Fastmail
Company Stats
- Industry:
- Software
- Headquarters:
- Melbourne, Australia
- Employee Count:
- 11-50
- Tax Status:
- For-profit
- Founded:
- August 2, 1999
Address
1429 Walnut St. Suite 1201 Philadelphia, PA 19102Company Overview
Company Stats
- Industry:
- Software
- Headquarters:
- Melbourne, Australia
- Employee Count:
- 11-50
- Tax Status:
- For-profit
- Founded:
- August 2, 1999
Address
1429 Walnut St. Suite 1201 Philadelphia, PA 19102Desperate to permanently delete the deluge of marketing emails from brands you never signed up for? The good internet citizens at Fastmail are at your service.
For as little as $3 per month, the Australia-based independent email provider offers completely ad-free products and services — unlike “free” email providers that get paid by selling your data to advertisers. Your inbox stays clear of unwelcome solicitors, and your privacy intact.
Fastmail is a 40-person, 20-year-old company established in Australia. The small business went global after acquiring Pobox in 2015, a Philly-based email service created by Penn student Helen Horstmann-Allen, now the COO of Fastmail. Since then, the email provider’s Philadelphia office has grown to 17 employees, and counting, and recently underwent a stunning renovation featuring design elements that are representative of the company’s warm, inviting nature.
Despite being 10,000 miles apart, Fastmail’s offices are linked through a cohesive internal culture. The company follows Australian labor laws and practices, featuring laid back vibes, empathetic and collaborative communication, respect for all employees and generous benefits. As an employer, much like its role as a product developer, the company strives to be human-centered, empowering and connective. It encourages all employees to be full partners in the development of internal processes, technical standards and Fastmail’s commitment to an open internet.
Providing a human-centered approach to the email experience for customers who value their privacy is at the core of every product and service Fastmail designs — right down to its own internal framework. With a custom, open-source application, technologists at Fastmail have complete control over every aspect of the company’s tech stack, how to build upon the application and what to build next.
If building ethical, inventive and strategic technology is your jam, take some time to explore Fastmail’s latest job openings. The company is currently looking to hire Philly-based JavaScript programmers, backend software developers, customer support agents, project managers and more.
Technical.ly Coverage
Featured Employees
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"We have our own internal framework, which gives us complete ownership over every aspect of our tech stack and control over how we build our application. We get to build the stuff we’re all interested in building."
Joe Woods Web Application Developer -
"I wanted to work for a company where I could wake up in the morning and feel good about what I do. I feel that way at Fastmail. The company lives by a set of ethics you don’t often see in today’s internet landscape. We believe strongly that people’s data is their own."
Rasha Moumneh Support Developer -
"Our culture is so family- and life-centric. Fastmail wants its people to fulfill their life goals and be a complete person — have dinner with your family, take your kids or partner to the doctor. We’re not expected to live to work. They encourage us to have full lives."
Lacey Althouse Product Marketer/UX Researcher
Culture Q&A
What does “being a good internet citizen” mean?
For us, it’s all about behaving ethically and responsibly in today’s internet landscape. We strive to always do the right thing and put people first. We value customers’ trust and never compromise the privacy of their personal data. We build and contribute to open-source projects that help move our industry forward. And most importantly, we bring a human touch to a high-tech industry.
What benefits do you offer that stand out from other companies?
In response to Covid-19 and its new demands on workplace culture, we offer very flexible hours to enable a healthy work-life balance for all of our employees. We also offer very generous PTO with no leave cap. And if an employee has been with us for seven years or longer, they are able to take what’s called a "Long Service Leave," which is a 2-month paid sabbatical.
As one of our company values, we place a heavy focus on our employees’ personal and professional growth. Every employee has their own personal/professional development budget to use as they wish, whether on a course, conference, books, etc. It can also be applied to board service at a non-profit or charity.
Being a global company, are there opportunities to travel?
Yes! Before Covid-19, many of our Philadelphia staffers had regular opportunities to travel to our office in Australia, and vice versa. When it's safe to travel again, that is definitely an opportunity for the future.
What is the company’s current tech stack?
Our client application is written in modern JavaScript using our own open-source framework, Overture, as well as Squire, a popular rich text editor which we wrote. Our client and server communicate using JMAP, a protocol we developed and turned into an open standard. Our server is made up of quite a few different software systems written primarily in Perl 5, but most customer data is stored in Cyrus, an open source JMAP (and IMAP and more) server written in C, and we're its primary maintainers. All this runs on Linux running on our own real hardware.
What kind of qualities do you look for when hiring new technologists?
We are looking for people who have a true passion for programming and the continual desire to push themselves in their understanding of programming concepts and techniques. Our culture is one of constant learning, and we look for that same interest from candidates. Development at Fastmail is a highly collaborative process so we want people who work well with others and are excited to build new things.