Today, Jason Fried posted about the perks Basecamp offer to their employees, and the post is having a wild success in my twitter timeline. Lots of the stuff they do is pretty similar to the perks we have in Automattic, so, since I keep trying to convince all my friends to apply and join us in the pantless revolution, let me tell you about them:

1. Work from where you want, when you want.

Well, this is the most obvious one. Being a fully distributed company, Automattic doesn’t require you to move anywhere to work for them. Not only that, it doesn’t have any fixed times or schedules you need to follow. In all the week, I have one fixed appointment: My team weekly hangout, each Monday at 17:00 GMT. Apart from that, I can work whenever I feel like it.

2. Three months sabbatical every 5 years

When automatticians reach their five anniversary in the company, they can get a three-month sabbatical period, fully paid, they can use to relax, pursue other interests, etc.

3. Paid parental leave

When Automattic employees have a child, they can take all the time they need as an (again, paid) parental leave. There’s no limit to how much you can take, and for what I have seen, people usually takes two or three months at least.

4. Coworking space allowance

If you don’t enjoy working from home 100% of the time, the company will give you up to $250 per month to rent a coworking space. Also, if you don’t want to have a permanent place to attend, you can use that $250 to pay for whatever you drink while you’re working from a coffee or similar places.

5. Home office

You can get a completely equipped home office on the company. For example, I got an Aeron chair, an Ikea Bekant standing desk & a desktop lamp even before my first official day in the Automattic.

6. Computers & hardware

The company will get you whatever computer equipment you need for your work, with no max budget. Most of my colleagues have the latest mac stuff, but I, being a linuxite, got an XPS 15 with all the specs maxed out. That and a 34″ curved Dell monitor.
Your computer gets automatically replaced each 18 months.  And you get a WordPress branded Timbuk2 customized bag  to carry your laptop around (and those bags are pretty expensive themselves).
Also, in your 3nd computer replacement, if you are a mac user, you can get a WordPress branded MacBook:

7. Travel upgrades

Besides having all the company-related travel covered by the company (of course), each time you book a trip, you have a $250 budget to buy any upgrade you could want for it (onboard wifi, better seats, etc). You can also expense anything you eat or drink while traveling.

8.  Learning

All the conferences or books you want to get to keep learning are covered by the company.

9. Company meetups

The budget the teams get for organizing meetups is quite high. So you end staying in places like these 3 or 4 times a year:

10. Automattic / WordPress swag

With your Automattic email account, whatever you order in the WordPress swag store is free. So you are free to get a ton of t-shirts, mugs, etc for you and your family.

These are only the first things that come to my mind about Automattic perks and benefits. Of course, depending on your country you could get extra stuff like health insurance, etc, but those up there are for all the employees, wherever they are based.

So well… If you think those look great, you should be taking a look at this page.