OddBirding Guide

• We strive to help our clients and users solve complex problems with technology that respects their agency, expertise, and diversity.
• We strive to build a diverse team of experts creating sustainable careers together – with meaningful work, steady income, flexible schedules, and shared profits.
• We strive to keep the company at a size where everyone knows each other, and there is enough overlap to take vacations
• We strive to choose internal & client projects that have a positive impact on the world.
• We strive to be teachers in the industry, actively participating in the open-web.

We want your time with OddBird to be fun, challenging, educational, and rewarding. One of the owners will schedule a regular check-in with you to see how things are going, and help along the way.

Equal Compensation

• All senior-level contractors are paid equally for client work (currently $110/hr – open to change as the team deems necessary) across all skillsets. Some internal work is paid at lower rates (currently $85/hr), when agreed on by the team.
• If we bring on a junior-level contractor they may be temporarily paid $60-$85/hr, with a clear path to graduate into a senior position.
• Intern compensation is determined on a case-by-case basis.

Transparency

Our books are open to the team, and the owners will give a financial report at the beginning of every month. We will also maintain a yearly spreadsheet showing the company finances, income, and expenses — including the hours worked and pay invoiced by each contractor.

Consistency

OddBird maintains a “rainy-day” fund to smooth over the impact of fluctuations in available client work, and we aim to keep this fund at a level sufficient to keep the team working on internal projects for up to three months without client work.

Education, Technology, & PTO

OddBird provides $1000 a year towards continuing education related to your work — conferences, classes, books, etc.

OddBird also provides $500 each year towards technology purchases that contribute to your daily work. If unused in a year, this money rolls over to subsequent years.

All contractors are encouraged to take 10 days of PTO annually, currently paid at $400/day.

These benefits are available after you’ve been working with OddBird for at least six months.

Flexibility

All work is remote, and all pay is hourly. You are never required to work more hours than you are interested and able. Take a vacation whenever you need, take the afternoon off to play with your kids, or work a bit extra to buy yourself a treat. Just let the team know your schedule in advance, so we can all adjust as needed.

Adaptability

If you are interested in learning aspects of the process that are new and interesting to you (a designer interested in Python?), let us know, and we’ll help you get there. We’re open to adjusting job descriptions, and even facilitating horizontal movement in the company.

Participation

We’re a small company, and everyone has a say in the direction we want to go. While owners will have final say in major company decisions, we want the entire team involved in the conversation.

• We have daily video check-ins with the full team using Google Meet to discuss questions, client projects, what’s working, or what might need to change.
• We have “all hands” work retreats twice a year, for more intensive in-person planning and playing. OddBird covers all the costs of travel, lodging, and food when we get together — and pays a daily rate (currently $400/day) during the retreat.
• We pay for internal OddBird work required to grow the company, or improve our processes. If you have ideas you’d like to help implement, bring a proposal to the team, with an estimated budget for the project. We’ll try to make it happen!

Giving Back

Every month, up to 10% of your invoice to OddBird can be time spent on open-source contributions, work-related blogging or book-writing, and conference talks. We also contribute regularly to charities that help improve diversity-in-tech, and we’re open to your suggestions on where our money should go.

Communication

One of the owners will be assigned to check in with you on a regular basis, and be available as-needed for any questions or concerns you might have. We want to know how things are going for you!

If there are concerns with your work performance or team interaction, we will talk with you about them and give you a chance to correct the problem, before making a decision to remove you from the team. In case of serious misconduct, you may be removed from the team immediately.

Safety

OddBird has a comprehensive Code of Conduct to ensure the comfort and safety of all our contributors. We take harassment seriously, and want to look out for your well-being.

Yearly Bonus

End-of-year bonuses depend on how the company is doing in a given year.

Communication

OddBird puts a high value on flexibility. We want the company to fit your life, not the other way around. Good communication is required to make that possible, but most everything else is flexible with prior arrangement. Let us know what you are thinking, and what you need, and we’ll work with you to make it possible.

• Let us know when you will be out of the office or unavailable, so we can plan accordingly. We encourage you to take time away from work, and turn off notifications while you are out — but we also need to plan around your absence.
• Respond to questions in Slack and GitHub Projects in a timely fashion. Questions may be asked at any time of day or night or weekend (so turn off notifications if you don’t want to be disturbed), but we only expect participation during our normal working hours (see “Scheduling” below).
• Follow the Code of Conduct at all times, to ensure the safety of all our contributors.
• If you aren’t sure, ask! Always err on the side of communicating more.

Scheduling

While you determine your own work schedule, we have some basic requests for availability and overlap with the team. Here are a few assumptions we’ll make, unless you arrange something different with us in advance:

• Join our daily “stand-up” video-chat, weekdays at 11:30am Eastern Time unless otherwise noted.
• Be available regularly in our Slack channels between ~11:30am and ~5:00pm Eastern Time on weekdays. Even if you are not actively working at the time, it’s good to be available for questions from other OddBird contributors during these hours.
• Attend the “all-hands” work retreats (currently twice a year). We understand that not everyone has the same flexibility for travel, so we’ll go out of our way to make retreats as convenient as possible for everyone involved. Let us know if you have any concerns.

