Remote-Led Companies

This is a list of companies that employ remote leaders along with data about how far away from an office they are allowed to work.

Metrics

Two metrics for gauging the efficacy of a remote work environment are:

• Do leaders (at least some of them) usually work from home? Having leaders who primarily work at home is a good indicator the remote work environment will be inclusive and that effective communication between leadership and remote workers is transpiring.

• Are leaders required to work near a physical office? This is a good indicator of the level of company commitment to distributed teams as well as chances of promotion. A remote job is great but not being able to advance unless you move across the country really makes it just a job; some people would prefer to have a remote career.

There are plenty of other metrics we could use, but after fifteen years of working remote I feel everything else can be seen as falling out of these two culture-level metrics. If you have the right culture all the other bits are implementation details that can be reasonably expected to change to better serve that culture.

Why Leaders?

My experience has been if the culture supports off-site leaders there is a genuine remote-first culture with transparent group communication. If leaders must be colocated then significant discussions happen in face-to-face meetings, over lunch and after work from which remote employees are always excluded. A lack of remote leadership can also be an indicator that senior leadership is just tolerating remote and given a chance would shut it all down.

Proximity Key

Code	Definition	Description
C	C-Suite
V	VP
D	Director
M	Manager
*	anywhere	adequate Internet connection
mh	medium haul	~3000-mile flight range
na	north america	North America only
do	domestic	same country as an office
tz	time zone	within (a) certain time zone(s)
dd	driving distance	few hours drive of an office
ma	metro area	same metro area as an office

Use do if roles are definitely remote but no proximity information is available.

Format

Company | Headquarters | Other Offices? | Proximity
RemoteCo | San Francisco | Yes | M* Ddd

Company is the company name. Headquarters is the location of the company headquarters--or None. Other Offices? is meant to be Yes/No rather than a list of the other offices.

Generally we assume that all levels underneath a given level are at least as permissive with regards to Proximity, so if a company’s VPs (and below) can work from anywhere but C-Suite has to stay within driving distance its proximity would be V* Cdd. If a company only allows managers and directors to work remote and they have to live in the same country as an office its proximity would be Ddo. A fully remote company with no co-location requirements for any role—perhaps no physical offices at all—would have a proximity of C*. Multiple codes may be used for expressiveness—a company that allows managers to work remote in the Pacific time zone of the US only would have a proximity of Mtzdo.

Proximity describes the most permissive case, so if there is only one org within an large company that allows its managers and directors to work from anywhere the whole company still has a proximity of D*. However, an individual being allowed to work remote in a role that otherwise would not be remote—a VP who tried to quit to move to France so they let her work remote, say—does not count. If a company definitely has remote managers but no proximity information is known, use do—such a company would have a proximity of Mdo.

Contributing

PRs that remove a company or “downgrade” one to a less permissive proximity (Ddo -> Dma, say) will be rejected unless they come from am employee of that company. This is to prevent folks from trying to modify a company’s status because they are unable to find a current supporting job listing.

The List

Company	Headquarters	Other Offices?	Proximity
1Password	Toronto	No	Mdo
Airbase	San Francisco	Yes	Ddo
Auth0	Bellevue, WA	Yes	C*
Automattic	San Francisco	No	D*
Axios	Arlington, VA	Yes	Ddo
Basecamp	Chicago	No	C*
BeenVerified	NYC	Yes	V*
Canonical	London	Yes	M*
Cinchapi	Atlanta	No	Mdo
CircleCI	San Francisco	Yes	Vdo
Citrine Informatics	Redwood City, CA	Yes	Mdo
Clipboard Health	San Francisco	No	Vdo
Close	None	No	C*
ConvertKit	Boise, ID	No	Mdo
DataStax	Santa Clara, CA	Yes	Mdo
DockYard	Boston	No	Ddo
Eager Labs	None	No	M*
Elite HRV	None	No	Cdo
Etsy	NYC	Yes	M*
Fastly	San Francisco	Yes	C*
GatsbyJS	Berkeley, CA	No	Mdo
Ghost	None	No	C*
GitHub	San Francisco	Yes	Mdo
GitLab	San Francisco	No	V*
Help Scout	Boston	Yes	M*
Hotjar	Malta	No	C*
InVision	None	No	C*
Lesbians Who Tech	None	No	Cdo
The Lifetime Value Company	NYC	Yes	V*
Modern Tribe	None	No	C*
Mozilla	Mountain View, CA	Yes	VPdo
Olo	NYC	No	Mdo
Parse.ly	NYC	No	C*
Plaid	San Francisco	Yes	Dtz
ReCharge Payments	Santa Monica, CA	No	Mna
Redox	Madison, WI	Yes	C*
Sticker Mule	None	No	C*
Stripe	San Francisco	No	Mdo
Stuart	Paris	Yes	Mtz
TaxJar	None	No	C*
Theorem	Los Angeles	Yes	Mdo
Thorn	Washington, DC	No	Mdo
TravelJoy	San Francisco	No	C*
Twitter	San Francisco	Yes	Mdo
Wikimedia Foundation	San Francisco	Yes	C*
Wirecutter	NYC	Yes	Ddo
WorkOS	None	No	Ctz
Zapier	None	No	C*