DuckDuckGo Culture:

How We Work
October 2023

Building a Culture of Trust
Our company culture is built around our values — build trust, question assumptions, andvalidate direction. They’re central to everything we do.
Building trust influences the decisions we make both externally and internally, fromprotecting people’s' privacy, to doing right by our staff, vendors, partners, and community.
By questioning each other's assumptions, we reject bias and create a more inclusiveculture. Through continually challenging the conscious and unconscious biases we bringto work every day, we’re validating our own direction constantly, ensuring that the culture
and processes at DuckDuckGo remain productive and empowering.
Our commitment to embracing diverse perspectives and empowering all team members
is exemplified by the fact that we place equal value on all functional expertise and expect
any two people at the same professional level (e.g., a Site Reliability Engineer and a
Copywriter at the same level) to make similar impact in terms of value added to company
objectives. Everyone at the same professional level earns the same compensation,
regardless of functional team, location, gender, educational background, years ofexperience, or other factors. As such, we do not negotiate compensation.
Similarly, we don't use external titles internally or follow a vertical chain of command.
Internal communication lines aren't limited by professional level or team, so anyone cancollaborate directly across teams and levels (yes, it's okay to ping our CEO directly at anypoint).
Since we welcomed our second team member in 2012, the team has grown to over 250
members in 2023 and team member retention has held steady at 95% over that period.
These numbers are only one measure of our company values in action. Read on to learn
how company culture at DuckDuckGo is built, sustained, and will continue to evolve
through application of those same values.

Working in the OpenFor a distributed company, with employees in nearly 30 countries and with complete
freedom and flexibility to organize our individual work schedules, working according toour values depends on transparency.

At DuckDuckGo, day-to-day transparency happens in Asana — our company-wide sourceof truth. There, you’ll find every project going on at the company listed in one place,organized by company-wide objective. You can participate in any company initiative if you
choose to do so, regardless of professional level, team, physical location, or the working
hours you keep. While anyone can follow any project, we have set procedures to tell
everyone about significant updates even if you don't.

Want to know what happened in the last Board meeting? Review our monthly revenue
numbers? Or catch up on takeaways from a teammate's kick-off call? Not only is thatinformation available to everyone in the company, but simply by being on the team, you'reinvited by default to ask questions, share an opposing viewpoint, or clarify areas ofuncertainty.

Of course, not all conversations can happen asynchronously. We use Zoom for must-havemeetings (like our weekly all-hands, team sync-ups, kick-off calls, and one-on-ones) andrely on Mattermost for direct messaging. We generally treat synchronous communication
as an auxiliary to Asana. In fact, we actively encourage fewer meetings. We don’tschedule standing meetings on Wednesdays or Thursdays, and we proactively sharemeeting agendas and notes in Asana.

How We Socialize
In combination, Asana, Zoom, and Mattermost allow our distributed team to collaborate
across timezones. Together they’re also the channels we use to socialize and bond.

Day-to-day banter happens in Mattermost. How else would we share cute photos of ourpets, alert each other to the latest tech news of interest, or critique each other’s DIY
kitchen makeovers? In chat channels from Gardening to Gearheads, you’ll findopportunities to connect with like-minded colleagues across the organization.

Our more structured social clubs (called “Guilds”) bridge Asana and Zoom. The “WritersAnonymous” Guild meets on Zoom for weekly write-ins, where members make progresson their novels, comic books, or short stories. The “Random Acts of Learning” Guild hosts
monthly meetings, inviting subject matter experts (both internal and external) to speak
about their work or field of study.

It’s not as easy to meet new people or connect with those whose interests may differ fromyour own at a distributed company. We offer employees the option to join a weekly
30-minute “Neighbors” call with four or five randomly assigned colleagues to talk about
anything except work. Similarly, a weekly “Know Your Company” thread in Asana invites
everyone to share opinions, photos, and experiences on a particular topic. These topics
might range from your favorite music to relax to, your current reading list, epic travel
stories, or a pet showcase.

Finally, at the All-Hands call on Fridays, we update everyone on progress toward
company-wide objectives, share demos, celebrate milestones, and share what we're mostexcited or anxious about at the moment.

