Maintaining balance at RevenueCat

Startups are a long journey, and to make it, we must take a balanced approach to work. To us, balance means maintaining a right to disconnect. Work is only a part of your life, and we expect you to make time for other things that are important to you.

We recognize that it can be challenging to maintain this type of balance in a world with no office when we can text, email, or Slack anyone at any time. That is why balance is one of our core values at RevenueCat, and underpins the other three: providing a great customer experience, continuously shipping, and taking full ownership of our work.

Balance is tough to define because it has a unique meaning for each person. For some of us, it means being able to start working later because your brain functions better at night. For others, it means taking a few hours off to go on a hike, working from your balcony, or picking up your child from school in the afternoon.

Chris Adams, an engineer based in Australia, loves to work out and train at 5 am every day. This also lets him sync easily with folks on the US west coast. He’ll often split his day, taking time off in the middle of the day and returning in the evening to cross over with the EU.

With the rising popularity of remote work, people are no longer willing to commit to working in an office five days a week and spending their precious time commuting.

Senior Data Scientist Baran used to spend ~2.5 hours per day commuting:

“Most of the time I was eating dinner at the office (junk food) hoping for a 30 minute reduction in my commute. It was a nightmare…”

Kristen, our Head of Finance & Business Operations, also had a harsh commute:

“1.5 hours each way, every single day. Brutal. I walked ~2 miles to Caltrain (~35-40 minutes from downtown SF). Caltrain to Cal Ave in Palo Alto: 50 minutes. Walk to office: 5 minutes”

RevenueCat’s style of work is also important for parents who want to have a career while being able to take care of their kids.

As Engineer Josh Holtz, puts it:

“RevenueCat’s philosophy and practice of balance makes having a family while having a job you love incredibly easy. The asynchronous culture works great when balancing the work schedules with family commitments. Family and health always comes first so there is never any worry if you or your kids get sick. Other team members will try to help fill the void until you are back and ready to work again. I don’t think I could feel any luckier working here.“

Having the freedom to choose where, when, and how we work goes a long way, but as simple as it may sound, maintaining balance is a balancing act in itself (pun intended). 

A side effect of being globally distributed is that it can make it challenging to build work relationships and socialize. We try our best to create and cherish the moments we get to meet up as much as possible.

Here’s the Cat Intelligence Agency team at the offsite in Berlin in 2022.

And below, a picture of the Catforms and Core Infrastructure teams at the offsite in Mallorca.

Anna, our Product Manager who is based in the Netherlands, met up with Dan and Cesar in NYC and spent some time co-working.

Ultimately, each individual is responsible for defining what balance means to them and has the choice to create a balanced life for themselves.

We understand that remote work isn’t for everyone, but if this post resonated, we’re hiring!