Benefits
These guidelines will evolve over time. As written they are heavily influenced by GitLab’s handbook.
Benefits are currently written US-centric as all Shorebird employees currently reside in the US. We may adapt offered benefits in country/region specific manners as we learn to employ persons there.
Shorebird has so far only hired for “Founding” roles where we recognize that you’re taking on a significant set of risk and responsibility. Our compensation for Founding roles have targeted >90th percentile equity and 70th percentile cash compensation. We have used a variety of benchmarking services (pave.com, levels.fyi) to help us match market rates. We expect this balance will necessarily shift as we grow as a company.
In alignment with our remote-only approach, we have thus far chosen to adjust pay based only on country rather than city level location. The belief being that different countries have different “social contracts” for who pays for what, but that the work we are doing is the same regardless of where one might chose to live within a country.
Shorebird has a flexible PTO policy up to 10 contiguous days without asking and we encourage everyone to step away from the keyboard for at least 10 days per calendar year. We care about impact on the company and our users, not your time at keyboard; taking time for ourselves is an important part of ensuring our time working can be productive.
We currently observe 11 public holidays. The official list is kept in Rippling.
So far we’ve had very few times where we’ve needed to work late nights, weekends or holidays, but it there will be inevitable fires and disruptions as product usage grows. It’s important to rest and recharge when we can. This is a many year journey we’re on together.
Shorebird is an all-remote company. We do not have an office. We endeavor to eventually hire all over the globe. Currently all employees are based in the US and within GMT-5 to GMT-8. You’re welcome to work wherever you like (do let us know so we can send taxes to the right place).
We try to gather for a week, 2-4 times a year as a whole company. For such gatherings, of course, Shorebird covers all travel expenses. So far we’ve traveled to Chicago and San Francisco.
- Use your company card for all travel expenses when possible.
- Rental cars are rarely worth it. Uber/Lyft is usually cheaper/better (even for 1+ hour rides).
- Book hotels and flights directly with the hotel/airline. It’s usually cheaper and you get better service. The various booking sites are sometimes cheaper but non-refundable. (Most are effectively SEO/marketing companies that take a majority cut of the booking and result in the hotel/airline not being able to adjust your reservation or refund you since they themselves only got a small cut of the booking.)
- Book refundable flights. It’s usually only $100 more for US travel and allows us to adjust plans without losing the entire ticket cost.
- Airbnb can often get a nice place for cheaper than individual hotel rooms if you’re interested in sharing a house with others.
Shorebird offers competitive healthcare plans for all US employees and dependents, including dental and vision. For 2023, we are covering 95% of premiums for employees and 50% of premiums for dependents. Our current provider is Blue Cross Blue Shield, brokered through Rippling.com.
Shorebird provides a 401k plan for all US employees with 4% employer match. Our current provider is Guideline, brokered through Rippling.com.
Shorebird provisions for Parental Leave which may apply to team members but this may vary depending on local country laws. Currently this section is written US-centric as all Shorebird employees currently reside in the US.
Shorebird provides 16 weeks of paid parental leave for any active team member (regardless of gender) who becomes a parent through childbirth or adoption while working at Shorebird. The entire 16 week balance must be used within 12 months of the birth or adoption.
As we’ve not yet had a team member take parental leave, so I’m sure there are more details to cover when we get there.
We provide automatic 50k life insurance for all employees, with supplemental insurance available through our provider, Beam.
We are unable to offer short or long term disability insurance at this time. We’ve been told we must exist as a company for 2 years before we can offer disability insurance. We’ll update this section when we have more information.
Shorebird will pay for the items you need to get your job done. We will provide you equipment when you start and you will also be provided a company card through which to order things needed to advance the company.
In most cases, your time is by far the companies largest expense. For a sense of scale: engineers in the US cost ~1k per workday, so if you’re spending <1k to advance the company more than a day forward, that’s likely the right call.
- Spend company money like it is your own money. No, really. We hired you because we believe you make good decisions. That includes with money.
- You don’t have to ask permission before making purchases in the interest of the company. If you’re in doubt, just ping Eric.
- It is generally easiest and fastest for you to make any purchases for office supplies yourself and expense them.
- You may privately use Shorebird property, a laptop for example, to check your private e-mails or watch a movie as long as it does not violate the law, harm Shorebird, or interfere with Intellectual Property.
- If you make a purchase that will cost Shorebird $1000 USD per item (or over), unless otherwise stated, this is classified as company property, you will be required to return the item(s) if you leave the company.
Any non-company expenses should not be paid with a company credit card, but sometimes mistakes happen. We use Ramp and it has tools to help you reimburse the company for accidental personal expenses.
In my (Eric’s) experience, expense value outcomes tend to be binary. Things that I use every day end up costing effectively nothing, things that I don’t use end up costing effectively infinity. I’ve found the same to be true at Shorebird. Spend money on things we are using to provide value to our customers and we’ll be very happy we spent it.
Most Shorebird employees work from their homes. We want you to be comfortable and productive in your chosen work environment. We will provide you with a laptop and a company card to purchase any additional equipment you need.
Spending guidelines:
- New hires are encouraged to expense up to 1,500 USD (or equivalent local currency) as part of setting up your home office.
- Existing team is encouraged to spend up to 500 USD (or equivalent local currency) to purchase upgrades, replacements, or enhancements to your home office setup.
Example items include chair, desk, monitor, headset, external mic, external keyboard and external mouse, additional monitors, laptop stand, external webcam, supplementary lighting, laptop bag/case. Home office equipment is not considered company property and you are not required to return it if you leave the company. Laptops and devices are company property and must be returned if you leave the company.
These amounts were set based on GitLab’s policy. As above, you should be spending company money when you believe it is advancing the company. You being comfortable and productive in your chosen work environment is a big part of that.
Depending on your local laws, you may also be able to claim tax benefits for use of your home office, please consult with a tax professional.
As part of supporting home office use, Shorebird will pay for the cost of your internet connection up to $100 USD per month. This is based on GitLab’s policy.
We recognize that not all team members will have space at home to work, in that case we will provide a budget for co-working spaces. Our current budget is $700 USD (or equivalent local currency) per month. This is based on GitLab’s policy.