🚀 Introduction

Institute of Free Technology

Fostering innovation, defending digital liberties

The Institute of Free Technology ‘IFT’ is a mission-driven tech startup studio, taking ideas from the drawing board to market with financial, technical, legal, people operations, and brand-building support at every step.

IFT curates, incubates and builds startups using shared resources and infrastructure. IFT is focused on building public goods to safeguard civil liberties in the digital age, and we support and grow programs that share this goal by providing capital, services and other resources.

👋 Welcome to IFT

The Institute of Free Technology emerged from Status, which Jarrad Hope and Carl Bennetts founded to enable the free flow of information and protect the right to private, secure conversations in 2017.

Over time, gaps in the infrastructure required to deliver Status in a form that fully reflects its founders’, contributors’, and users’ values became apparent, and the project’s scope widened. IFT and the startups it incubates are the product of this expanded scope.

🔭 Mission

We support the development, adoption, and accessibility of solutions to digital age problems and are guided by our principles: liberty, censorship resistance, security, privacy, and inclusivity. We seek to connect with and support those innovating to defend our digital rights.

IFT Services

Learn more about IFT and its programs here

Vac

Vac is a principle-driven research and development group that provides technical support to each IFT startup. It comprises elite specialists in distributed systems, zero-knowledge proofs, and P2P networking, produces specifications for IFT startups, and undertakes comprehensive protocol testing. Like the IFT and the startups with which it works, a commitment to liberty, censorship resistance, security, privacy, decentralisation, and inclusivity guides Vac’s R&D efforts.

Learn more here

Finance

Our startups benefit from IFT capital to fund their research and development efforts. Meanwhile, the IFT nurtures relationships with investors who share our values and commitment to world-changing tech. Besides funding and investment, the IFT handles payment of fees to contributors, and potential expenses incurred by the contributors working with us via our in-house finance department.

Legal

A specialist and highly experienced legal department led by Dr Agata Ferreira helps our startups navigate the often confusing and ever-changing blockchain legal landscape while providing the legal support to allow them to achieve their project aims. Supporting Agata is a team of two with backgrounds in a wide range of legal areas, including, among others, crypto finance and blockchain. The department assists our startups identify and prevent or mitigate potential (legal) risks.

People Operations

Our PeopleOps department ensures that our startups have the most valuable asset they need — highly engaged and productive contributors — to focus on developing and supporting the innovations we incubate. The team handles talent scouting, recruiting, onboarding, travel, administrative support, and other initiatives to keep those working with us happy, engaged, and productive.

Brand & Awareness

The studio works with our startups to deploy high-impact campaigns, raising brand awareness among their target markets both within the web3 ecosystem and beyond it. IFT startups enjoy full access to the studio, which comprises marketing, digital communications, design, web development, and events management specialists.

Programs

Logos

A movement supporting the development of the decentralised web. Logos technologies lay the foundations for a freer internet upon which communities can evolve into network states. Each protocol in the Logos stack seeks to empower its users while upholding civil liberties and fundamental freedoms.

Waku

A family of generalised P2P communications protocols. The messaging layer of the Logos stack. Waku is private, censorship resistant, modular, and scalable by design. This combination of features makes Waku suitable to run in a wide range of environments, including phones and browsers, while upholding its users’ rights to private communications.

Codex

A decentralised storage engine with strong censorship resistance and durability guarantees. The data archiving layer of the Logos stack. Codex leverages a novel combination of cutting-edge features, including erasure coding, a lazy repair system, ZK-based remote auditing, and incentivisation mechanisms to ensure reliability, data durability, efficiency, and cost effectiveness.

Nomos

A sovereign, modular, zk-encrypted network of blockchains. The trustless agreements layer of the Logos stack. The forthcoming Nomos network will provide a common infrastructure layer upon which communities and aspiring network states can build social, governance, and financial services that uphold their community members’ fundamental rights and values.

Status

A blockchain-based super app that combines private messaging, a wallet, a DApp browser, and tools for web3 community management. Status aims to be a truly decentralised communication tool and, since its founding in 2017, has been progressively removing reliance on centralised infrastructure. The application leverages Waku and other technologies developed under the IFT umbrella.

Keycard

A discreet, convenient, affordable hardware security solution for crypto assets. Taking the form of a credit card, Keycard offers comparable crypto security at a fraction of the cost of others in the hardware wallet niche. Keycard is in production, and the team is working on a full hardware wallet, which will be entirely open-source and compatible with existing Keycards while offering a familiar user experience.

Nimbus

A lightweight Ethereum client implementation designed to reduce hardware requirements for solo stakers and increase efficiency for institutional staking service operators. Nimbus’ mission is to make staking accessible, thus promoting maximum network decentralisation. The Nimbus consensus client is in production, and an execution client is in development. By offering lightweight implementations for both consensus and execution layers, Nimbus simplifies operating an Ethereum node for hobbyists and institutional stakers alike.

🗿 Our Principles

These principles act as tools. Tools for thinking, for communication, and for decentralised decision-making. They keep us honest about where we are failing short of our vision.

I. Liberty

We believe in the sovereignty of individuals. As a platform that stands for the cause of personal liberty, we aim to maximise social, political, and economic freedoms. This includes being coercion-resistant.

II. Censorship Resistance

We enable free flow of information. No content is under surveillance. We abide by the crypto economic design principle of censorship resistance. Even stronger, the Status app is an agnostic platform for information.

III. Security

We don't compromise on security when building features. We use state-of-the-art technologies, and research new security methods and technologies to make strong security guarantees.

IV. Privacy

Privacy is the power to selectively reveal oneself to the world. For us, it's essential to protect privacy in both communications and transactions, as well as being pseudo-anonymous through the Status app . Additionally, we strive to provide the right of total anonymity.

V. Transparency

We strive for complete openness and symmetry of information within the organisation, and have no border between our core contributors and our community. We are frank about our shortcomings, especially when making short-term tradeoffs in service of our long-term goals.

VI. Openness

The software we create is a public good. It is made available via a free and open source licence, for anyone to share, modify and benefit from. We believe in permission-less participation.

VII. Decentralization

We minimise centralization across both the software and the organisation itself. In other words, we maximise the number of physical computers composing the network, and maximise the number of individuals who have control over the system(s) we are building.

VIII. Inclusivity

We believe in fair and widespread access to our software, with an emphasis on ease-of-use. This also extends to social inclusivity, permissionless participation, interoperability, and investing in educational efforts.

IX. Continuance

We create software incentivized to continue to exist and improve, without the stewardship of a single entity or any of the current project members.

X. Resourcefulness

We are relentlessly resourceful. As we grow and have ready access to capital, it is our obligation to token holders to fight bureaucracy and inefficiencies within the organisation. This means solving problems in the most effective way possible at lower economic costs (in terms of capital, time and resources).

ℹ️ IFT Core Contributors

Directory of Core Contributors

⚓️ Settling in

None of us truly knows how our future will look. In all the flurry of productivity, it’s easy to overlook that what we are trying to do has never been done before. We are operating in a pretty much-unchartered territory, trying to:

• Create a public good that has not been made before,
• Transition our governance model to being decentralised and autonomous, and
• Build a community around a movement.

