Embacy Culture

We could’ve been a regular design studio — all in a big fancy office, with meetups and FIFA on PS in the common room. With the clients from the same city — we could go to them for meetings, and they could drop by for our brainstorms. And our project would take a long time — we would be financially secure half a year ahead. It would’ve been very comfortable.

Instead, we chose the opposite way. The way of freedom and independence. We live in over 11 countries, and our clients range from Australia to California, from Norway to South Africa. Besides that, we have a lot of quirks — running projects by sprints, quickly, with the right to publish the cases on Behance.

And we are free to live wherever we want, work wherever we want, with whoever we want, in the format of our choosing, etc. This freedoms don’t come for a regular design studio or any service company. These freedoms are achieved by professionalism, that’s shown in the quality of our projects.

It’s more convenient for a client to go to a studio across the street. For them to work with us, we should be way better than that studio across the street. The difference should be obvious. Obvious in our portfolio, in the copy on our website, in their first call with us, and during the project. If it isn’t obvious, then we won’t get top clients, and eventually turn into a regular faceless studio.

Our freedom as a company to be who we are and want to be, directly hinges on our professionalism in everything we do. That’s not a motivational thesis or an empty platitude for a text on our cultures. It’s a fact.

We want to be one of the best digital design studios in the world and have spent the past few years steadily moving in that direction. There are a lot of obstacles ahead of us. We’ll get along with those who want to be world-class — whether in design, service, marketing, sales, etc.

The high internal standards aren’t just about the results. They’re also about how you treat yourself and other people, and if you’re a manager, how you treat clients and let them treat us, and how your team members treat each other. 

Low internal standards force others to control you, and you’ll feel pressured, and, well, it’ll just suck for everyone. High internal standards create trust for you as a professional, and trust of the clients for us as a company. And that trust gives you the freedom to act as you see fit.

You don’t need to achieve something to be treated like a person. That, and our trust you’ll have just by passing the interview and getting into Embacy. Besides that, we understand that it’s okay to make mistakes, and occasional downturns aren’t something to be afraid of.

We make sure that everyone works comfortably — for example, designers work on one project at a time. We try that everyone doesn’t work more than eight hours a day, and got a rest every three months.

You’ll get to live wherever you want, get good pay, take day-offs, we’ll pay at least 50% for whatever courses and educational materials you need, offer different career trajectories, and hear you out if you decide to change the direction of your growth. We’ll hear out all the initiatives, be it regarding your own work, or the company as a whole. After three years with us, you’ll get the option to go on a 3 months-long vacation. 

Great results are fundamental not just for our goals, but for how Embacy as it exists today. That’s why, and also just because, we’re unreasonably caring towards those who get results.

And, to be honest, sometimes we are too kind even to those slacking, and try to lift them up. It’s bad for us as a company, we need to learn how to quickly fire those who don’t cut it. It probably doesn’t happen due to the next entry on our list, which is already an organic part of our culture.

Yes, we all have different jobs, different experiences, responsibilities, and pay. Labels aside, we are all people. We are different, very different sometimes, but we are all equal and equal in our ability to grow and self-realize. 

We don’t have unpaid internships, and even our trainees get decent pay.

Designers and managers have the opportunity to grow into their own Independent Teams, where no one could tell them what to do on their projects.

Top managers can eventually become partners.

Besides that, every Embacy member has the absolute right to remain themselves, no matter their quirks and views (as long as those don’t hurt clients, teams, or the company). The only exception is honesty as a personal quality — this is a must.

Yes, it’s important for us to make money, to pay the salaries and dividends. We’re a business, not a non-profit. And we’ve felt healthy every step of the way, we didn’t have a single unprofitable quarter — on the opposite, we constantly raise pay and don’t plan on stopping. Regardless, honesty is far more valuable to us than profits.

In complicated situations, we, as a company, chose, choose, and will be choosing honest decisions, even if simpler and more profitable solutions are available. This is about all interactions — with the clients, with the team, with the freelancers, inside and outside communications.

We give a client free sprint or money back if we fucked up. We pay out three salaries to our team members if we restructure. We pay 100% of the bill to the freelancers, even if they’d made something unusable.We don’t lie in our inner or outer communication. 

But I do like marketing and let myself employ marketing speak on occasion. But if you had noticed any ethical compromise by me or any other Embacy employee — you can and should make it known. Honesty is something that’ll be expected of you, and it is something that you can expect from others. 

But I have been in the situations where using honesty as a guideline we’ve chosen the first decision, not the best one. That’s wrong. It’s good to be brutally honest, but besides honesty, common sense should also always be considered.

We rely on your intelligence and common sense for decision-making.

In any difficult situation you should think first — appraise and think through the consequences of every possible decision, and if that’s needed and available, consult with someone else. And then decide out of common sense (sometimes you have to pick between bad and terribad). 

At the same time, procedures matter. At the very least they make life a bit easier, and at most ensure the company’s existence. 

But if you see that something in your opinion doesn’t work quite right, you can:

Frameworks can be useful — they should be known, and what’s suitable should be adapted. But they shouldn’t be blindly integrated — hopefully, we won’t.

Making something from scratch — conceptual direction for the project, new job title, business process, company direction — we need to get good results. But we have to quickly see it in practice. It’s important to see the first release, first version as soon as possible, and see how our theories work out in reality. 

We don’t have to shit ourselves in front of the clients or the whole internet — for the critical moments, it could be the feedback from team members or outside experts.

It’s easy to be a critic, say that something new won’t work and it’ll suck. Because you’ll be correct most of the time. Innovation assumes that failure will be more common than success. But the digital world changes rapidly — there are new marketing channels (like Tik-Tok), no and low-code instruments like Framer, metauniverses, NFTs, cryptocurrencies become part of everyday life.

We have to try new things, even if at the end we might only quote One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest with “At least I tried.”

It happens to everyone that something doesn’t work out or is unsatisfying, whether in life or at work. And there are two possible positions in response: active or passive.

In the former, we try, do something, come up with something, talk to someone, ask about stuff. In the latter, we could also ask people, but it’ll come off as a demand.

This text, and Embacy, doesn’t tell you how to live your life, but at work we’ll demand an active and constructive position, especially in difficult situations. As a company we let you be 100% owner of your career path, and we hope that you’ll act accordingly.

A professional is always straightforward and can explain complex things in simple terms.

And that’s not just for communication. If a chart needs to be explained it’s not a good one, if you can’t tell where to look in a project Figma, it’s a bad one.  Our striving for simplicity sometimes makes it harder to see the whole picture. But it’s more important for everyone to be on the same page. 

If you’re a responsible person, you’ll value the clarity in Embacy, and you’ll know that it didn’t just happen by itself :)

During decision-making, big and small, we have to make sure that we're a global company without a physical office.

So that anyone could comfortably work with us from any place in the world. Especially if that person fucking rocks.

A real professional should also make their schedule convenient for themselves while noting the interests of others.