What 37signals does

Remote Work Europe sees the daily pattern of European remote job postings through our Connected job board – the trends this piece describes show up there too.

Most of the companies in this guide learned to work remotely. 37signals taught them. The company – Basecamp is the product; 37signals is the company behind it – has been distributed since 1999, which makes it the longest continuously remote-first organisation you will find anywhere, let alone on this list.

37signals builds calm, opinionated software for small businesses and teams that would rather not run their working lives through a dozen disconnected apps. Basecamp, its flagship, is a project management and team communication tool that has been refined over more than two decades. HEY, launched in 2020, is a deliberately contrarian take on email. ONCE, launched in 2023, is a line of products you buy once and self-host forever – a direct swipe at the subscribe-to-everything model the rest of the industry runs on. Founded by Jason Fried and later shaped heavily by David Heinemeier Hansson – the programmer who created Ruby on Rails – the company is privately held, profitable, and has turned down both acquisition offers and the venture capital that would have come with growth targets attached.

It is also, since 2021, one of the most divisive employers in tech. We will come to that, because you should not consider working here without understanding it.

Remote culture: what it’s actually like

37signals has been remote since before “remote work” was a phrase anyone used. Its founders wrote the books – Rework (2010) and Remote: Office Not Required (2013) – that a generation of distributed companies handed to their own teams. A great deal of what the other companies in this guide now treat as standard practice, from asynchronous written communication to shipping in small self-contained cycles, was articulated first in 37signals’ own writing.

The culture is built on a few firm convictions. Work is asynchronous and written by default; long meetings are treated as a failure of communication rather than a sign of collaboration. The team runs a 32-hour, four-day week through the summer months, a policy 37signals adopted long before it became a talking point. Sabbaticals, genuine autonomy, and a refusal to chase growth for its own sake all follow from the same root belief: that a small, profitable, independent company can make better decisions than a large one under investor pressure.

The honest assessment is that the same convictions that make 37signals distinctive also make it a narrow fit. This is an intensely opinionated company – about how software should be built, how teams should communicate, and a good deal else besides. It hires people who already share most of those opinions, and it is unapologetic about that. If you want a large team to grow within or a fast-moving, well-funded scale-up, this is not it. If you want deep ownership in a stable, deliberately small team with a clear philosophy, few employers have practised it for longer.

The 2021 controversy: what happened, and why it matters

You cannot make an informed decision about 37signals without knowing this history, so here it is plainly.

In April 2021, the company announced a set of internal policy changes: it would no longer allow “societal and political” discussions on its internal company accounts, disbanded several employee committees, and removed or converted certain benefits. The announcement, and the founders’ public defence of it, triggered a significant backlash. Roughly a third of the company’s staff – around twenty people at the time – accepted buyout packages and left. The episode was covered widely in the tech press and remains, for many people in the industry, the first thing they associate with the company.

There is no neutral summary of this that everyone would accept, so we will not pretend to offer one. The company’s stated reasoning, the criticism of it, and the accounts of employees who left are all publicly documented and worth reading directly rather than through anyone’s paraphrase – including ours. What matters for a jobseeker is straightforward: this is a founder-led company whose leadership holds strong positions and does not treat them as negotiable. For some people that clarity is exactly the appeal. For others it is a reason to look elsewhere. Both are reasonable. Go into any conversation with 37signals having read the history and formed your own view, because the company itself will expect nothing less.

Hiring in Europe: the details

Countries: 37signals hires globally rather than from a fixed country list, and has no office anywhere. A European applicant can absolutely be considered – but roles open infrequently, and some carry timezone or location preferences tied to the specific job. Treat European eligibility as something to confirm per role rather than assume.

Employment model: A small, globally distributed team of roughly 80 people. Because the company is small and spread across continents, the exact employment or contracting arrangement depends on where you are based – confirm it for any specific role.

Timezone expectations: Predominantly asynchronous and written, which makes 37signals more timezone-tolerant than most. That said, some roles express a preference for overlap with the team’s working hours, so read each listing carefully.

Salary approach: Distinctive and worth knowing. 37signals has long stated that it pays top-of-market rates benchmarked to San Francisco, with no adjustment for where you live – a policy that can make it unusually well-paid for someone based outside the major tech hubs. Exact figures are set during hiring.

Language requirements: English is the working language.

Who they’re looking for

37signals hires carefully and rarely – every role carries weight in a team this size. When positions do open, they tend to fall into a familiar set:

  • Software engineering (Ruby on Rails – the framework 37signals created)
  • Product design
  • Customer support
  • Marketing
  • Operations

The bar is less about pedigree than about alignment. Generic enthusiasm for remote work will not distinguish you here; specific, demonstrated agreement with how this company thinks about work will. They hire people who have read their writing, understood the philosophy, and genuinely share it.

What current and former employees say

The praise is consistent among those it suits: the four-day summer week, generous leave and sabbaticals, real autonomy, top-of-market pay regardless of location, and the rare experience of working somewhere with no investor breathing down its neck and a clear, long-held reason to exist. People who value calm, deliberate, well-run remote work with strong opinions behind it tend to be very happy here.

The criticisms are the mirror image, and the 2021 episode sits at the centre of them. This is a company that expects alignment and says so; people who want a broad range of internal views aired openly, or who disagree with the founders’ public positions, have found it an uncomfortable fit. The team is also small and hires rarely, so simply getting in is difficult, and progression is limited by design in an organisation held deliberately small.

The people who thrive at 37signals tend to be self-directed craftspeople who have read the books, agree with the philosophy, and want stability and ownership over hypergrowth.

How to apply

  • Careers page: 37signals.com/jobs – roles are infrequent, so check periodically rather than expecting a constant stream
  • Their writing: The clearest window into how 37signals thinks is Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson’s public writing and the company’s own blog and podcast at 37signals.com

Specific tips: Read Remote and Rework before you apply – they are short, opinionated, and the plainest statement of how the company thinks about work. Arriving at an interview without having read them would be a tell. Be a real user of Basecamp or HEY, because genuine product experience changes the conversation. And be honest with yourself about the philosophy: if you have read their writing and the 2021 history and you genuinely align, let that come through clearly. If you do not, this is not the company for you – and that is a useful thing to know before you spend time applying.

See our full guide to Remote-First Companies That Actually Hire in Europe.