We’re still figuring out how we balance these things.

Joining this community of core contributors means you will be working alongside bright and passionate people with a shared vision: a more decentralised future. We have a transparent and collaborative environment designed to bring the best ideas to fruition.

The IFT projects and the broader Web3 ecosystem are a fast-growing maze. Take time to orientate yourself, don’t rush, and spend time in your first few weeks really connecting with the people you’re working with, as they are the best and most up-to-date sources of information and support that exist.

🦋 Your autonomy

Projects have project leads who coordinate communications and resources. Instead of core contributors having a manager, core contributors collaborate directly with other core contributors in the project.

Core contributors have a huge amount of autonomy, and no one will give you granular details about what to do, when to do it, or where you do it from.

When you first join, your People Partner will connect you with another core contributor to help you get familiar with the organisation. You’ll have a couple of initial deliverables scoped out by the project lead to ease your onboarding and get you going. Beyond that, you’re expected to define and report on the status of your deliverables, reach out to others to collaborate, and hold yourself accountable to it.

The following are some important attributes to successfully collaborate in a remote and asynchronous environment:

• Autonomy: You’re a self-starter, can handle ambiguity, and you have a good sense of when to start tasks on your own and when to ask for support.
• Motivation/Attitude: You take initiative and engage with your projects, you’re helpful towards others, ask questions, and regularly seek to learn more.
• Visibility into work: You communicate clearly and know when to update your project leads and other core contributors on the progress of your deliverables.

As a core contributor, you have the autonomy to choose which project, in what capacity, at which times and from which location – as long as it fulfils the needs and goals of the IFT.

Ideally, you’re the kind of person who finds this autonomy thrilling and not too terrifying.

⏳ Self-time management

For every year that you may be engaged with one of our projects, we recommend being away from your keyboard (“AFK”) for at least 20 days a year (plus your local or cultural bank holidays) to disconnect and enjoy time doing things important to you. We encourage you to disconnect as much as you need on top of this.

We don't mandate the days, schedule, or hours that you take to deliver the services –you're free to set your schedule and work from any place (home/coffee shop/coworking space) and time zone as long as they’re delivered within the agreed timeframe.

This system might be new to you, and if you'd like some guidance on self-time management or have any concerns about being productive –feel free to chat with your People Partner who will be happy to give you some tips.

📣 Communicating your availability

There is no need to communicate AFK unless it's a half day or longer. Non-linear workdays are fine, as well as traditional schedules. Keep your hours in check for your own good, make sure you get proper time away from screens, and turn notifications off on your phone when you're offline. You are free to choose your working patterns as long as you meet your deliverables on time at the agreed quality standards.

The contractor / entity agreement is based on the services provided and does not mandate the time or location where the services will take place.

📆 Create AFK entries

We record contributors' unavailable dates with BambooHR to keep an overview of who's around in the programs and projects to help schedule launches, work allocation, handovers, etc.

BambooHR doesn't allow users to add an entry directly and insists that all dates entered are 'approved' by People Ops. Please note that this is a workflow that we’re unable to amend in the system, and all requests are “approved” by default even though there is no need for us to do this.

You don't need to 'ask' for permission. Just make sure to:

• Communicate to the project lead and people you collaborate in-progress projects with.
• Mark your unavailability on your project’s shared calendar (if there is one).
• Coordinate appropriately and re-assign or delegate any piece of work that needs to progress in your absence. You can also use this handover template for temporary/short absences.

Deleting entries in BambooHR

If you change plans and want to cancel or amend an entry, you can follow these instructions. Only your People Partner can delete past entries, so please ping them for help, and we'll get it sorted right away!

🔕 AFK FAQs

🏖️ How do public holidays work at IFT?

Given the diversity of cultures and locations among the core contributors at IFT, we don't have org-wide days off. We encourage you to book off your home or local public holidays or the ones close to your heart or beliefs.

😷 What happens if I'm out sick?

As a general guideline, short-term unavailability due to sickness that doesn't affect your capacity to meet your commitments doesn't need further action other than recording it in BambooHR.

If you’re going to be unavailable for a prolonged period of time, you need to coordinate with the project lead and your People Partner in order to review and adjust your service agreement accordingly.

㊙️ How does the confidentiality work around unavailabilities?

You can record your unavailability without explanation.

If you tell your People Partner about a health or personal issue, that information will be shared only within the People Ops group and to the extent required, Carl and Jarrad. Please let your People Partner know of any specific discussion that should be kept off the record (i.e., only between you and the People Partner you're talking with).

Your People Partner won't tell other core contributors the specifics of your situation. We will be happy to help you communicate your unavailability period if you need help doing that (mentioning that you are offline unwell, giving no further details).

🐣 Are you or your partner / spouse expecting a new baby?

Introduction

First of all, congratulations! 🎊 We're happy about the new addition(s) to your family! We understand the importance of family during this exciting time in your lives, and we believe all parents should have the necessary time to care for their newborn or newly adopted child. As such, this may result in a period of time when you will be unavailable to provide your services. In this regard, IFT has developed the following arrangement:

Eligibility

All core contributors who have passed their trial period and are performing well are eligible to participate in this arrangement. If a core contributor is still in their trial period, they will not be eligible to participate in this arrangement.

Furthermore, the core contributor’s service agreement must still be in effect prior to and for the duration of their unavailability.

Duration

Core contributors who become new parents, either through birth or adoption, are able to make use of the following periods of unavailability and this arrangement:

• Primary caregiver - A period of up to sixteen (16) weeks
• Secondary caregiver - A period of up to three (3) weeks

The primary caregiver is typically the person who takes on the main responsibility for looking after a child. This role is often most commonly associated with the mother. The primary caregiver is typically the one who spends the most time with the child, providing daily care, nurturing, and meeting their needs. They will have given up work to carry out their duties.

The secondary caregiver is the person who takes on a supporting role in caregiving responsibilities. The secondary caregiver provides assistance and support to the primary caregiver, sharing the responsibilities of caring for the child.

Standby compensation

While traditional parental leave policies are not available to independent contractors, nonetheless, we wish to ensure that core contributors are able to immediately resume the provision of their services following this period of unavailability at full capacity and without delay.

We recognise, however, that the core contributor will incur certain costs and expenses during their unavailability to maintain a certain level of readiness and wish to compensate them to remain on standby. In this regard, we will pay the core contributor a monthly ‘standby’ payment for the period of eligible unavailability.

We will make such payments in accordance with section 8 of this Contributor Guide. As indicated above, our payment of standby compensation is subject to the core contributor’s services agreement being in effect during their unavailability. If such agreement terminates during their unavailability, we are not obliged to make any standby compensation payments to the core contributor.

Flexible work arrangements

We understand that a core contributor resuming their services to IFT after this period of unavailability given their parental duties can be challenging. Therefore, we also have flexible arrangements available to new parents who intend to resume providing their services.

