Life at Goodnotes

Offsites, Yoga, Karaoke, oh my! Perks of Working at GoodNotes

September 21, 2020
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At GoodNotes, we believe in investing in our people.

That’s why we spent months researching compensation structures at other tech companies in Hong Kong and Silicon Valley, and consulting the right experts to make ours competitive, fair, and attractive.

Beyond the baseline compensation package we offer employees, we’ve also invested a lot in the perks that make GoodNotes not just a practical place to work, but an enjoyable one too.

Today we wanted to share some of those fun extras with you. Here are just a few of the perks GoodNotes team members get that make work feel a little less like work.

Introducing GoodKitchen: Daily catered lunch

What a lot of people might not know is that at the Hong Kong office, we actually have our own private commercial-grade kitchen.

What does that mean? Well, it’s decked out with 6 gas burners, a wok burner, a griddle, two deep-fryers, several ovens (including a pizza oven!), a salamander (broiler), and even plate warmers.

Making excellent use of this kitchen is our team of chefs, who prepare two different lunch menus each week for us.

We also have a shared GoodNotes notebook (of course) where we record our meals.

GoodKitchen serves lunch (and the occasional afternoon snack), but not dinner because we don’t like to work that late!

Once a year, we go somewhere fun for our team offsite

While we’re headquartered in Hong Kong, we have team members all over the world, including in Europe and Southeast Asia too.

Our annual offsite is a special time of year where we all get to spend a couple days together as a full team, covered completely by GoodNotes. We put our daily work on hold, and instead focus on getting to know our team members better in a different environment!

Last year we held our offsite in Hokkaido, Japan. Check out the GoodNotes team rock climbing, bowling, and soaking up each others’ company.

What’s more, since we recognize that it’s not always easy to take time away from your family (especially when you have young children!) we make our offsites open to family and significant others — expenses and all.

What results is a few full days of bonding and having fun with the people we spend so many of our waking hours with, alongside our loved ones!

(This year, of course, we’ve had to put our offsite on hold, but we’re looking forward to the next since our team has grown so much.)

Your tools, your choice

Since GoodNotes is an iPad app, in addition to your preferred work machine, everyone gets an iPad + Apple Pencil + Keyboard.

We also give everyone the freedom to choose what kind of hardware, software, or even desk organizers that they want to use. Our goal is to equip each team member with the tools they need to not only do their job well, but to enjoy the work they do too.

So, you need the latest curved 49” monitor? No problem. Need a light-up keyboard to make typing code a more enjoyable experience? You got it!

Exhibit A: Grayson’s workspace

If you took a quick scan of our desks, you’d see that everyone at GoodNotes has a unique setup, customized to the way they like to work.

We take care of your home office set up too

Like we mentioned earlier, we have many team members who are fully remote, and even for those that work out of the Hong Kong office we offer a flexible work-from-home policy.

So, we provide a sizeable budget for team members to furnish their home workspaces as well. It’s enough to cover a desk, an ergonomic office chair, a monitor or two, a second work computer, and then pretty much anything else you feel would be conducive to helping you create your ideal work environment.

Everyone has a monthly learning budget

A key part of our culture and the team is continuous improvement, both in terms of our work and our personal growth. We’ve referenced this before in the way that we conduct our 360 performance reviews, for example.

In order to keep encouraging this, we’re each given a monthly learning budget so spend on learning and self-improvement.

So far, the most popular categories we spend on are books and language classes!

Sherry takes her Japanese class notes with GoodNotes!

On Tuesdays, we Jam!

On any given day you can find several instruments at one end of our Hong Kong office — including guitars, a keyboard, a mini drum set, and if you’re lucky sometimes an accordion or double bass too.

No matter where we move our office, we’ll always have a dedicated corner for jamming!

We’re a musical bunch, and on Tuesdays after lunch, that’s our dedicated time to jam. We even have a fully functional karaoke system and mics.

There’s also #Jam channel in Slack (our messaging platform) for song requests and sharing music.

(If you’re curious what a typical Jam Tuesday looks like at GoodNotes, check out our Day in the Life blog post!)

Yoga for Monday Motivation

Mondays aren’t known to be most peoples’ favorite days of the week, but we thought it’d be the perfect day to practice yoga and set our intentions for the week.

Every Monday, we have our own private yoga class at noon (shoutout to our awesome instructor Olmen!) in the Hong Kong office.

Originally having yoga in the office was the brainchild of two team members, and slowly it became an official (and optional) weekly event. We believe everyone can benefit physically and mentally from yoga, so why not?

Even these days when so many of us are working remotely, we host our yoga classes online.

Besides the fun perks, however, we of course recognize the importance of other meaningful benefits too.

  • You get medical coverage from day one. Our team members don’t wait until after their probationary period before getting insurance.
  • We offer a sponsored working visa and relocation package. If you’re the right candidate, we’ll spare no expense to bring you here, and make the move as comfortable as possible!
  • We offer above average compensation, with a salary review around every 7 months.
  • Every full-time employee is entitled to our stock options scheme here at GoodNotes.

We’re serious about creating a positive work environment for our team members, as we work together to create something great!

If you want to get the full GoodNotes experience, we’re hiring 🙌
Check out our openings here.

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