LIFE AT HATCH
How thirty-two people across two cities actually work together.
HOW WE WORK
Three operating defaults nobody has to argue about.
Eight hours of meetings a week, max. Calendars are sacred. Most days have at least four uninterrupted hours of focus time. If you need to schedule a meeting that breaks the rule, you also need to write the agenda — most of those agendas become async docs instead, and the meeting evaporates.
Writing is leverage. Big decisions get a written doc — short, with a recommendation, not a strategy deck. The team reads, comments, decides. Real code reviews and real doc reviews. Documents have authors and decisions have owners; ambiguity is the bug we fix first.
Quarterly we go offline together. Two weeks at HQ (Brooklyn one quarter, Berlin the next) plus two long weekends somewhere new. Travel is covered. Spouses and kids are welcome. We don't do mandatory fun. We do real work in the same room, then eat dinner.
WHERE WE WORK
Two hubs. Remote everywhere else.
The other four — Brian (Seattle), Yuki (Tokyo), Marta (Lisbon), Ben (Dublin) — work fully remote. They come to a hub twice a year on the company. Equipment, ergonomic setup, internet stipend, and a co-working membership all covered.
I was on parental leave during a Series A close. Mei called once — to ask if I wanted to be on the calls or completely off. I chose off. Nobody asked me to do anything for sixteen weeks. Came back in May, full pay, no catch-up taxes on my soul.
Helena Voss
Head of Product · Berlin · Hatch since 2025