This may include a reduced schedule or a staggered return. In addition, the core contributor may further extend their period of unavailability as follows:

• Primary caregiver - a period of up to eight (8) weeks
• Secondary caregiver - up to three (3) weeks

For this extended period of unavailability, we will not provide any additional standby compensation.

How do I make use of this arrangement?

As soon as you're comfortable sharing the news, please ping your People Partner to chat about your plans. It'd be great if you could give as much notice as you can.

We’ll further discuss the above arrangement with you, your period of unavailability and also share with you some additional paperwork to formalise this arrangement.

Conclusion

At IFT, we are committed to supporting our core contributors who become new parents. We believe that creating this arrangement is essential to creating a supportive environment for contributors to thrive as well as the confidence that they can resume the provision of their services to IFT with the necessary readiness and capacity.

📒 What happens to any SNT distributions?

We'll review each request on a case by case basis to see if we pause or forgo your SNT distributions when you take a prolonged downtime period.

For a short time period, you will still be eligible for your quarterly SNT distributions.

🧰 Do I still have access to tools and accounts during my unavailability?

In general, we will keep your access to Google and other centralised accounts open during your downtime.

🦾 The trial period

We consider your first 12 weeks of contributing as a trial period. During this time, you'll work alongside and be treated like other IFT core contributors - you'll have access to the same information, software, (virtual) meetups, and learning opportunities. We're confident that you will be a great addition, or we wouldn't have extended an offer!

However, we have seen that sometimes things don't work out. Working remotely, on new tech, with a super flexible organisation that's constantly evolving isn't to everyone's taste. We want to be very upfront about what we expect from each core contributor.

A clearly defined initial tryout will allow enough time to get to know each other and fully appreciate how we can work together. It might also be that you decide that IFT isn't what you're looking for, and that's okay too.

👉 Check out Contributing to IFT and Value creating behaviours as a guide to help you along your journey

End-trial feedback

Within your first few weeks, you will automatically be invited to join the Lattice platform to set up your user profile. Around week 8 of being engaged with IFT, you will be prompted to select 3-6 other core contributors for your feedback circle and complete your own self-assessment of your contributions. Think carefully about who you would like to include, it should be core contributors who are familiar with your work and the contributions you have made so far.

💡 Top Tip - If you are in a services project, include core contributors within the programs or projects you support.

This feedback circle will be approved by your project lead who is also a reviewer by default.

Feedback will be collected automatically and aggregated into a report for you to discuss with your project lead during your next 1-1.

Once you have passed your trial period, we expect feedback to be regularly shared through either the Lattice platform or via your project lead on an ongoing basis.

We hope that all of our trials will be successful. Still, we may not see the potential for a productive future collaboration together. In that case, People Ops or your project lead will reach out to you about extending your trial or terminating your service agreement with IFT and any related logistics.

❓ FAQs

• Who has access to the trial feedback?

  The People Ops team, your project lead, Carl, Jarrad.

• Who decides on the trial outcome?

  The contributor's project lead, who is responsible for the contracting decisions on their project. People Ops acts as a facilitator in the process.

• Is the feedback anonymous??

  Feedback from peers is anonymous and the scores and comments are aggregated. Feedback from project leads is not anonymous.

• How do you evaluate whether a trial is successful?

  Based on the feedback received via the trial process we can assess whether a trial has been successful. We ask a diverse set of questions in the feedback form to get a mix of data points - numerical, qualitative, and comparative and aggregate all responses and scores received.

  Important standards like productivity, autonomy, visibility, the quality of output and showing advancement of the Principles would be indicators to how successful a core contributor has been during this trial period. Contributions not being impactful to IFT's overall objectives or developmental feedback, not being addressed would be reasons (among others) to end the trial.

• Why do you ask so many contributors for feedback?

  The feedback circle is between 3-6 peers, plus a project lead. The response rate is typically ~60%. We want to get as many voices and opinions involved to make the process as fair as possible.

• How will I know what happens with someone's trial?

  We want to be sensitive to each person's privacy by not discussing details about their performance with other core contributors. As such, we don't (at this point) announce whether trials were successful or not, but we're open to changing that if people would prefer this was made transparent. It’s likely we’d not be able to give specific details of a trial outcome, though.

• Can I give trial feedback even if I wasn't directly asked?

  100%! You can share trial feedback anytime. You can jump into Lattice and give anyone feedback at any time!

• This process seems pretty centralised; what's up with that?

  You're not wrong! The trial feedback process was an interim solution to make core contributor engagement as high quality and consistent as possible across Status, but it has stuck in the absence of better alternatives being identified. It's far from perfect, and we're always looking to adapt and iterate it, so share your ideas with People Ops, and we'll incorporate them!

• How do I get feedback after the trial period?

  We encourage a continuous feedback culture, where you give and receive ongoing feedback. This can happen recurrently through our internal feedback platform Lattice, during your chats with other core contributors, and whenever there's feedback to be shared, such as at the end of a project or after a relevant event. Lattice provides a platform to give feedback to anyone at any time, as well as more scheduled times such as mid and end-of-year performance reviews.

💥 Self Evaluation Guide

This document is intended to be a supporting document to help you complete the 2023 lightweight Self Evaluation Process.

Writing a self-evaluation

Think of a self-evaluation as an opportunity to reflect and deep dive into your contributions and impact on Status’ projects. It’s your moment to share WHAT you do and HOW you do it.

The WHAT = contribution/impact

The HOW = behaviours

Try to be honest about your contributions and impact on Status’ projects, especially in relation to how your contributions align with Status’ values and mission. It is also important to acknowledge areas where you may need further development or support, and that’s okay.

Aim to provide a balanced evaluation of yourself based on the following attributes and questions.

Question Specific Guidance

Contribution

• Think about specific projects, tasks or initiatives you have worked on, highlighting your contributions, accomplishments, and the outcomes of your efforts.
• Be specific and provide measurable results whenever possible, such as deadlines met, efficiency improvements, and projects delivered.

Collaboration

• Assess your ability to work collaboratively with Core Contributor both within your team and other projects.
• Describe instances where you effectively collaborated or supported others in achieving common goals.
• Acknowledge any areas where you faced challenges in collaboration and how you dealt with it.

Autonomy

• Discuss your level of autonomy as a Core Contributor and how you've taken initiative.
• Share examples of times when you proactively identified opportunities for improvement or took on additional responsibilities.
• Highlight your ability to work independently and make decisions when needed.

What is (at least) one thing you do well?

• Be specific, highlighting your impact on your team/project.
• Identify your strengths, skills or qualities that you excel at in your role.
• Discuss a time when / if you exceeded expectations or made a significant positive impact on your team or project.
• Highlight any skills or areas where you’ve shown improvement and growth over time.
• ​​Take time to look back on your 1:1’s and retros to help you identify past accomplishments

What is (at least) one thing you could improve upon?

• Be self-aware. Acknowledge areas where you may have room for improvement.
• Focus on something specific and prioritise a meaningful commitment to improvements.
• Offer context for the areas you want to improve. Explain why these aspects are important and how they impact your role.

