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@janogarcia
Last active March 5, 2021 18:38
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Reverse Manifesto

Reverse Manifesto

A list of company-related stuff—mission, core values, and culture—that I research before considering applying to a job.

Sure, it’s nearly impossible to find a company that will satisfy every single point, but it helps me at least in finding better matches against my personal preferences and values.

The list doesn’t follow any specific order.

  • Smart and inspiring leaders (CEO, founders), over megalomaniacs and tyrants
  • Driven by a good and meaningful mission/cause, over greed (betting/casinos, scammy cryptos...)
  • Small to medium-sized (50-60, 100), over growing rapidly to unsustainably large and a high entropy environment
  • Bootstrapped, over heavy reliance on VC funding
  • Remote-first, over just remote-friendly
  • Asynchronous communication and collaboration, over synchronous by default
  • Trust, over pervasive monitoring
  • Clearly defined core values, over toxic behaviors
  • Flexible work schedule, over mandatory overlap beyond my regular work hours (9am–⁠6pm/7pm)
  • Respect time off (non-working hours, weekends, OOO/vacation), over always-on culture
  • Minimum mandatory vacation days (a total of 35-40 days available for vacation or national holidays), over tricky “unlimited vacation” policies
  • Career mobility options, over haphazard moves and stagnation
  • Committed to professional development and personal growth, over stagnation and burnout (excessive hours on the side)
  • Diverse environment (nationality, ethnicity, gender, age...), over sameness and exclusion
  • Almost-flat organization with minimum levels of middle management, over a complex hierarchy with convoluted communication chains and multiple levels of indirection
  • Transparency and open communication, over opacity and unknown direction
  • Pragmatic, effective lean-inspired methodologies (streamlined like Basecamp’s “Shape Up”), over micromanagement or dogmatic and filled with unnecessary ceremony
  • High-quality work and open documentation practices, over poor practices and knowledge silos
  • Supports and fosters personal health (sick leave, mental health), over neglecting it
  • Product and design-driven, over exclusively engineering-driven
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