I’m happy to share that Brian Lovin has finished the 45 day Buffer Bootcamp* and just accepted our invitation to join the Buffer team full-time. I just hit send on an email to the whole team and we’re in the midst of a GIF party in HipChat :)
Brian will be working out of Waco, Texas as part of the fully distributed Buffer team. Since he started working with us, he has impacted the design and experience of the product greatly, as well as the blog, static pages, email newsletters and apps too.
Brian has already done an amazing job to make our design process completely transparent and regularly posts updates on Dribbble. Be sure to follow him over there as we refine and improve Buffer’s design patterns further in the future. Brian also has an amazing project called The Kollection focused to help you discover great new music every day.
You can follow Brian on Twitter @brian_lovin and also check out his design work on Dribbble.
*A little about the intro period: Everyone who starts at Buffer is at first a contractor for 45 days. We see that time similar to a dating period. The reason for this is actually quite simple. It always felt a bit odd to me to make a full commitment after a few interviews for someone to start full-time. Instead, we felt it’s better that the company and the new person on the team both get to know each other quite a bit beforehand. During that intro period, we place a special focus on looking for culture fit and alignment with the Buffer values.
Try Buffer for free
140,000+ small businesses like yours use Buffer to build their brand on social media every month
Get started nowRelated Articles
If you’ve followed Buffer for a while, then you know we have a few uncommon approaches to teammate benefits and compensation. The example I’ll dig into today is our “Dependent Grant,” which we launched in 2016. Our Dependent Grant is separate benefit, outside of salary, that we grant teammates who are taking care of and supporting family members. It’s an extra $3,000 USD per year per child, up to four dependents total. This has been one of our most unusual (and at times controversial) benefits
It can feel incredibly challenging to hire, and hire well. For one thing, hiring is usually a significant time investment for our small team — we once had 1,500 applications in just over a week for a content role (!!) — but beyond that, we are so intentional about the ways that we collaborate. Buffer is a fully remote, global, and culturally diverse company operating with a four-day work week. Finding someone who will thrive in our work environment, and is also highly skilled in the areas we’r
We’ve always had teammates who have side projects in addition to working at Buffer. Working on new projects, building, experimenting, and self-improvement are built into our DNA as a company. So it's quite common to be speaking with someone only to find out they own a small business outside of Buffer that started as a side project. We also have several published authors and many apps built by Buffer teammates. We believe this entrepreneurial spirit and creative drive not only enhances our indiv