passions outside of the proverbial office, too. For instance, our CEO Hunter is an avid traveler, several team members have cars in various states of disassembly, and Justin, our lead DevOps engineer, is a pro-amateur Frisbee Golfer.

You shouldn’t have to sacrifice quality of life for good pay.

Too many people in tech approach their careers as a simple compensation maximization problem. They end up in companies that are happy to pay them 10-100% more, but then demand they work 20-200% harder. All of this to say, at Upduo we believe in fair compensation and a healthy work/life balance. As Dani, our Director of Marketing says, “One of the things that drew me to Upduo was that two of our three founders are parents. When it comes to work/life balance, they lead by example.” Folks on the team (as well as our vendors) are great about respecting each other’s working hours and we strive to make sure evenings and weekends are free. Whatever your passions are outside of the office, we want you to take the time to fully enjoy them.

We work hard, but make sure no one is in danger of burning out.

While we have ambitious goals at Qualia – and plenty to do before we reach them – it’s important to us that everyone leads full lives outside of the office. While the team works San Francisco hours, we trust our engineers to manage their own time and work.

We also provide a benefits package designed with the health and happiness of our employees in mind. Our flexible time off policy allows people to take time away from the office to recharge, both physically and mentally. Qualia also offers a 401k program to help with financial planning and generous parental leave for teammates with growing families. While we’re remote during COVID-19, we also provide daily meditation sessions, online fitness challenges, and a variety of internal virtual clubs such as our diversity, equity, and inclusion book club.

We had a heated debate about whether to choose this value. Let us explain:

Some people consider work/life balance to mean working 40 hours (or less) per week. You won’t find that here at Let’s Do This. Our hours are long, but we also find it difficult to say when exactly they start and stop when our work naturally integrates with every other part of who we are.

For many of us, LDT is the first place where we’ve found balance. We have more mental, physical, and emotional health here than we’ve ever had working at other companies, and it’s remarkable. A lot of us have athletic backgrounds or interests, which means no one will blink an eye if you suddenly decide to take a break in the middle of the day to go to yoga or do a 5-mile run. If anything, one or two people may ask to join you. And when you’re getting fresh air on a trail run or with your friends at a Tough Mudder on the weekend, it will be hard not to think about our product. How can I improve the user experience? Which feature specs need reframing? Ooh, we should explore a partnership with X!

In this way, work/life integration is a more appropriate value for us at Let’s Do This. We are an early stage startup who recently raised a Series A, and we couldn’t be more excited to realize our vision for the future. We pride ourselves on having the same work ethic and discipline that elite athletes do and would be sad if work and life had to be two separate things. If you’re looking for a job to clock in and out of, don’t come here. But if you want the camaraderie of a team in a competitive sport and want to work alongside other passionate, focused, and determined team members, please reach out – we’d love to talk to you!

You can reach out to Marc, our Head of Engineering, at [email protected].