Next steps:

Please log into Lattice, and complete your self-evaluation.

Reach out to your People Ops Partner if you have any questions.

🌀 Your first day..week...month....

Take the time you need in your first weeks to browse resources, chat with other core contributors, and do the background reading that allows you to feel comfortable with the organisation and context. It's a lot to take in, but a worthwhile investment!

There's no prescriptive recipe for success in your first few months but the following hints and tips should get you feeling right at home in no time:

• Take a look through the action items assigned to you in BambooHR, these will help you get familiarised and get access to essential tools.

• Join the project Discords and download the Status app and ping in #general or #people-ops and say hello then drop into the #intros channel and tell us about yourself by posting an intro video. We're always excited when new core contributors join and we love to get to know you more.

Some great topics to cover are:

• Who you are and where you are located
• What excites you about IFT and our projects
• What did you do prior to joining IFT
• What are your passions/hobbies
• Bonus points for fun facts about yourself

The video can be between 1-3 minutes max.

• Chat with your project lead. They'll probably already have set some time to introduce you to what you will be working on and your project. Ask them about other folks that you should get to know in your first days.

• Find your project, drop by their channel, and see what work is scoped out for you in your first few weeks.

• Have a read through resources like this site, Discuss, Docs, Notion and Miro to get a feel for the latest happenings and key info.

• Watch the latest all hands strategy call hosted by our Co-founder Jarrad.

• Join your onboarding call with your People Partner to go over all your onboarding questions and ideas.

• Join the new starter intro monthly calls hosted by IFT to meet other new core contributors to help build up your internal network

🤙 Getting to know your fellow core contributors...

It’s hard to get to know everyone straight away. Here are some helpful ways to connect with other core contributors:

• Ask your project lead about who the important people are relevant to your work and connect with them
• Schedule a 20 mins coffee break chat with everyone in your project!
• Chat with someone who's also recently joined by checking out the #intro channel on the status app and connect with them. They will have recently gone through the onboarding process and may have some great hints and tips and shared experiences.
• Ask your buddy about their experience so far: how do they describe IFT and our structure?
• Check out the org chart in BambooHR. Bear in mind that we are a flat-ish organisation, so the BambooHR hierarchy might be arbitrary and probably doesn't represent the ways people cross-collaborate normally in day-to-day working but you'll get a feel of who's who.
• Feel free to ping anyone at IFT to say hey and have a chat - we're an open bunch and enjoy getting to know our new fellow core contributors. Some project members may reach out to you to introduce themselves, too.

...and if you have any questions, ping your People Partner. They're more than happy to help you navigate through the chaos and welcome you with a virtual coffee!

🎉 Congrats - that's the settling in part done! Now relax, enjoy, and we'll see you again tomorrow 🙌🏻

🧭 Buddy program

We've created the buddy program to facilitate your integration into IFT and our projects as warm and welcoming as possible. A buddy is there to connect new joiners, solve doubts as they appear, and immerse new core contributors into our culture from the lenses of someone who's helped shape it.

Here you'll find helpful information about what you can expect from your buddy and how to become a successful one.

How we match buddies

The buddy system is role and location agnostic. We want folks across the organisation to have the chance to meet and get to know others outside of those they'd work with regularly.

That means that buddies may be paired together from entirely different roles / projects to each other. The buddying conversations don't need to be technical. New core contributors should have a project lead who will get them set up with a project in their first weeks, while the buddy program focuses on the core contributor experience, broader community, ecosystem, culture, vision, and mission.

Suppose a new core contributor still has lots of questions about their work responsibilities or role; in that case, a buddy can help them connect with the right people to solve them.

If the time zone difference makes it hard to pair, please let your People Partner know, and we'll reassign a new buddy in a closer region.

For new core contributors

As a new core contributor, it's not always easy to find a tenured peer to walk you through all things IFT. So, to make your first few months more enjoyable, we’ll match you with a buddy! You can find their username in your BambooHR profile, so shoot them a message to introduce yourself and set up recurring calls during your first 4-6 weeks. There's nothing for you to prepare or do in advance of the weekly buddy calls:

• Your buddy will be ready to guide you on contributing to IFT.
• The buddy chats are a safe space for you to ask whatever you'd like about working at IFT - no topic is too trivial.
• Feel free to note as many questions as you like --you can ask these to your buddy either in your weekly chats or any time via DM.

For buddies

Anyone can sign up as a buddy. Normally, your People Partner will reach out to propose your pairing with a new core contributor prior or during their first days of onboarding.

Offsites are a fantastic way to get to know people, so let's try to give the same vibe remotely!

Time commitment

It depends on you and the person you will be buddying with, but we expect it to be about 1 hour each week, for the first 4-6 weeks.

What makes a good buddy?

A good buddy is someone prepared to be a friendly support, an informal source of information on how the programs and projects works, and someone ready to share their experience.

There's no set amount of time you should have worked with Status before becoming a buddy --everyone is very welcome to volunteer by reaching out to People Ops.

Roles and responsibilities of a buddy

• As a buddy, you are not 'managing' the core contributor but act as a supportive and friendly face.
• Helping a new core contributor navigate their way around IFT.
• Answering questions – often more than once. Buddies need to be patient as new starters take in a lot of information, often in a short time, and may need to re-ask questions in the future as events occur.
• Provide information, signpost information, and offer informal support.
• Introducing them to other core contributors who are relevant to their role.
• Helping them to understand the formal and informal culture and structures at IFT.
• Getting the core contributor comfortable with IFT projects and principles.
• Encourage them to ask questions, if unsure, about any aspects of their role.
• When possible, arrange to meet up for coworking in the area, or introduce them to any other core contributors in their current location.
• Flag to your People Partner, any topics or situations that seem confusing for new core contributors so we can tackle them better and faster at the onboarding stage!
• Be a general all-round legend and share your love and passion for the IFT and our projects.

Guidelines for approaching the first meeting

If you haven't been a buddy before, don't panic or feel overwhelmed as the new core contributor may have similar feelings. Remember every bit of knowledge and advice is valuable to the success of the core contributor!

On the new core contributor's first few days, their People Partner will arrange an onboarding call to get them set up and introduce them to high-level information about engaging with IFT. You are not expected to give them details from scratch or contact them immediately on their first day.

