General principles

Below you will find a list of principles that apply to everyone in the Nebulab team. This document should be used as a general guidance on fit within the team and is a good first step to understand the career framework.

Your Company

Let’s start by expanding the ideas discussed in  The Nebulab Playbook  and decorate them with more day-to-day work examples. How well do you fit in into Nebulab’s mission, vision and values?
  •  Mission : we are deeply rooted in a highly-technical eCommerce space. You should act and feel like you own modern, life-changing technologies that solve hard eCommerce problems. This means being up-to-date on the latest eCommerce technology trends, having very specific domain-knowledge of the eCommerce field and being passionate about eCommerce in general.
  •  Vision : to become the leading eCommerce engineering agency means we need to be leaders in the eCommerce space. While technical challenges are our day-to-day, we still need to be forward-thinking about eCommerce and being able to foresee future trends and opportunities.
  •  Values 
  • Anatomical Heart Humans at Every Stage: Value every person's journey, from the seasoned veterans to those just beginning. Recognize that every interaction is an opportunity for growth and contribution. Respect and accommodate individual needs, understanding the continuous quest for a balanced life. Our success is measured in the well-being and development of each team member, not just business outcomes.
  • Knot Trusted by Default: Trust forms the foundation of our interactions and decisions. Extend trust by default, demonstrating a commitment to transparency and integrity. Be accountable, act in the best interest of the company and each other. Voice opinions, question, and constructively feedback, embracing honesty, even in challenging situations.
  • Compass Pragmatic Learners: Approach every situation with a mindset geared towards learning. Apply theoretical knowledge to improve our work and processes, understanding that growth often comes from making mistakes. Acknowledge what can be improved, pivot quickly, always with an eye on our mission and values.
  • ⛵️ Collaborative Leaders: Embrace leadership as a collective effort, where every team member is a leader in their right. Lead by example, share knowledge, and empower others. Value diverse perspectives, believing the best solutions arise from collaboration. Foster a sense of community where we learn from each other and grow together.

Your Team

How do you fit in a team. Who you talk to, why you talk to them and how does the interaction happen. Team is used with the broader sense of your immediate team, your external team (most often the client’s team) and the stakeholders (both in and out of Nebulab).
  • Be curious and ask questionsYou promptly ask questions to figure out complex systems and learning new things to help your day-to-day work and your team. If you think it’s important, you never shy away from asking more details and gather more context.
  • Point out problems, but also suggest solutionsWhen you realize there’s a problem you always make sure you have a list of ideas/solutions ready before point out the problem. If don’t have an immediate solution to it you’ll reach out to your peers and manager to ask for help and validate the problem before bringing it to some external team.
  • Learn new things and share themYou’re constantly learning new things to stay on top of the latest trends. In addition to learning, you’re always sharing what you learn with your teams (your peers, within Nebulab and the client’s teams) to make what you learned is used to its full potential.
  • Be kind and make yourself availableAlways be kind and respectful. In a global context such as the one we have at Nebulab it’s very easy to step over another one’s toes without even realizing it. Allow yourself (and everyone else) to be open-minded and ready to do great stuff together.
  • Be available for work, but also for funYou regularly attend fun activities on top of the work you do with your team. Being remote-first means we rarely get to meet face-to-face but this is not a good reason to renounce human interactions and getting to know the people you work with on a deeper level.
  • Disagree and commit Disagree and commit  means that team decisions are discussed and everyone’s voice is heard and is free to disagree but, when the team decides on a particular initiative or direction, everyone commits to the taken direction and works in team to get there.
  • Be context-aware when switching teamsAt a bare minimum you’ll be in touch with 3 different teams: your project team, the client’s team and the Nebulab team as a whole. Be aware that different teams are made of very different people and creates a totally different context. You should always take this into consideration to minimize conflict and be your best self in every team you’ll be part of.

You

Assumptions about who you are, your mindset at work, the things you do and what you add to the team.
  • Proactive and self-managedYou never expect work to be assigned to you and you can reach out to other people in your team (or the client’s team) to get you working on something. Having nothing to do will not feel right for you and, in case it happens, you already have something planned for your investment time.
  • Own problems, show domain knowledgeYou should be an asset to your team by merging technical skills with eCommerce domain knowledge. You won’t only work and research technical matters but also how they’re used in eCommerce.
  • Build useful thingsYour definition of done involves building something that will be used by real people. Beautiful, functional initiatives will still be useless if they’re not being used. This means working with agile in mind and preferring rougher solutions that are pushed out earlier instead of perfect solutions that are shipped too late.
  • Think lazyAlways prefer the lazy solution over the high-maintenance one. Prefer external providers over in-house solutions and prefer automated over manual. Your automations will enable you to sleep soundly at night and spending the weekend on hobbies more than working overtime and putting out fires.
  • Accept failureTo fail is human and will always teach you some lessons. Embrace failure as something natural and assume the same for everyone else in your team. Talk about failure openly and without shame. Step-up and take the lead on initiatives you don’t feel safe about but still you want to try, just make sure everyone knows it’s your first time.
  • Leverage the team Your immediate team (your Nebulab teammates) is your ultimate super-power, make sure you use it! Whenever you’re stuck, in doubt or have some questions, reach out to your manager and your peers to raise a flag and ask for help.
  • Embrace FeedbackFeedback is how we improve and get better and it’s a big part of working at Nebulab. Everyone at Nebulab is expected to be open about feedback, on both ends. On one side, it should feel natural to you to give feedback to anyone promptly (both praises and criticisms) with  Radical Candor , on the other side, you should receive feedback openly and without fear.