Team Structure
There are two types of teams at DuckDuckGo: Functional Teams and Objective Teams.
Unlike other companies, these teams are not instruments for a chain-of-command
management but part of a non-hierarchical system that enables empowered project
management and sustains distributed collaboration.
Functional Teams contain people with related functional skills (e.g., Backend Engineeringor Finance) and provide a consistent space to share best practices and navigate specificworkflows. Functional teams host virtual or in-person meetups annually to enrich teamculture, reinvigorate comradery, and support professional development. When you join,
you'll automatically become a member of a Functional Team with people who specialize inthe same kind of work you do. Since primary functional skill delineates these teams,
Functional Teams rarely change.
Each Objective Team supports one of many company-wide objectives (or cross-functional
efforts that together support a common company goal) and ultimately our mission to show
the world that protecting privacy is simple. While your Functional Team is your home-base,
you'll more likely find yourself collaborating with members of your Objective Team
day-to-day.
Unlike Functional Teams, Objective Team composition changes based on the current
needs of projects within a given objective. For instance, one of your functional teammates
may be working on a new search engine feature while you're simultaneously responsible
for a new feature in our browser extension. People often move between objectives, andwe try to match up personal interests as much as is possible and practical.

Empowered ProjectManagement
At DuckDuckGo, we believe that the most effective way to achieve our mission is byallowing every team member to propose and contribute to initiatives. While this does notmean anyone can execute anything of their choosing, it empowers people to influencestrategy and direction across the organization, allowing any team member to pushprojects and objectives forward.
The underlying concept is that good things happen when individual people are directly
responsible for things, which is why we don’t have an explicit Project Management teamat DuckDuckGo. Instead, we have one Directly Responsible Individual (or DRI) for every
objective, project, or task. We’ve documented DRI expectations for every role and built-inadvisory roles at the personal, project, and objective level. Along with members of their
Functional and Objective Teams, DRI’s have ongoing support from Career, Project, andObjective Advisors.
Your Career Advisor will be an ever-present guide to help develop your strengths, identify
your motivations, understand your weaknesses, and set goals. Weekly 1:1’s with yourCareer Advisor will serve as a forum for day-to-day professional coaching and long-term
career management.
While Career Advisors are constant, Project Advisors change project-to-project based on
the needs of each individual project and DRI. You might have an advisor with a highdegree of skill in a functional area you’re less familiar with, or an advisor who can help
avoid duplicated effort because they’ve done the same type of work before. Whether
you’re developing a new unit testing harness or designing a new onboarding experiment,
your Project Advisor will be there to guide you whenever uncertainty arises in the task athand.
Objective Advisors serve a similar function as Project Advisors, but provide support
across the projects within a company-wide objective. They proactively question theassumptions of the Objective DRI and help validate direction every step of the way. With
perspective across objectives, they help ensure that collective work progresses smoothly.

Professional Growth
Elsewhere, you may have found that you'd need to give up an individual contributor roleto enter management or take on a new leadership role. At DuckDuckGo, we don’t believe
leadership roles are effective when limited to two tracks.

Here, there are many different types of leaders and combinations of leadership rolespossible. While we all lead projects, you can seek additional leadership roles by DRI-ing
anObjective, owning a unique product area, developing and maintaining a new internal

process, seeking Career, Project, or Objective advisory roles, and more. We have written
expectations for all roles, so it is always clear what you are responsible for.

In keeping with our values, performance expectations are transparent across levels.
There’s no mystery around what you need to do to be promoted, and our review process
isn’t reliant on single decision-makers. When promotions are considered (every twelvemonths), your peers are consulted, so the collaborators, stakeholders, and advisors
you’ve worked with directly will speak to your work and impact at the company.

Summary
We hope explaining a bit about how we operate gives you a better sense of whether
DuckDuckGo might be a good fit for you. Here’s a quick overview of what makes ourculture so special at DuckDuckGo:

Our values are central to everything we do:

By building trust, we do right by our users and our staff By questioning assumptions, we reject bias and elevate the quality of our work By validating direction, we grow fast and sustainably
Everyone at the same professional level earns the same compensation, so we don’t
negotiate salaries

Collaboration happens across teams and professional levels, not in a vertical chain ofcommand

We have complete freedom and flexibility to organize our own schedules

We work in the open and constantly seek ways to increase transparency

In combination, Asana, Zoom, and Mattermost allow our distributed team tocollaborate, socialize, and bondWe empower everyone to influence strategy and direction across the organization

We believe that good things happen when individual people are directly responsible forthings, but you won’t go it alone:Career Advisors will support your professional growth Projects Advisors will help you navigate uncertainty in your work Objective Advisors consult to ensure that collective work progresses smoothly

There are many types of leaders and combinations of leadership roles possible here

Performance expectations are transparent across levels