The following checklist will help establish your relationship and decide how you will use the time spent together moving forward. It includes some suggestions for you to cover throughout your chats:

• Establish frequency / duration of calls over a suggested 4-6 week timeframe.
• Outline your role, experience at IFT, what you're working on, and how that ties in with the organisation.
• Explain to them what the buddy program is, and your role as their buddy, and the type of topics you'll be covering in the weekly chats.
• Walk through the Status app, how to contact people, and send each other messages.
• Find out about their professional background and experience, and what they will be working on/they're excited about contributing.
• Ask about their experience/comfort level with remote work, decentralised autonomous organisations, open-source, and community-based working.
• Talk about IFT's mission and objectives -- decentralisation, our Principles, etc.
• Discuss the working culture at IFT. How is this different from other places the new core contributor has contributed?
• If relevant, introduce them to key people they may benefit from knowing outside of their immediate project.
• Suggest what to read and other valuable resources for their role or get to know the org in general.
• Ask them if they're confused about anything and help them figure out the answers they need. If you don't know the answers to some of their questions, it's okay --point them to someone who does, or ping #people-ops so we can look up a solution together.
• Share some discord or Status app channels that they may find interesting to follow.
• Get to know a bit about them as a person, their hobbies etc.
• Talk about how to dogfood the app, give examples of how they can use it, where to report issues, nightly builds, etc.
• Ask about their workstation - are they aware of our coworking allowance?

Make sure the core contributor knows they can ask you anything regarding IFT, and you will be happy to help. It's important to stress this as new core contributors can often be afraid to bother people, shy, or reluctant to ask at first!

🌟 Your People team

IFT is a non-conventional organisation, and as such, it's important that you - our core contributors - have everything you need to be successful and help deliver the organisations' goals. We want to make sure you get the attention and support you need at IFT.

With that in mind, People Ops is here for you as someone you can turn to when you need advice or just want to chat. No topic too big or too trivial!

DM us anytime :) We’ll also be checking in with you from time to time too, to ask your opinion on how things are going and how to better support you.

Mission statement

🎉 Make IFT a top place to work.

Not living up to that ideal? Tell us! We aim to make your experience with IFT as positive and productive as possible.

We’ll keep asking you how we can improve, and we welcome your feedback at any time.

Who we are...

• Head of People Operations: Jonathan Barker (aka JB)
• People Partners: Terry Tobin & Melanie Davis
• Talent Partners: Pepper Lea, Maya Krumova, Catia Sousa & Angel Gutierrez

People Partners

People Partners will support on all people-related matters for core contributors as well as ensuring our values and principles are inherited throughout all our projects.

Each project will be paired with one People Partner who will provide end-to-end support throughout the entire core contributor lifecycle from onboarding to exit, including but not limited to:

• New hire onboarding: contract drafting and saas set up.
• Trials processes: coordination, feedback collection, communication and escalation.
• Equipment: reviews and approvals.
• Performance management: support project leads through all performance review cycles and to periodically monitor performance and assist in escalating performance issues.
• Engagement : monitoring project’s engagement data, and supporting with 1:1 ad-hoc calls as required, to assist CCs during different phases, or transitions.
• Levelling and service fee reviews.
• Terminations, amendments and offboarding processes: contract drafting, exit interviews, and systems removal.
• Administrative: invoices and expenses support.

Outside of the core People Ops work, we’re also available for ad hoc tasks like:

• Managing events, recurring calls, hosting webinars.
• 1-1 coaching and mentorship
• Travel booking
• Administrative support.
• Bouncing ideas / venting / general catch-up chats.
• Coordination, project management.
• Budget support.

Talent Partners

The Talent team supports the selection of wonderful core contributors like you for all our projects!

This includes:

• Support on defining the core contributor requirements and developing the required parameters and specifications.
• Sourcing, identifying and engaging potential core contributors for projects and services required by IFT.
• Advertising roles, such as using our social media presence to attract core contributors.
• Reviewing and short-listing suitable potential core contributors.
• Conducting initial potential core contributor screenings.
• Scheduling any potential core contributor’ interviews during the selection process.
• Collect feedback on potential core contributors.
• Manage a potential core contributor’s experience throughout the process.
• Helping with final engagement decisions, approvals and extending offers.
• Run talent booths at external events.

Downloading and installing Status Desktop

📥 Downloading Status

First you will need to download the latest release of Status Desktop from here.

On Windows:

• Locate and double-click the .exe file. (It will usually be in your Downloads folder.)
• Follow the instructions to install the software.

On Linux

• Extract the contents of the tarball with tar –xvzf StatusIm-Desktop-<version>.tar.gz
• Run the extracted StatusIm-Desktop-<version>.AppImage

On Mac:

• Open Status.dmg
• Copy Status.app to the Applications folder
• You will need to "right click -> open" when running it for the first time (due to new Apple requirements for notarization). You may need to "right click -> open" twice.

It is strongly recommended that you follow the “I’m new to Status” path in the onboarding screens to generate a new seed phrase. After you have signed in for the first time, make sure you back up your seed phase securely. You can do this by clicking on the red 'back up seed phrase' banner that will appear at the top of the window.

If you use a seed phrase that you have previously used with Status, you are guaranteed to run into some known issues. It is recommend that you don't do this.

Note: Status Desktop is currently in beta and meant for testing by core contributors only. It's not yet ready for real use and makes no claims of security or integrity of funds or data in these builds. DO NOT USE IT TO STORE ANY ASSETS OF VALUE.

When choosing a username, it is recommended that you use the same username you are using in Discord / Github (this will make it easier for other CC’s to recognise you).

🤝 How to join the Status Internal community

1. Click the “Start chat” button

2. This will open a view to start a new chat. Enter Iuri’s chat key into the “To:” field:

Iuri’s chat key - zQ3shdkzLTUx5s98XRXenEwPX56RhxGWjLnihcx79dhNai4wW

3. Status should recognize this key is Iuri’s and immediately open the "send contact request" dialog so you can send a contact request to him:

4. Send Iuri a nice message while you’re at it, something that will make him smile. Also let Iuri know you’re a new IFT core contributor and mention your full name and the name of the team you have just joined. Click the “Send Contact Request” button to send the contact request.

5. Iuri should have a pending contact request from yourself. You need to wait for Iuri to accept your request.

6. Once Iuri has accepted your request (congrats, you’re now friends with Iuri), he will send you a link to Status Internal community (if you don’t receive this link, ping @helium__ on Discord).

7. Click the “Go to Community” button:

8. This will take you to the Status Internal community. Click the “Request to join” button:

9. This will open a dialog that shows you a welcome message + some rules you might need to follow within this community. Check the “I agree with the above” box and click the “Request to join” button:

10. You’ve just sent a request to join the community! Iuri has to manually approve your request, so depending on your waking hours and time zone, this request might be pending for a bit. (if your request to join is not accepted within 48hrs ping @helium on Discord).

11. Once Iuri has accepted your request, the Status Internal community will automatically unlock and you’ll be able to chat with your dearest friends and colleagues using Status 🙂 But you are not done yet, there is one more thing we need to ask you to do.

12. Go to the “Settings” section in Status Desktop by clicking on the cog wheel in the left hand navigation bar:

13. Select “Advanced” in the settings menu:

14. Scroll down until you see the “Telemetry” setting. Turn it on by clicking the toggle switch. This will open a dialog that asks you to confirm this action. Confirm this action. It’s really important that all CCs do this so that we can monitor Waku v2’s reliability as part of this dogfooding effort.

15. Congrats, you are now a Status user, as well as a IFT core contributor 🎉

Now let’s get this product polished to the point where we all enjoy using it - please report any bugs you encounter and suggest improvements or new features that you personally need. Instructions for this are below.

