March 2023

Caroline Clark

When I think back to my favorite memories at Atlassian, I remember the open atrium in the middle of the Harrison Street office in the Mission. There, we held All Hands, and the entire company sat on the steps. We announced revenue milestones or demo’ed new products. There was always energy in that room.

It wasn’t always glamorous. Sometimes it was kind of empty and awkward. But the people in that room are what I remember most.

We’re now at 10 people. We’re also at an inflection point in hiring — in thinking about who to bring on for our engineering leadership, GTM, and new engineers. We have the choice to decide if we want to go invest more in an in-office culture or stay “remote first.” It’s much harder to change later on.

When we first started, we decided on remote first (‣). It has been an amazing decision for us. We have an amazing team and great traction.

Personally, it has been amazing but also challenging. I can’t imagine building Arcade for over 10 years behind a computer. I realize that this is a selfish reason. But I also earnestly believe that it will trend better for our company’s longer-term value and morale.

Collaboration in person can be faster and quicker than remote. There are studies that show this:

The impact of geographical distance on learning through collaboration

There have also been studies about how eating together can promote collaboration as well:

Teams Who Break Bread Together, Bond (Team Series 8/10) - Thrive Global