What PostHog 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.

PostHog is the open-source product analytics platform – think of the tooling that lets a product team see how people actually use their software, but with the whole codebase on GitHub and the option to self-host. It has expanded well beyond analytics into session replay, feature flags, experimentation, surveys, and customer data, so a product team can run most of its toolkit from one place instead of stitching several services together.

Founded in London in 2020 by James Hawkins and Tim Glaser through Y Combinator, PostHog gives teams product data without handing that data to a third party they don’t control. The core product is open source under the MIT licence; the company makes money from PostHog Cloud (managed hosting) and enterprise features, and has raised more than US$170 million in venture funding.

Remote culture: what it’s actually like

PostHog has been fully remote with no offices since it was founded, and it runs one of the most transparent operating models in tech. The handbook is public – strategy, financials, board-meeting notes, how they pay people, how they interview – all readable on their site and GitHub before you ever apply. The operating unit is the small team: groups of roughly two to six people own a product area with real autonomy, and the culture prizes shipping fast and iterating.

Compensation is formula-based and published. Pay is calculated as a benchmark (San Francisco market rates) multiplied by level, step, and a location factor, with the location factor drawn from market hiring data. There’s a public salary calculator, the CEO’s pay is visible, and there’s effectively no negotiation – which removes a source of bias, though it also means you can’t bargain your way past the band for your level and location.

The honest assessment: PostHog is engineering-heavy and moves fast, which is exhilarating for some and relentless for others. The bigger thing for European applicants to understand is the timezone and employment rules, covered below – they’re generous for most of Europe but exclude some situations entirely. And a formula-based, no-negotiation pay system that benchmarks to San Francisco with a location discount is transparent, but it isn’t the same as a San Francisco salary. Read the calculator before you get emotionally invested in a number.

Hiring in Europe: the details

Countries: PostHog hires wherever it can legally support employment inside its timezone band, and Europe is well covered. There’s a real constraint to know about, though: PostHog does not currently employ people via an Employer of Record in a number of high-cost European countries – France, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, Iceland, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Denmark among them – because the employer costs are too high. In some of those it may consider a contractor arrangement where there’s no misclassification risk, but it’s the single most important thing to check for your country before you apply.

Employment model: A mix of direct employment via an Employer of Record where PostHog supports it, and contractor arrangements elsewhere.

Timezone expectations: This is a hard rule, not a preference. PostHog only hires people physically based between GMT+2 and GMT-8, following the sun westward. Almost all of Europe fits comfortably – the UK, Ireland, and Portugal at GMT+0, most of the continent at GMT+1, and the eastern edge (the Baltics, Finland, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania) at GMT+2. They make an explicit exception for countries that are normally GMT+2 but shift to GMT+3 in summer.

Salary approach: Published, formula-based, benchmarked to San Francisco rates with a location factor. No negotiation. A public calculator lets you check your likely figure in advance.

Language requirements: English is the working language.

Who they’re looking for

PostHog is weighted heavily towards technical roles, but hires across:

  • Software engineering (Python, TypeScript, React, and more)
  • Data engineering and infrastructure
  • Product engineering – engineers who also do product work
  • Design
  • Customer engineering and support
  • Marketing, with genuine technical depth

Because the handbook lays out exactly how they hire and pay, the strongest applicants come in already fluent in how the company works.

What current and former employees say

The transparency draws consistent praise: people value being able to see the strategy, the finances, and the pay logic without having to ask, and the small-team autonomy is frequently cited as a genuine draw for engineers who want ownership.

The cons are the flip side of the same coin. The pace is fast and the bar is high, which not everyone finds sustainable, and the no-negotiation pay model – while fair and consistent – can feel restrictive if you’re used to bargaining or if the location factor lands lower than you hoped. The strict timezone and Employer-of-Record limits also mean some well-qualified European candidates simply can’t be hired where they live, which is frustrating to discover late. People who thrive here tend to be self-directed, comfortable working in the open, and happy to be measured on what they ship.

How to apply

Specific tips: Read the public handbook (posthog.com/handbook) before you apply – it tells you exactly how they hire, pay, and work, and referencing specific parts of it is one of the strongest signals of alignment you can send. Check the salary calculator and the timezone and Employer-of-Record rules for your country early, so you’re not surprised. And if you’re an engineer, spin up a PostHog instance or make a meaningful contribution to their GitHub repo: real, demonstrable use of the product carries far more weight than a polished cover letter.

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