Also, don’t forget to read the list of “Known bugs” below, otherwise you won’t know about some important things you should or should not do with this release of Status Desktop, like not suspending your computer (because suspending your computer with Status running will result in missing messages).

👋 Contact requests and ad-hoc group chat

Because Status is a fully p2p network that is not under the control of any authority (including ourselves! 🙂), there are a number of mechanisms we have introduced to mitigate spam.

One of these mechanisms is ‘mutual contacts’. What this means is that in order to start a 1on1 conversation with another person, or to add somebody to an ad-hoc group chat, you first need to be a mutual contact with that person. So it is recommended that you send ‘Contact requests’ in Status to all the other core contributors that you may need to chat with outside of the Status Internal community space.

Here is a useful link to the IFT core contributors' contact list, which contains everyone's chat keys (and names/emails etc).

Like Discord, Status also supports small ad-hoc group chats. Unlike Discord, which only supports 10 participants in each ad-hoc group chat, Status currently supports 20 participants and hopefully, we can further increase this number in the future. So if you need to have a small private group chat about something, give this functionality a try!

🐞 How to report bugs

(If you are already experienced with reporting bugs you can skip this section)

One of the reasons we dogfood is to identify bugs! So if you think you have run into a bug, it would be much appreciated if you follow these instructions to report the issue:

1. Go to the Status Desktop repo on GitHub and have a quick look to see if the issue has already been reported. If you see that the issue has already been reported, you can leave a comment on the issue saying “I’ve experienced this bug” and add any additional information (if any) from your experience that’s not already in the bug report.

Don’t worry about accidentally creating a duplicate bug, this happens all the time and the Desktop team will deduplicate any duplicate bugs reported.

2. If after a quick skim you can’t see a bug report that matches the issue you’ve encountered, click the green ‘New issue’ button to create a bug report. In the bug report, try to include the following:

• the version of Status Desktop you are using (you can see this by going to Settings / About in the app).
• the OS version you are using e.g. Windows 10, Ubuntu 20.04, etc…
• If possible, numbered steps of what to do to reproduce the bug.
• What is currently incorrectly happening, and what you think is supposed to happen.
• Screenshots are always useful. If you are set up to make screencasts, a screencast of you reproducing the bug is always appreciated.

And that’s it, if you follow these steps you’ve written a highly descriptive and informative bug report that’s better than 95% of bug reports 🙂

⬆️ How to request a new feature or an improvement to an existing feature

Many of us use group chats on various platforms (Discord, Telegram, Whatsapp etc.) for work or as part of our hobbies and personal lives. This means that everybody who works at IFT is an expert group chat user, and as such your input on what improvements and new features we need to build is extremely valuable.

To gather and prioritise this feedback, we have set up a ‘User Voice board’ for Status Desktop on Feature UpVote. We plan to use a user voice board like this (but obvs. styled nicer to be on-brand 😉 ) with external users to capture their feedback after we launch our MVP, so now is a great opportunity to give this method of collecting user feedback a trial run on ourselves.

The idea behind a user voice board is simple - anybody can post an improvement idea or feature request, everybody can upvote requests that are important to them, and designers and developers working on the desktop product can respond to these suggestions.

Give Feature UpVote a go 🙂 Just upvoting (or not upvoting) requests helps build a prioritised backlog to feed into the product development roadmap.

Contributing to IFT

Core contributor standards

One of the ways People Ops can support reaching our broader organisational goals is by providing frameworks and support to make sure that core contributors are adhering to certain standards in the delivery of their services and/or projects. This is useful for IFT and the core contributor to ensure the overarching product and strategy goals are met.

Our aim is to normalise (self-)evaluations and talk about what’s good and what requires improvement on a continuous basis. Lattice is our performance management platform across Status. It is widely used for end of trial, mid & end of year, as well as ongoing feedback.

What we expect

• We expect you to show us you can prioritise correctly, get things done, and find answers in an increasingly autonomous way. In most projects, there will be a first project scoped out for you. Regardless of that being the case, make sure you ask your lead where you can start, clarify expectations for your role, or seek feedback on how you're doing, early and regularly.
• We expect you to be accountable for your goals and deadlines. We don't micromanage - if by any chance you realise you're stuck, make sure to flag it and discuss within your project and project lead whether or not it would be best to change course.
• We don't see each other much, and written communication is what we see the most from each other. We'd like for everyone to be clear, friendly, and helpful to everyone else. Great communication is key!
• Given that IFT is a highly distributed organisation, working with core contributors across multiple time zones and with minimal physical collaboration, we expect a consistent and high volume of communication to keep your fellow core contributors updated on your progress to ensure that the projects can efficiently be coordinated and delivered in the appropriate time frames. There's no expectation that you reply to each ping immediately. Do your work and avoid interruptions while checking your messages at least a couple of times a day. If you know you won't have time to look into something right away, let the other party know when they can expect to have an answer to organise their work efficiently.
• Everyone should contribute to the products and our culture. If you see anything that can be improved and have an idea to make it better, bring it up! If you see that a fellow core contributor is stuck, offer to help or ping someone who can. We're all in the same boat trying to achieve the same goals so let's help each other!
• Read this article.It gives a sense of what qualities we expect of our core contributors.
• For those less experienced in the blockchain/crypto space - jump in and immerse yourself in the ecosystem and get to understand our principles and mission better. This is a big topic, and we don't expect everyone to become an expert. Still, we would be super impressed to see that you're committed to continuously learning and developing your knowledge.
• Try to model our principles in all that you do at IFT.
• In order to help with what behaviours create value, here you can see a IFT-specific list of value-creating behaviours and some examples in which they could manifest.

🌟 Journey to your first contribution...

IFT is developing a number of projects and each project has the freedom to organise themselves however it best sees fit. Throughout your first two weeks, during 1:1s, project weeklies or setting calls specifically for this, get the feel of the specific rituals, dynamics and communication forms within your project and how it connects back with the bigger IFT vision.

Retros and priorities

Read your project last quarter's retro and learnings, and focus on this quarter's priorities and goals.

Ask other core contributors in your project:

• What went well
• What could have been improved
• What were the key learnings for your project
• What are the priorities set for this quarter.

Figure out your first contribution

The first month in a new project can be as exciting as it can be overwhelming with everything that IFT and our projects are building. For this reason we recommend you to work closely with your project lead or your closest peer to scope what your first contribution will be.

Try to aim for a small project, something that can help you understand your stack progressively and get something done within your first weeks!

