thoughtbot is a mobile and web application design and development firm. The majority of our clients are early-stage startups. We build minimum viable products, get them to market, and iterate. We are passionate about contributing to the open source community.
We were founded in 2003 by developers and designers. We are profitable, independent, and don't have outside investors. Our needs are very simple: work with expert, easy-going developers and designers who love making great things, including themselves.
Read more about our philosophy in the playbook.
We offer the best we can while maintaining a sustainable small business. Read the policies:
We work 40 hours/week and provide unlimited time off. Creating well-designed, well-written software requires a well-rested mind and body. We do not want to burn out or inflict repetitive stress injuries. Fewer hours means we won't hit arbitrary or unrealistic deadlines.
Our fundamental expectation for ourselves is delivering excellent work for clients Monday-Thursday. We use Fridays for personal development, contributing to open source projects, mentoring apprentices, sharing lessons learned on the blog, and making internal tools to make our jobs easier and more fun.
The company is split up into small teams. Our ideal team is one designer, two Rails developers, one iOS developer, and an advisor. Each team focuses on only one client project at a time. The remainder of everyone's time is managed by each individual.