About
🌏 Why Close?
Watch our most recent culture video featuring our annual team retreat in Italy
100% remote company
Choose between working 5 days/wk (standard full-time) or 4 days/wk @ 80% pay
5 weeks PTO + Winter Holiday Break with 2 additional PTO days for every year with the company
1 month paid sabbatical every 5 years
Paid parental leave
Medical, Dental, Vision with HSA option (US residents)
401k matching at 6% (US residents)
Dependent care FSA (US residents)
Contributor to Stripe's climate initiative
Our Values
Build a house you want to live in -- Examine long-term thinking and action
No BS -- Practice transparency and honesty, especially when it’s hard
Invest in each other -- Build successful relationships with your coworkers and customers
Discipline equals freedom -- Keep your word to yourself and others
Strive for greatness -- Constantly challenge yourself and others
How We Work Together
Productivity, Quality & Impact: We don’t track hours. We trust you’re an adult and know best how to prioritize, meet your goals and contribute at a high level.
Asynchronous communication & collaboration: We have team members all over the world. We don’t expect anyone to work untraditional hours, that means our default is async. Most teams have 2-5 hours of internal meetings weekly.
Appreciation for Deep Work: *During your normal work day, not after a day of meetings*.
Autonomy & Freedom: Create a work environment that is sustainable for you. We place a high amount of trust and responsibility with our team members from the start.
At Close, everyone has a voice. We encourage transparency and practice a mature approach to the work-place. In general, we don’t have strict policies, we have guidelines. Work/Life harmony is an important part of our business - we believe you bring your best to work when you practice self-care (whatever that looks like for you).
We come from 20+ countries located in 5 of the 7 continents. We’re a collection of talented humans, rich in diverse backgrounds, lifestyles, and cultures. Every year we meet up somewhere around the world to spend time with one another. These gatherings are an opportunity to strengthen the relationships within our global community.
Our team is growing in more ways than one - in the last few years, we've launched 24 babies (and counting!). Unanimously, our favorite and most impactful value is “Build a house you want to live in.” We strive to make decisions that are authentic for our people and help our customers become more successful.
Our application process was designed to promote equitable and unbiased hiring practices. We ask a small series of questions that are similar to what would be asked in the first interview. This helps us learn more about you right from the start so please be sure to answer each question thoughtfully. Each application will receive two screens by two different reviewers. Regardless of fit, you will hear back from us letting you know if we'll be moving forward.
There is something in the water at Close, I'm sure of it! An energy, an invisible force, something that makes me just light up every time I sit at my desk. At Close you work with humans who bring their whole selves to work. You work on a simple product that our customers love. I don't know if fulfillment at work can get better than that!
Carol WainainaApplying process
At Close, all recruiting efforts are shared internally by the team while also continuing a full workload to build, maintain and service a quality product for their customers. They do their very best to respond quickly to your application. The interview process can take anywhere from 2-4 weeks.
The great thing is: the people hosting interviews are your potential future colleagues! Candidates are expected to put time and effort into the application. They see your application as your first interview.
Close's Interview Flow:
All interviews are hosted via Zoom video. A typical interview process would look something like this; however, varies slightly with each role:
🤝 Introduction & background call (~45 min)
🤝 Take-home project (~3 hrs)
🤝 Call 2 (~45 min) + Company / Culture call (~20 min)
🤝 Call 3 (~45 min)
🤝 Founder call (~30 min)
🤝 Reference calls
More from Close employees…
You can find a lot more information on their Glassdoor testimonials. The Close Ops team compiles anonymous, team insight surveys twice annually to get a pulse on the health of the team.
Values
Build a house you want to live in: Examine long-term thinking and action.
No BS: Practice transparency and honesty, especially when it’s hard.
Invest in each other: Build successful relationships with your coworkers and customers.
Discipline equals freedom: Keep your word to yourself and others.
Strive for greatness: Constantly challenge yourself and others.
The Close team values long-term thinking and action. Listen to co-founder and CEO Steli share the Close story on GrowthTLDR podcast.
Perks & Benefits
🌎 100% remote (we believe in trust and autonomy)
🌴 5 weeks PTO + 7 company holidays in addition to a 9-day company wide winter break + 2 additional days of PTO for every year you’re with the company
🚑 Medical, dental and vision with HSA option - 99% premiums paid (US residents)
💰 401(k) matching at 6% (US residents). Goal-based annual bonuses (after 1 year).
🍼 Paid parental leave (12 weeks primary caregiver + 2 week ramp-up / 4 weeks secondary caregiver + 1 week ramp-up)
⛵️ 30 days sabbatical after 5 years
✈️ 1 x annual team retreat
💻 Company equipment - computer, monitor, headset
👩🎓 Learning & development available
Life & Diversity
✅ Diversity & Inclusion: At Close, the team advocates for internal promotion and professional growth. They have an active Women’s Group that provides a network and community to support career success. You’ll find women in leadership positions.
✅ Family: This team is growing in more ways than one - they recently launched 14 babies (and counting!). Parents at Close keep in touch and share their experiences of parenting during retreat discussions… and remotely!
✅ Parental Leave: Close offers a paid parental leave for all new parents. Primary caregivers can take up to 12 paid weeks off, plus leverage 2 weeks of ramp-up and secondary caregivers can take up to 4 paid weeks off, plus leverage 1 week of ramp-up."
✅ Work/Life Harmony: We care less about the hours you work and more about the work you get done. As long as you're meeting expectations, you're welcome to take the time you need for your family, pets, hobbies, and other pursuits
Tech Stack
👷 Close Stack: View on StackShare and Github
🔄 Continuous Delivery: Code is shipped multiple times per day via CircleCI
🔝 Open Source Contributor: Close ❤️ open source (ciso8601, LimitLion, SocketShark, TaskTiger)
📓 Learning & Sharing: Weekly "Show & Tells" where engineers show off something that they recently built, learned, etc.
⌨️ Communication Stack:Zoom, Slack, gSuite, Asana, GitHub, Confluence (wiki), Dropbox, and everybody is using Close, of course!
Useful Links
Once a year, Close flies the team from all over the world to a single location for a week to align on company goals and strengthen the social fiber of the team
Check out their latest retreat videos in Lisbon (2018) and Ireland (2017).
Also...
Want to learn more about Close's remote philosophy? See this awesome article published by the team.