fleet/handbook/company/README.md

Company

Purpose

Fleet Device Management Inc is an open-core company that sells subscriptions that offer more features and support for Fleet and osquery, the leading open-source security agent. Today, Fleet enrolls millions of laptops and servers, and it is especially popular with enterprise IT and security teams.

We are dedicated to:

• 🧑‍🚀 automating IT and security with a living, breathing API.
• 🪟 privacy, transparency, and trust through open source software.
• 💻 a better way to manage computers.

Culture

All remote

Fleet Device Management Inc. is an all-remote company with 30+ team members spread across four continents and eight time zones. The broader team of contributors worldwide submits patches, bug reports, troubleshooting tips, improvements, and real-world insights to Fleet's open-source code base, documentation, website, and company handbook.

Open source

The majority of the code, documentation, and content we create at Fleet is public and source-available. The Fleet handbook is the central guide for how we run the company, and even it is open to the world. We strive to be open and transparent in the way we run the business, as much as confidentiality agreements (and time) allow. We perform better with an audience, and our audience performs better with us.

Why this way?

At Fleet, we write things down. Even when we might be wrong. This helps us move quickly, provides clarity, and enables asynchronous work. The "Why this way?" page in the handbook discusses some of our most important decisions about the best way to work and the reasoning for them. For example: "Why open source?", "Why do we use a wireframe-first approach?", "Why direct responsibility?, and "Why handbook-first strategy?" You can read more about these principles and suggest improvements in "Why this way?"

Open positions

Fleet is currently hiring for the following positions:

• 🔦 Head of Business Operations

🛸 Join us!  Interested in joining the team at Fleet, or know someone who might be? Click one of the positions to read the job description and apply. Or copy a direct link to this page to share a short summary about the company, including our vision, values, history, and all currently open positions. Thank you for the help!

Is it any good?

Here are a few reasons to work at Fleet:

• Work from anywhere with good internet. (We're 100% remote. No office. No commute.) Everyone works remote, but you don't feel remote. There is no 'headquarters'. You are free to travel and move.
• Fleet can offer you a competitive salary, significant equity, and an independent, outsider-friendly culture. Work with helpful, kind, and motivated people who know what they're doing.
• At Fleet, we value focus, iteration, and meaningful results – not 60 hour work weeks. We are non-judgmental and laser-focused on growing the company.
• Work closely with experienced, well-funded founders and a great team, including the people who created osquery and Sails. We care about openness and transparency.
• Work computers can be private and safe. Help make endpoint monitoring less intrusive and more transparent.
• Protect the production servers and employee laptops of Earth's largest companies. Work on a product used by lots of people who care about what you do.
• Fleet is growing quickly, with significant revenue from Fortune 1000 customers. You will have lots of opportunities to make decisions, learn, and try new things.

Values

Fleet's values are a set of five ideals adopted by everyone on the team. They describe the culture we are working together to deliver, inside and outside the company: 🔴 Empathy, 🟠 Ownership, 🟢 Results, 🔵 Objectivity, and 🟣 Openness.

Values play an important role in hiring, performance management, and compensation decisions. When a new team member joins Fleet, they adopt the values, from day one. This way, even as the company grows, everybody knows what to expect from the people they work with. Having a shared mindset keeps us quick and determined.

🔴 Empathy

Empathy leads to better understanding, better communication, and better decisions. Try to understand what people may be going through, so you can help make it better.

• Invest in hospitality. Think and say positive things. Apply customer service principles to all community members, especially outsiders.
• Be curious. Ask questions. Really care about the answers. Try seeing situations from different perspectives. Use your imagination to find understanding.
• Remember the user. Prioritize product quality. Create patches with care. Fix bugs quickly. Take time writing error messages.
• Be a helper. Treat the needs of customers, contributors, and colleagues like your own.

🟠 Ownership

Achieving ambitious goals requires reliability and initiative. That’s why we encourage every Fleetie to think like an owner. Your impact goes beyond the responsibilities of your role.

• Be accountable. Follow through on commitments. Own up to mistakes. Understand how your work furthers Fleet’s goals.
• Be responsive. Respond quickly whether or not you can take immediate action. Offer feedback freely (even if you disagree).
• Think bigger. Remember the big picture beyond your team's goals. Consider how Fleet creates value for customers.
• Take initiative. You don't need permission to be thoughtful. Think for yourself (from first principles). Great ideas come from everyone.

