PostHog Handbook Library / Company

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# A grown-up company

We’re very proud to have a genuinely welcoming environment where PostHog treats you, and we treat each other, like grown ups.

We’re an international bunch of weirdos, but one thing us weirdos have in common is that everyone is kind, courteous, and professional towards each other - and that’s something we’re really proud of. And we all ship, of course!

### Things we do to create a welcoming environment

We have tried many different tactics over the years, and these are the things we have found _actually_ make a difference.

- We are all remote. At the time of writing, we employ people in 23 countries across 3 continents.
- Asynchronous and transparent communication - so people can get the context they need to work effectively no matter what their schedule.
- We offer near complete flexibility over working hours. You can do the school run, or schedule that dentist appointment you’ve been avoiding!
- An anti-meeting culture. Ever had someone schedule a meeting over family time because they couldn’t find a slot in your schedule? That doesn’t happen here.
- Generous parental leave (inc. up to 6 months maternity at full pay) so those raising families can do so while still working for us. We also extend our bereavement leave to cover pregnancy loss.
- Transparent pay - so people get paid in line with their ability and experience, not their negotiation skills!
- Proactive pay process - we review _everyone’s_ pay 3 times per year, so we don’t reward people who loudly argue over those who quietly perform.
- Generous pay - so people can afford to work here and finance doesn’t prevent this. We take the 50th percentile for any given role then add 20%.
- We write our policies up publicly, so we’re accountable to the world, instead of hiding them. Hence this handbook! And anyone can edit it.
- A culture of transparent feedback that is constantly reinforced - this discourages gossip or playing politics, which is corrosive.
- Training budget, especially for those in roles where we don’t have lots of existing experience as a company, to help people develop.
- Health insurance for those from countries that do not provide this freely.
- We pay people for SuperDays because we think this is the right thing to do and it enables those who could not otherwise take a day off work to participate in our recruitment process.
- Unlimited vacation policy with a mandatory minimum time off - so you can fit work around your life.
- We discourage heavy drinking at company events - you’ll need to join another company if you’re a bro, alas.
- Political issues can be more important to people than work, and they are frequently divisive and distract from our purpose. We therefore don’t stand for any political cause and don't tolerate or allow political discussions in Slack, GitHub, or any other PostHog-owned or sponsored tools or events.
- We don’t care about college degrees. We care about what you’ve achieved.
- We expect people to act kindly and inclusively towards each other. We take a very strict stance on people behaving inappropriately towards others.

### Things we don’t do that other companies might

We care about doing what works for PostHog’s culture, rather than worrying too much about what other companies are doing or how they judge this. These are some of the things that we don’t do as a result.

- We don’t track the metrics for how many people are underrepresented at PostHog or in our application process because we don’t want to optimize for these numbers when we know we offer a welcoming place to work. We used to do this and realized it wasn’t helping us.
- Unconscious bias training. Our applicant data shows that under-represented groups are no more or less advantaged by our hiring process, and the effectiveness of such training is debatable.
- Making PostHog’s culture the responsibility of the people or an ‘HR’ team - culture starts with the founders and executive team. Otherwise you end up with policies and actual behavior starting to diverge.
- Advertise on external job boards. We used to do this (and get 1000s more applications), but found we virtually never hired anyone who didn’t apply directly to posthog.com or through referrals.
- We don’t avoid doing business with certain customers except under very strictly defined exceptional circumstances. We allow the government to determine what is acceptable instead of getting into discussions about who we should deal with for each of our 100,000+ customers.
- Tell grown-ups how to behave. We expect kindness and we expect direct feedback when something lands badly. Beyond that, judgment beats rules. Overly codifying conduct in the handbook substitutes rule-following for judgment and turns optional guidance into de facto policy. Stuff between people is handled between people. If not, we have a greivance process

Are you a potential candidate reading this? Excited to join a grown up company? Get in touch!

Canonical URL: https://posthog.com/handbook/company/grown-ups

GitHub source: contents/handbook/company/grown-ups.md

Content hash: `266d60a1e8dc92c3`