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Communication

One of the most important skills you'll develop while working remotely at FooEngine is the ability to communicate clearly and thoughtfully online.

This sounds simple, but it's deceptively hard. In remote work, communication quality varies widely, and a huge amount of meaning is normally carried through non-verbal cues. You'll often hear the figure that 93% of communication is non-verbal — the exact number is debatable, but the takeaway is solid: when we communicate purely through text, a lot of nuance disappears.

Because of this, it's important to:

  • Be deliberate about what you say and how you say it
  • Read others' messages generously and with context
  • Assume good intent, even when wording feels abrupt or unclear

This doesn't mean stripping messages down to emotionless facts. It simply means being aware that tone, humour, urgency, and intent can easily be lost in translation.

Please make sure you've read and understood our communication guidelines so you know what's expected — and just as importantly, what isn't.

Text-Based Communication

Text-based communication is central to how we work. It has a few key advantages:

It creates a searchable record of decisions and discussions. It enables asynchronous collaboration, which is critical for a distributed team. It allows people to catch up even if they couldn't attend live discussions.

For real-time messaging, we use Slack. Slack as our primary day-to-day communication tool and includes:

  • Team/Project specific channels
  • Internal team channels
  • Client and partner channels

Slack should work for you, not against you — managing notifications and expectations is encouraged.

Voice & Video Communication

Throughout the week, you'll be expected to join voice or video calls related to your projects. These are an important part of staying aligned and connected as a remote team.

The first Friday of every month there will be a company wide All Hands call where the senior team will provide various company updates before moving on to a more social "hangout".

You'll also have regular 1:1s with your manager. These are your space to:

  • Talk about what you're working on
  • Raise concerns or blockers
  • Discuss anything — work or personal — that may be affecting your ability to do your job

We also strongly encourage regular voice or video catch-ups with the people you work closely with. A short call can often prevent misunderstandings that would otherwise linger in text.

Communication Guidelines

These guidelines exist to help you manage your workload and communicate effectively at FooEngine.

Across a typical working day, a lot of information flows through Slack, documentation, and voice or video calls. No one is expected to absorb everything — being effective is about focus, not volume.

You do not need to:

  • Keep up with everything happening across the company — only what's relevant to your role
  • Read scrollback for every Slack channel you're in — stay up to date on your active projects
  • Respond to messages outside your working hours
  • Respond instantly to messages, or expect instant replies from others

Asynchronous communication does not mean real-time communication.

You should:

  • Use Slack statuses to signal your availability (e.g. on holiday, AFK, deep work)
  • Enable notifications for posts or comments that are relevant to your role or projects
  • Move important or long-term discussions out of Slack and into written documentation
  • If a meaningful decision happens in Slack, write it up so it's easy to find later
  • Let your squad know if you won't be available during your normal working hours
  • Keep your holiday and availability information up to date
  • Request updates to documentation if you notice it's incorrect or out of date
  • Write things down:
  • If you spend more than ~15 minutes figuring out a configuration or setup, document it so others don't have to repeat the work

A final note:

Good remote communication isn't about being constantly online or hyper-responsive. It's about clarity, visibility, and respect for each other's time and focus.

If you're unsure whether something needs to be documented, shared more widely, or moved out of chat — it probably does.

Slack

There are a number of channels, both public and private in Slack. Most of these will be project/department specific but some company wide ones include:

  • #general - Does what it says on the tin. General discussion
  • #all-hands - Company updates and posts that affect everyone will be in this channel.
  • #learning - Don't know how to do something? Ask here as someone else might know, and the answer could be useful to others.

Slack Profile

To help people have an overview of what you do and when you work, it's important that you keep your Slack profile up to date. Your profile should include:

  • Your name
  • Your photograph
  • Your job title or role at FooEngine
  • Timezone
  • Your normal working hours
  • Your email address

You can add any other information that you think is important.

N.B. The information on your Slack profile is also visible to outside guests and clients so be aware that having your phone number on there for instance might mean you receive phone calls from people outside of FooEngine.

Slack Guidelines and Etiquette

Below are some guidelines and company-wide etiquette around Slack usage:

  • If you're at work and available, be on Slack.
  • You should update your status or use Do Not Disturb mode to indicate to the team that you are unavailable.
  • It is fine to turn off Slack if you want to focus on your work. If you do so make sure your team is aware and has an alternative way to contact you.
  • Don't expect immediate responses from your team members, especially if they are in DND mode.
  • Only send a notification when someone is in DND if it is an actual emergency.
  • Use @here instead of @channel to get a room's attention. This ensures that people who are offline and perhaps asleep don't receive a notification. Only use @channel if you really need to get in touch with everyone.

Some tips for staying on top of Slack

Slack can be overwhelming, especially if you are not used to communicating in this way. There are multiple channels with 24/7 conversation happening in many of them. It's important that you manage the flow of incoming communication so as not to be overloaded. These tips should help:

  • Favourite important channels.
  • Mute channels that are not required for the work you're doing.
  • Suppress notifications for @channels and @here mentions in those channels where they are used with relative freedom.
  • Use sections to group your channels together.
  • Do a routine decluttering: leave channels that are not interesting or relevant anymore.
  • Be aware that you can turn off Slack or use DND mode. You should do so to help you focus.

All Hands

The first Friday of the month, we have a Company Hangout, a chance for everyone online at the time to get together.

The following is a loose agenda to follow for company hangouts. Someone should nominate themselves to facilitate and you can choose from this list of items:

  • Presentation of updates from senior management - Including operational metrics and updates on the sales pipeline.
  • Questions - Staff have an open floor to ask questions about anything they would like to know in relation to the company. Where appropriate, based on security and privacy concerns, the senior team will answer.
  • Social hangout - The rest of the call is just for socialising!