“Dov is a concept; we never see him, but he’s watching” – Adlin. This has to top the meme scale of the many anecdotes from colleagues who have joined Stampede without ever having seen or met Dov, our Tech Lead and co-founder in person. People keep tabs as if it’s a record to break.

While working remotely is the norm in many jobs today, the same cannot be said when we began in 2006. Despite internet penetration already being high in most countries, the shift towards remote work was slow, and Jason Fried of 37Signals even argued that working from an office was counterproductive on his TED Talk: Why work doesn’t happen at work | Jason Fried

Stampede has been fully remote since day one, thanks to our early beginnings with clients primarily from Europe, United States and Australia. We take great care of our people and promote a healthy remote culture, enabling people to do great work together despite the distance.

Iwan, a longtime member of the Stampede team since 2010, recently reminisced about the early days of remote work. Back then, programming was done without Git and calls and meetings were handled through Skype. An internet speed of 8Mbps was considered sufficient at the time as most work was done offline, with occasional online uploads and calls. According to Iwan, working from home did not feel deficient compared to working in the office, but it did require a higher level of self-discipline due to the absence of physical supervision.

As technology improved, new tools such as Git, Figma, and Slack emerged, which Stampede adopted after allowing them to mature first. Iwan also recalled that remote work was less common back then, and some people had a hard time grasping the concept of working from home. In fact, he even joked that he was once accused of selling drugs!

It’s amazing how it’s turned out so far. We love that our diverse locations add more flavour to the team dynamic.