Remote work culture at CobbleWeb

Over the past five years the remote-work model has been through quite a boom and bust cycle. First there was the massive work-from-home trend during the pandemic, followed by a more recent back-to-office trend.

It’s clear from employee feedback on online platforms like LinkedIn that not all remote work opportunities are created equally. In fact, when badly implemented they often do more harm than good. 

Which is why we believe our particular approach to the remote-work model delivers great job satisfaction and work-life balance. 

Our remote-first DNA

Remote-first has been baked into our culture from the very beginning, since we were founded as a distributed company in 2012. Our mindset has always been focussed on creating the best possible environment for remote work.

It starts with a structured approach to the software development process. You can look forward to close collaboration on product discovery, well-planned sprints and transparent feedback sessions.

Feedback at CobbleWeb is also not a top-down process. We have dedicated sessions to discuss any frictions in the internal work process. For example, we recently improved our workflow on GitLab after input from team members.

On a practical level, we understand that not all team members operate in the same time zone. Although most roles are full-time, we do offer flexibility in the form of core hours, when team members need to be available, combined with flexible hours, which are scheduled by individual team members. Also, don’t forget, as a full-time team member you are entitled to annual leave!

Quality over quantity

Finally, the human element is core to our success. We value quality over quantity in all aspects of our business: the projects we take on, the technology we employ, but most importantly, the people we work with.

There is a clear process to evaluate each team member’s work, which rests on three pillars:

• Quality of delivery – was there a successful demo with no bugs?
• Predictability – how accurate was ticket estimation? We work with a 15% leeway, but a good discovery will always help you in this regard.
• Collaboration level – how much value did the team member’s input add to shaping optimal solutions? How available was the team member to assist the rest of the team?

The clever folks at Harvard seem to agree with us. Their research has shown that companies that invest in the quality of their people have much more sustainable growth trajectories.

We therefore avoid a growth-at-all-costs mindset that turns people into disengaged robots. Instead we leverage our people-first caring culture to produce best-in-class solutions. Which is why we only hire people who share our empathetic supportive values.