Parse.ly’s CTO on the Power of a Distributed Team

In March, PowerToFly President Katharine Zaleski apologized to all of the mothers that she used to work with in this viral post published on Fortune.com.  

Zaleski wrote: “I know there are still a lot of people like my 28-year-old self — they undervalue mothers’ contributions because they count hours logged in the office and not actual work. Most mothers lose if that’s the barometer for productivity.”

So Zaleski  created PowerToFly, the first global platform matching women in highly skilled positions with work that they can do from home if they choose. At Parse.ly, we not only work with  PowerToFly to help us  with our hiring efforts, but we agree with the company’s  mission. We believe that working from home as a distributed team is useful  for all  employees.

Where many companies see a distributed workforce as a “problem to be managed,” Parse.ly has learned that remote work  allows for radical transparency about how we collaborate on projects together — and allows a “swarm” mentality for solving problems. It also gives every employee the flexibility to work when and where they want to, without worrying they don’t have all the tools they need to be productive.

Andrew Montalenti, Parse.ly co-founder and CTO, recently sat down with PowerToFly’s executive editor, Cathy Sharick, to discuss the power of distributed teams.

From the interview:

Parse.ly’s entire product, engineering, and design team is distributed across the U.S., Canada, and Europe. However, we also have a ‘central office’ in NYC where our business team works (sales, marketing, and customer success). Here, Parse.ly offers the perks of a start-up — standing desks, flexible hours, work-from-home options, continuous learning, equipment budgets, limiting unnecessary meetings, etc. — while making sure to take our employees’ work-life balance seriously.

“Giving our employees time and space to meld their personal passions and work styles with Parse.ly’s business goals has been one of the most effective ways we’ve found to inspire and energize our staff.”

Interested in learning more about Parse.ly’s distributed  team? Check out the full interview on PowerToFly’s blog.