🟢 Results

We work to get results. How we work determines the results we deliver. Between overthinking and rushing, there's a golden mean. We balance speed and sustainability to build high-quality products.

• Iterate your work. Look for ways to make frequent, small changes. Get perspective on complex problems. There may be a simpler solution.
• Move quickly. Aim to deliver results daily. "Everything is in draft." Resist gold-plating and avoid bike-shedding.
• Be efficient. Focus on fewer tasks at one time. Use fewer words when possible. Go with "boring solutions." Keep things simple.
• Practice self-care. Remember to take breaks. Schedule time off to recharge. Organize your workday to fit your lifestyle.

🔵 Objectivity

Our objective as a company is to make money. This is how we measure success. Customers pay for products that make a difference. Approach every project with this in mind.

• Think for yourself. Seek understanding. Remember how often conventional wisdom isn't.
• Be humble. Be conservative about what's possible. Don't overpromise. No solution is just the “happy path". Pick boring solutions and save time for edge cases.
• Prioritize the truth. Feel free to change your mind in the face of new evidence. Avoid the sunk cost fallacy. Give credit where credit is due.
• Be rigorous. A lucky fix without understanding does more harm than good. When something isn't working, use the scientific method.

🟣 Openness

Openness leads to better products and stronger partnerships. Being open about your work isn’t always easy. But practicing this skill will help you throughout your career.

• Welcome contributions. Be friendly, inclusive, and approachable. Get comfortable letting others contribute to your domain. Have short toes.
• Embrace candor. Be positive and assume positive intent. Don’t be afraid to speak up. Give pointed and respectful feedback.
• Write everything down. Let people learn about your work. Use simple language. Avoid acronyms and idioms that might not translate.
• Be transparent. We build in the open. Everything we do is public by default. Declassify confidential information with care.

History

2014: Origins of osquery

In 2014, our CTO Zach Wasserman, together with Mike Arpaia and the rest of their team at Facebook, created an open source project called osquery.

2016: Origins of Fleet v1.0

A few years later, Zach, Mike Arpaia, and Jason Meller founded Kolide and created Fleet: an open source platform that made it easier and more productive to use osquery in an enterprise setting.

2019: The growing community

When Kolide's attention shifted away from Fleet, and towards their separate, user-focused SaaS offering, the Fleet community took over maintenance of the open source project. After his time at Kolide, Zach continued as lead maintainer of Fleet. He spent 2019 consulting and working with the growing open source community to support and extend the capabilities of the Fleet platform.

2020: Fleet was incorporated

Zach partnered with our CEO, Mike McNeil, to found a new, independent company: Fleet Device Management Inc. In November 2020, we announced the transition and kicked off the logistics of moving the GitHub repository.

2022: Millions of hosts

Fleet raised its Series A funding round. The world now has at least 1.65 million computers and virtual hosts enrolled in Fleet, including enterprises, governments, startups, families, and hobbyist racks all over the world.

Org chart

To provide clarity about decision-making, responsibility, and resources, everyone at Fleet has a manager, and every manager has direct reports. Fleet's organizational chart is accessible company-wide as a sub-tab in "🧑‍🚀 Fleeties" (private google doc). On the other sub-tabs, you can also check out a world map of where everyone is located, hiring stats, and fun facts about each team member.

Product groups

Above and beyond the organizational chart, Fleet organizes cross-functional groups focused on particular business goals. This helps product development teams move more quickly by eliminating roundtrips spent waiting for feedback and answers from people in other departments. Product groups include a designer, a product quality lead, developers, a product manager, and an engineering manager. For more information, check out the "Product groups" page.

Advisors

While most improvements at Fleet are driven by informal conversations with customers and open-source contributors, the company also has a few dozen advisors and investors, including Sid Sijbrandij (GitLab), Dylan Field (Figma), Jack Naglieri (Panther Labs), Mike Arpaia (osquery), and other smart people who are eager to help. If you have a question for one of them, Fleet's CEO is happy to introduce you. (Just ask.)

Positioning

Read about Fleet's positioning in this confidential Google Doc.

Slack channels

The following Slack channels are maintained by Fleet's founders:

Slack channel	DRI
#general	N/A (announce something company-wide)
#thanks	N/A (say thank you)
#random	N/A (be random)

Stubs

The following stubs are included only to make links backward compatible.

Levels of confidentiality

Please see handbook/business-operations#levels-of-confidentiality.

Email relays

Please see handbook/business-operations#email-relays.

Tools we use

Please see handbook/business-operations#tools-we-use.