🌟 Value-creating behaviours

🧘 Focus

Great ✅

• Prioritising and deprioritising efforts correctly - most effort on the most important thing for IFT’ continuance
• Translate theory into pragmatic decisions
• Find ways to increase revenue

Not great ❌

• Spending huge amounts of time on lower priority work
• Getting sidetracked

🗣️ Good communication

Great ✅

• Explaining clearly and calmly in text/Discord/ Status app
• Asking questions and explanations
• Good technical documentation
• Answer timely/precisely/don’t let people hang (within async)
• Giving feedback, timely
• Asking for feedback, timely
• Showing empathy

Not great ❌

• Giving feedback months later/out of context
• Not ‘daring’ to give direct feedback, but being critical to others behind their backs
• Shipping things without seeking feedback
• Jerky, impatient remarks in writing
• Requests lacking context or clarity

🤝 Collaboration with projects

Great ✅

• Supporting project rituals
• Offering a hand/helping other core contributors
• Helping new core contributors adjust to the project
• Resolving tensions
• Sharing knowledge
• Improving internal processes
• Flagging issues

Not great ❌

• Going invisible
• Not documenting what you’re working on
• Delaying others’ work
• Being late to meetings/project rituals

🤝 Collaboration across other projects

Great ✅

• Cross-functional projects or ideas that can improve IFT as a whole
• Reading/being active on channels outside of the immediate area of work
• Supporting with events/community
• Helping communication flow/easing misunderstandings
• Replying to questions from other core contributors outside your project

Not great ❌

• Remaining silent when someone from outside your project asks a question that you could answer
• Relying on others in your project to communicate with folks outside your project.
• Not reaching out to somebody outside your project when their expertise could be useful.

Proactiveness

Great ✅

• Picking up on things that need to happen, and jumping in to make them happen
• Looking outside of what we’ve always done, taking inspiration from the wider world

Not great ❌

• Waiting for instructions at all times
• Raising issues without follow up action

💪 Productivity

Great ✅

• Being accountable and responsible for your own results.
• First things first - nail the basics of your role before branching out.
• Keeping a consistent level of effort
• Not + lines of code (mostly, the less lines of code needed to achieve the objective the better)
• Overall contribution to project’s output (proportional to skill)

Not great

• Bursts of efficiency when is most needed or visible/barely coasting the rest of the time
• Getting sidetracked/spending excessive time on side ideas or projects/neglecting priorities.

👀 Visibility in (Ethereum) ecosystem

Great ✅

• Speaking at events
• Being an ambassador
• Contributing to discussions on EIP and other ecosystem developments (Github, Discourse, Twitter, etc)

🛠️ Master own skill/speciality

Great ✅

• Delivering your project or providing your services at the best of your ability
• Always be learning
• Striving for quality

🖥 Laptops and devices

Having the proper setup is fundamental to ensure you can work comfortably to successfully deliver services to IFT and our projects. We hold our principles dear and support you as a core contributor with some of the tools you might need to succeed in providing services using secure, decentralised devices.

Here you'll find some helpful information to get yourself set up with the right equipment you may need.

☑️ Available equipment

Core contributors have the potential option of leasing devices from IFT to ensure that they can provide their services. We have a list of pre-approved equipment considered within their project budgets to the extent that you need certain devices to deliver your services.

While IFT provides you the flexibility to purchase the appropriate devices in line with the capped amounts stated in this section, IFT ultimately owns such devices. Following your purchase, we will subsequently lease you back the device which you have purchased.

For the purposes of purchasing devices, you need to raise the request via SpiffWorkflow to get okays from your Project Lead and PeopleOps partner.

The standard setup for everyone includes a laptop, a Keycard, a Yubikey, and a Ledger.

For each item we have defined a budget. Your spend will stay below the defined budget, in most cases. When this happens, it is not an option to use the difference towards the cost of other items.

• Laptop: up to USD 3,000
• Mic and headphones: up to USD 120
• Keycard: ping the #keycard channel to get a code
• Yubikey: you can reimburse one (approx USD 50)
• Ledger: you can reimburse one (approx USD 80)

Most core contributors should be able to effectively perform their work using standard equipment, but if you're struggling to participate or you need other equipment to perform your role successfully (for example, you need a better quality webcam to record videos or a higher quality mic to record demos for IFT), then please raise the request via SpiffWorkflow and your People Partner can support you with your needs on a case by case basis. For those that are approved to receive higher quality equipment, we recommend the Logitech Brio 4K Webcam and the Rode NT-USB USB Condenser Microphone.

Following the cessation or termination of your services to IFT, you have the option of purchasing from IFT any equipment you purchased in accordance with this section.

🏪 How to get your devices

1. Choose official or trusted vendors to buy your devices
2. Raise a request for goods/services via SpiffWorkflow prior to purchasing the devices.
3. Upon getting okays from your Project Lead and PeopleOps partner, proceed with the purchase.
4. Go to your profile > assets in BambooHR and Add assets, filling all device information.
5. Once registered, request a refund by adding the expense to Spiff and your next invoice.
6. You can reimburse custom expenses. Try to avoid international shipping when possible. Buy from vendors within your country or economic area.
7. Enter into a leasing agreement with Status in respect of the device you have purchased.

ℹ️ FAQ

• Who owns the devices which I’ve purchased

  IFT is the owner of the devices which you have purchased. IFT will lease back these devices to you in order for you to deliver your services. We have found that this is a flexible and convenient arrangement to ensure that you can obtain the appropriate devices in a timely manner to deliver your services.

• What if I don't have enough funds to buy the device before reimbursement?

  If cash flow is an issue, please mention it in the request (select "Payment method" <> "Reimbursement") and ping your People Partner and we'll help come up with a solution!

• What if my devices becomes outdated?

  At the 3 year mark, if your device needs an upgrade, just raise a new request via SpiffWorkflow.

• What happens if I accidentally damage a device?

  You should treat the devices as if they were yours. If the damage was due to factors beyond your control, please obtain a quote for a repair and let your People Partner know. If the cost is reasonable (i.e., less than ~75% of the trade-in value of the asset), we would ask you to go ahead and get the device repaired. Then, submit the repair expense cost for reimbursement.

• What happens if my services agreement with IFT finishes?

  Please check out this guide for your options on recycling or buying back devices.

Collaboration

We use multiple tools for knowledge management and collaboration across the organisation. The basic platforms you need access to from Day 1 are: Google Suite, ProtonMail and Notion. On top of this, each individual teams may use other platforms such as Miro, CodiMD etc. As you start working with various teams, you will be provided access to these platforms.

Google Suite

Google suite is used for emails, various types of document collaboration and video calls. You will be provided with a @status.im email address which will give you access to the whole Gsuite.

ProtonMail

Google does not align with our values as an organisation and so there is currently a project to move away from Google and start using ProtonMail as our email provider. You will be getting a secondary email address on-top of your existing @status.im address.

You can read about this change, when to use Gmail vs. ProtonMail along with the more details about the project and timelines. https://www.notion.so/Phase-1-Replace-Google-Mail-w-Proton-Mail-34d999eacb27446dacdbb426075fe6da

Notion

Notion is a collaborative Wiki, just like Confluence (if you have ever used it). Most teams collaborate on this platform and this is part of knowledge management across the organisation.

Movement Guidelines

Movement to a different role within IFT offers many benefits. It is an important process that helps us keep valuable expertise within the organisation, allows core contributors to develop additional skills and enhances the strength and adaptability of our teams.

