Hey! Welcome to the Tidepool team, we’re so excited to have you with us. We’re hoping you’re going to learn a lot working here and that we’ll learn a lot from you. But first, this document will help you start figuring out how Tidepool works and how we work together.
At Tidepool, we’re trying to build an inclusive, mission- and value-driven organization, so you may find that a lot of our policies differ from the norm at other companies. If you have any questions about why we do things a certain way, or have a suggestion about how we can do anything better, please let us know (or just write comments in the documents -- you should already have comment access to everything in the Tidepool handbook!).
Hopefully by the time you’re actually starting at Tidepool, you’ve already finished filling out the paperwork and you’ve got a computer and other accessories that fit your work-style. Today is all about getting you set up and making sure you’re ready to go.
The goal for today is to make sure you are set up with all of the tools you need, that you are set up to be compliant with our security/privacy requirements, and that you are ready to take on your first assignment.
Here are suggestions for what you may want to accomplish on your first day:
- If you are developer, you'll probably want to make sure you can build and run our app locally.
- If you are a designer, you'll probably want to ready through our style guide and pick up a small design task.
- If you are a support person, you should read through incoming tickets, and maybe even reply to one!
You'll be assigned a first-day buddy, so if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask! No matter what, make sure you introduce yourself to the entire team, and be sure to show up to our daily standup meeting. Your buddy will help make sure it's on your calendar.
We want you to stick around. Your successes here will be your team’s successes, and your team’s successes will be yours. We want you to build a career here, so don’t feel any pressure to cram everything into today -- you’ll have plenty of time to get things right.
Tidepool is a mission- and values-driven company. Hopefully you heard about this a lot during your interview process, but we take our mission and values really seriously at Tidepool and they guide the decisions we make here. You can read more about Tidepool's Mission and Tidepool's Core Values.
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People with diabetes own their own health data. We are stewards of that data.
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We operate with openness and transparency.
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Start small and iterate quickly.
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Embrace regulations, and help improve them.
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We don't have all of the answers.
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Always put the Person with Diabetes (PwD) first.
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Fight the default of exclusion.
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Focus on diabetes software.
Tidepool isn’t a normal medical software company. Medical device and software companies are traditionally closed and inaccessible. At Tidepool, we're working to make software that helps people living with diabetes, and to do so in a way that is open and free (in every sense of the word).
We're a non-profit, which simply put means we aren't in this for the money. We're doing this because We're open source, because we want the technology we create to be freely available and to catalyze even further innovation. (You can read more about why we are open source and non-profit in this blog post.)
Even as a tiny company, we've already had a tremendous impact on the diabetes community. We've convinced device companies that PwD's own their own data. We've shown the power of great design to help PwDs and care gives gain great insights into that data. We've give PwD's a way to donate their data to help catalyze research an innovation. We've even been recognized by the White House for being a "Champion of Change."
Despite our success, our work has just begun. Our ambition is huge. Every day we’re making progress and we’ve already taken this a lot further than anyone said was possible, so we’re used to making the impossible happen. This is hard, daunting work, but that’s how we make a dent on the world and make things better for people living with diabetes.
For now, Tidepool operates as a single team where everyone is working towards company-level goals. Since we’re still small, there’s not too much overhead in keeping up with everyone. There are still engineering-specific meetings, and marketing conversations that happen separately. But when we set our goals, we all think directly about how we contribute to the company goals. You’ll get to work with everyone at Tidepool in some capacity, and dip your fingers into all different kinds of thinking.
We believe that if you have too much on your plate, then you can only see what’s right in front of you. You need space and time to think about the future and plan ahead. If we give ourselves room to breathe and think and live, we’re capable of much broader thinking.
You should expect a typical workweek at Tidepool to be 45-50 hours. Your working hours are up to you. Some people show up between 9 and 10 and leave between 6 and 7; others are early birds. We don’t work weekends, but some of us like to get work done over the weekend or during off-hours. Conversely, if you need to take an afternoon or a day off to attend your kid's event, or a 3-day weekend with your S.O., or recover from a cold, you should just do it. There are a couple of meetings, like the Standup Meeting and the All Hands that everyone should come to, but other than that we try to be respectful of everyone's situation, locale and time zone.
This is to give you a sense of what’s normal here, but you should work the hours that are healthy and sustainable for you. We don't keep track of hours, much less vacation days or sick days.
We are a highly distributed team, and we work very hard to make remote work meaningful and productive for everyone. This takes extra effort, but we find that it's worth it so we can hire and keep the best people no matter where they live. This is an ongoing process of negotiating and compromising, and depends on good communication. If there are specific things you like or want to change, let us know. We’re always getting better :)
Since we are highly distributed and in many different time zones, you may have extended periods when you are working solo. We depend on you to keep yourself motivated, focused and productive. Conversely, when we are overlapping in hours, you may find that you need to need to turn off your phone or Slack notifications in order to focus on the task at hand. You are always empowered to do whatever it takes to help us fulfill our mission while operating by our values.
Tidepool is a small company that is changing and improving rapidly. Today is about welcoming you and helping you join our team, but soon we’ll need your help growing and learning. Tidepool will be a very different company a year from today, and it’s hard to imagine what it will be like in 5 or 10. You will have a hand in building that company, and we’re so excited to have your help.