If you plan to be unavailable or not working for a full day or more, please add your plans as an event on the OddBird Availability Google Calendar.

Participation

We like to work collaboratively on each feature, passing responsibility back and forth so that everyone on the team has an understanding of the user-story goals, requirements, and implementation. It requires active communication and consistent documentation to keep everyone up-to-speed.

• All of our work is reviewed by another member of the team — including UX proposals, designs, code, and copy. UX proposals and designs are reviewed before implementation, and code is reviewed before it is merged into the main branch. Seek out reviews of your work from others on the team, be ready to review others’ work, and expect to make changes based on a review. It’s worth the time to make improvements when we find them.
• Be gracious on either end of a code review. We are all working together to improve the quality of our work. Discuss the code, not the developer, giving feedback honestly and politely. Accept critique with an open mind, but feel free to push back, and provide context for your decisions. There is never only one valid solution, but a conversation often helps strengthen the final product.
• We rely heavily on GitHub Projects for managing our process across a remote team. You can look in GitHub Projects to find what user stories are available or assigned to you, what the priorities are, and what others are working on. Keep GitHub Projects up-to-date as you work, so that others can see the status of a story, and any relevant conversations and decisions that have been made about its implementation.
• We use Dropbox to store client project and internal documentation, and Google Drive to store meeting notes and documents that require team collaboration or comments.

Finding Clients

As a small consulting company, OddBird relies on each of our contributors to be involved in bringing in new work. If you are at a conference, a local tech meetup, or anywhere else, we hope that you’ll mention OddBird (where appropriate) when introducing yourself, and keep your eyes and ears open for clients who could use our services.

Billing

OddBird pays invoices on a monthly basis, and sends invoices to clients on the same schedule.

• Track your billable hours consistently and accurately in the company-provided software (currently Harvest). Time is “billable” when it is spent actively working on a client project, approved OddBird-internal projects, meetings/stand-ups/check-ins, or your 10% “giving back” time.
• Submit an hourly invoice, itemized by client/project, with each line-item rounded up to the nearest half-hour, to accounts@oddbird.net on the first business day of every month. Timely invoices help us bill clients more efficiently. If you can’t get your invoice in, let the owners know, and we can pull your hours from the shared time tracker.

This guide will help you understand the expectations for your role at OddBird. The criteria are divided into three groups: Work Quality, Communication, and Learning & Growth. Each group has three levels of performance: Underperform, Meet Expectations, and Exceed Expectations. You can use this guide to assess your own performance, identify your strengths and areas for improvement, and set your goals and action plans.

Work Quality

Underperform

• Lack initiative and wait for direction or assignments on high priority work
• Produce low-quality or incomplete work that requires excessive rework or refactoring from others
• Use outdated or inappropriate tools, technologies, or methodologies
• Avoid or give up on challenges
• Do not create plans for big assignments, or dissect them into smaller tasks

Meet Expectations

• Take initiative on high priority work by chipping away at it
• Deliver complete and high-quality work, and act on feedback from others
• Approach challenges by creating plans for big assignments, and dissecting them into smaller tasks

Exceed Expectations

• Take ownership of features and infrastructure
• Lead internal review processes and deliver high-quality, actionable feedback to others
• Make requests for input early in process to tackle challenging work
• Take initiative and lead others in creating plans for big assignments, and dissecting them into smaller tasks

Communication

Underperform

• Rarely communicate or do so in an untimely manner
• Miss large parts of or entire meetings without notice
• Do not document the breakdown of upcoming work or the status of in-progress work, and do not reflect on your contributions, accomplishments, or lessons from challenges (self-retro)
• Do not ask for help or guidance when blocked, and avoid participating and learning from review and discussions
• Show disinterest or indifference when planning new work

Meet Expectations

• Communicate frequently and in a timely manner
• Attend most meetings and notify others in advance when you will be late or cannot attend
• Post a breakdown of your daily assignments documenting completed work, the status of in-progress work, and upcoming tasks
• Document your contributions, accomplishments, and lessons from challenges (self-retro)
• Reach out with questions when blocked and engage with review and planning by asking follow-up questions

Exceed Expectations

• Communicate with trust in advance and request engagement from others
• Lead meetings and discussions about internal and external projects
• Follow up during and after reviews and discussions with questions that help confirm understanding
• Generate internal documents, blog posts, and other valuable content based on your contributions (especially accomplishments and challenges)

Learning & Growth

Underperform

• Do not participate or learn from review and discussions, and asks few or no questions
• Resist and reject change and feedback, and do not adjust to the changing needs and expectations of projects
• Lack initiative and collaboration skills, and don’t support the team’s goals and objectives
• Refuse to follow established team processes

Meet Expectations

• Engage with review and discussions by asking more questions
• Reach out with questions when blocked
• Act on feedback as an opportunity to learn and improve, and remain flexible and adaptable to change
• Challenge the team processes and look for ways to improve them

Exceed Expectations

• Demonstrate curiosity and pursue challenges that help you and the team grow
• Learn new skills, technologies, or methodologies that can improve your performance and the quality of your work
• Help others adapt to the changing needs and expectations of the project
• Demonstrate leadership, initiative, and collaboration skills, and contribute to the team’s goals and objectives
• Adjust the team processes, listening to feedback and guiding the team through the changes