{"id":279,"date":"2019-12-11T12:25:40","date_gmt":"2019-12-11T20:25:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/?p=279"},"modified":"2019-12-11T12:34:21","modified_gmt":"2019-12-11T20:34:21","slug":"remote-mozilla","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/remote-mozilla\/","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s it like to work remotely at Mozilla?"},"content":{"rendered":"

With roughly half of Mozilla\u2019s 1,100 employees based outside company offices, our team takes a range of approaches to remote work\u2014from working at home to creating new co-working communities.<\/i><\/p>\n

*****<\/p>\n

In 2016, Lisa Gray was going on four years at Mozilla\u2014all of them spent at company headquarters in Mountain View. After joining as a site planner, she\u2019d moved up to a supervisor role on the Workplace Resources team and was excited to continue growing her career at the company. But she also felt a strong pull to go home to San Antonio, where her aging parents and other family still lived. \u201cBeing in California, I couldn\u2019t just drive across town to see my mom or be there for my five-year-old nephew\u2019s Christmas pageant,\u201d she says. \u201cBut I wasn\u2019t ready to leave Mozilla. I felt like I still had work to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

So Lisa decided to pitch her boss on a six-month trial of working from Texas\u2014and her boss said yes. Three years later, she\u2019s not only still at Mozilla, but was recently promoted to Global Manager of the Workplace Resources team.<\/p>\n

Taking the leap<\/b><\/p>\n

While Lisa was already a Mozilla veteran when she moved to San Antonio, Carolyn O\u2019Hara\u2019s first experience in a fully remote role also meant joining a new company. Until 2018, Carolyn had spent her career in journalism, and even a single day of working from home per week was \u201csomething I had to negotiate hard for,\u201d she says. But when she took a role as Editorial Manager at Pocket, a subsidiary of Mozilla that allows users to save and discover content, Carolyn began working full-time out of her home in Brooklyn, New York.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore I started, I was both overjoyed and apprehensive,\u201d she says. \u201cI like the spontaneous conversations you have in an office. But I also knew I\u2019d be able to do some very focused work at home. And as a mom, being home for dinner every night was a radical upgrade in quality of life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once she\u2019d joined the team, her concerns about isolation were quickly put to rest. \u201cTo be honest, I was blown away by how much time people took to help me get to know the company,\u201d she says. In addition to a \u201clearning tour\u201d of the company\u2019s teams and products, new \u201cPocketeers\u201d get a comprehensive road map of what to expect\u2014and what\u2019s expected of them\u2014in their first few months, as well as a \u201cPocket Pal,\u201d who helps them navigate things like expense reports. They also take part in icebreaker-style activities designed to help them get to know their teammates.<\/p>\n

Mozilla, too, offers plenty of help for remote workers\u2014Mozillians and Pocketeers alike\u2014who are settling in. Each full-time employee is flown to Mountain View for a week of cultural onboarding within the first few months\u2014and on day one, they\u2019re connected with a seasoned \u201cRemote Buddy\u201d who can help them navigate company processes and norms.<\/p>\n

And if remotees need additional support, they have someone else to turn to\u2014Lisa and her team. In addition to managing the Remote Buddy program, Workplace Resources offers tips on ergonomics and recommends best practices<\/a> for distributed teams, and will soon launch office hours where remote workers can drop in for advice. An \u201cAway Team\u201d Slack channel also gives remote workers a place to share everything from office furniture recommendations to the most unusual places they\u2019ve taken video calls (highlights include a hardware store and a \u201cVictorian sewer\u201d).<\/p>\n

Cross-continental challenges<\/b><\/p>\n

For remotees like Lisa and Carolyn, time differences are another common challenge\u2014but one that teamwork can largely overcome. On Lisa\u2019s team, meetings have shifted earlier to accommodate employees who aren\u2019t on the west coast. And for Carolyn, being a few hours ahead of Bay Area colleagues offers an opportunity to focus on external partnerships with New-York-based publishers in the mornings, while leaving time for internal collaboration after noon.<\/p>\n

To remain aligned without sharing an office, Mozillians and Pocketeers alike emphasize communication, from frequent Zoom calls to thorough documentation. But they also take opportunities to meet face-to-face. Carolyn and one of her direct reports, who happens to live nearby, often hold one-on-ones at a local coffee shop, and all of the Pocketeers in the New York area get together at least one morning per month.<\/p>\n

A self-described extrovert, Lisa, too, welcomes opportunities to see her colleagues in person. In addition to office visits every month or two, which she says \u201cfill up my fuel tank,\u201d she and her fellow remotees join the rest of the team at week-long \u201cAll Hands\u201d meetings twice each year; previous locations include London, Whistler, and Hawaii.<\/p>\n

\"Carolyn<\/p>\n

Carolyn on stage at Mozilla\u2019s June 2019 All Hands in Whistler, B.C.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cMozilla invests a lot of resources in All Hands, and I\u2019m really grateful for that,\u201d Carolyn says. \u201cIt\u2019s a fantastic opportunity to learn more about what our colleagues are working on, and a very inspiring week.\u201d<\/p>\n

People first<\/b><\/p>\n

While formal programs and processes go a long way toward supporting the hundreds of Mozillians and Pocketeers who work remotely, Lisa notes seemingly small gestures also make a big difference. \u201cIf we have to decide between finishing some tasks and helping a teammate, we\u2019ll always pick the teammate. People come first.\u201d And that includes remotees; while distributed workers at other companies often struggle with feeling like second-class citizens, the sheer prevalence of remote team members at Mozilla makes considering their needs second nature.<\/p>\n

Carolyn, too, credits her colleagues with helping her navigate the challenges of transitioning to remote work. \u201cIn journalism, there were plenty of nights where I worked until 9 p.m., and I\u2019m still a work in progress in terms of switching off as early as I should.\u201d If a west coast coworker asks a question on Slack, for example, she\u2019s often tempted to answer. \u201cBut if I do, they\u2019ll say \u2018It\u2019s late where you are! Get off Slack!\u201d she laughs. \u201cIf anything, there\u2019s pressure to sign off, which is so refreshing.\u201d<\/p>\n

And while Carolyn prefers to work from home, she notes that Mozilla also offers reimbursements to those for whom a separate workspace helps focus during the day\u2014or unplug at the end of it. \u201cIf you need to be around people to thrive, they\u2019ll support that,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

The company also backs up its commitment to work-life balance with an annual wellness benefit for remotees and everyone else on the team, which Carolyn uses to get out of the house for barre classes and the occasional massage. But the biggest impact, she says, comes from the simple flexibility of working from home. While a remote working arrangement will not work for everyone or for every job (Mozillians\u2019 work out the details directly with their manager), when it works, it really works.\u00a0 \u201cI can take my son to the playground at lunchtime and give my babysitter a break, or hang out with him for five minutes in the afternoon and not miss a beat. It\u2019s awesome,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Lisa, meanwhile, is enjoying being home. \u201cI love that I can take my nephew to the park, or we can go fishing,\u201d she says. \u201cBecause Mozilla was willing to invest in me even though I wasn\u2019t born and raised in Silicon Valley, I don\u2019t have to choose between my family and having a career in tech.\u201d<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Interested in working with the Mozilla team? Learn more about working at Mozilla <\/b>here<\/b><\/a>. <\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With roughly half of Mozilla\u2019s 1,100 employees based outside company offices, our team takes a range of approaches to remote work\u2014from working at home to creating new co-working communities. ***** … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":144,"featured_media":281,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[327152],"tags":[46036,20258],"coauthors":[306191],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/144"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}