To ensure fair, transparent, and efficient movement to the new role, we have established the following guidelines for core contributors to follow:

Open Roles

All open roles can be found on our websites (IFT, Logos, Status) or by checking out the hiring channels in the Logos Discord and Status App. 

For more information regarding the requirements of any roles, we suggest contacting the Talent team directly rather than the hiring lead.

We believe in transparency and open communication between core contributors, team leads, and People Ops. Before applying for a different role, core contributors should discuss their interests with their current team lead and/or People Partner to evaluate their fit and motivations.

Eligibility Criteria

We expect a core contributor to meet at least the minimum required skills/attributes, which will be clearly described in the role’s description before applying.

Whilst we don’t have strict rules, as a general guideline, we’d expect someone to have contributed to their current project for 12 months before moving to a different team.

Application and Screening Process

All applications are carefully reviewed based on skills, experience and alignment with the role requirements.

The screening process varies depending on the role. Some roles may involve a few interviews and possibly a task. The process may be more extensive for other roles, typically including interviews with program leads and Co-Founders.

The hiring team will likely consult with a core contributor's current team lead to gain insights into their skillset, motivations, and team fit.

What happens if a core contributor successfully moves to a new team/project?

Congratulations! If the decision is favourable, together with the team leads and People Partners, a transition plan will be formed to move the core contributor to the new role. It is important to respect the current team by providing an extensive handover and allowing time for a backfill to be embedded. Overall, the goal is to ensure that the transition into the new internal role is as smooth and successful as possible, setting the core contributor up for success.

Is there a trial period for moves?

Whilst there is no official trial period, we consider the first 12 weeks within the new role as the trial. During this period, the team leads are encouraged to provide ongoing feedback, check in’s and support as necessary.

🏓 Coworking Allowance

The coworking allowance offers core contributors some flexibility to find a workspace different from your home office if needed. It's non-transferrable for other expenses in case you don't make use of it.

You can expense up to USD 270 / EUR 250 (or local currency equivalent) per month for coworking costs (any coworking space rental/hotdesk/access pass).

You can also include the coffee you consume at the coworking space.

You can't use the allowance for:

• Your internet/broadband costs.
• Covering additional bills arising from you working from home.
• Meals or drinks outside working hours or for take-away drinks.
• Meals or drinks for people accompanying you that don't contribute to IFT.
• Gratuities.

😃 An example of a claimable expense: USD 200 for coworking space + USD 50 on drinks consumed at the coworking space;
or
USD 50 consumed on drinks at a space used for working outside your home office.

😡 An example of a non-claimable expense: USD 0-270 consumed on drinks at a space when you are not contributing to a IFT project.

Please keep the invoices/receipts and submit your costs through Spiff as per the expense reimbursement guidelines, specifying coworking as the category detailing the expense in the comments field of your expense line item.

If your coworking cost is above budget, please only expense up to that amount in your expense claim.

Please also consider that (for smaller/less frequent coworking expenses), our minimum threshold for submitting an expense report is USD 70 / EUR 50. As such, we'd ask you to group coffee receipts into one batch of at least USD 70 / EUR 50 before submitting them for processing.

ℹ️ If you're unsure whether or not this applies to you, ping People Ops.

🌏 Location independence

IFT is a fully remote, location-agnostic organisation – meaning that we don’t mandate the location where you should provide your services.

Being location independent means you could decide to move away from where you were first delivering your services, and that's okay. IFT can provide you with confirmation of a service engagement letter if you need it in the process of migrating abroad.

However, we will not cover the visa/work permit processing or relocation costs as we're location agnostic for work.

What happens if I'm thinking about relocating

Get in touch with your People Partner to start the discussion about your relocation plans. They will help with the preparation of all the necessary paperwork regarding your service agreement address amendment.

If you need supporting documents

If you need to indicate your working status/occupation details on a visa application, please contact your People Partner who can assist with the relevant information.

Please only refer to IFT as your employer if the DE/CH entity formally employs you. Otherwise, you should indicate that you are self-employed or providing services as a freelance contractor, as appropriate.

🎤 Events and meetups

As a IFT core contributor, you may have the opportunity to speak at or attend external online or in-person events.

The community is an essential part of the Web3 ecosystem. Ecosystem, domain-specific, and internal events and meetups are networking and growth opportunities. And we strongly encourage you to be part of them!

Here you'll find helpful information to make the most out of organising, speaking, or attending events.

What events does IFT sponsor

IFT will consider sponsoring and covering the costs for any online or in-person event with a clear purpose. That means it must align with IFT's strategy and goals. This includes, but is not limited to:

• Ecosystem events such as DevCon, ETH[city], ETHCC, Hackathons, blockchain weeks, etc.
• Domain-specific events for your role for career purposes.
• Events and meetups to promote IFT or our projects to potential new core contributors.
• Internal events and meetups to prepare a product/project launch or work together.
• Moderating or speaking opportunities related to IFT.

✨ Remember that when you're at an event, you're an ambassador for IFT’ projects and everyone who shares our values. Don't forget that and spread the word! You never know who's listening and might contribute to IFT thanks to you 🙂

💡Before attending an event, ask your Talent Partner to generate a QR code for our job pages that you can share with anyone interested.

Once you have your travel details ready

Submit your individual travel request via SpiffWorkflow.

Here's the instructions on how to create a travel request.

Related articles

👉 Check out Travelling for Status for commute and accommodation guidelines if you need to travel for the event.

🌍 Travelling for IFT

Connecting with people in person is such an essential part of the remote working experience at IFT. Magic happens when people get together.

Here you'll find helpful information to make your travel abroad experience more efficient while being compliant and accountable to project resources. These guidelines apply to anyone travelling for or sponsored by IFT away from their usual working location.

Some of these points might not apply to offsites as they're usually centrally organised with their particular budget.

Your travel budget comes from your project's budget. Raise a travel request SpiffWorkflow and check out Events and meetups before booking your trip.

Here's the instructions on how to create a travel request.

Before travelling abroad:

• Head to the official government pages to understand the risks in a country and the latest restrictions applicable to you, including re-entry requirements.
• Keep in mind that government guidelines may change frequently and that they can impact your travel plans severely.
• Be aware of and account for any extraordinary events which may impact your travel, such as natural disasters, political unrest, wars, riots, epidemics, pandemics and any other extraordinary events.
• Consider booking timeframes and select cancellation and insurance policies accordingly.

💸 Expenses while travelling

It's hard to cover every case within a guide. We trust you to use your best judgement when travelling for company purposes and proactively report back anything you consider relevant.

Don't go overboard with spending on bookings, food, and drinks. Keep accountability and transparency in mind. Always ask for receipts and keep them organised. IFT will reimburse for all reasonable expenses while travelling in accordance with this section.

What are reasonable expenses

• Reasonable expenses examples:

  • Flights, ground transportation, accommodation, and workspace, if needed, as described below, as long as these are approved by project leads.
  • As a general rule, a max trip average of USD $85/day/person for meals. However, this will depend on the destination. If you're dining together with other core contributors, you can submit one bill - just make sure to add their names in the comments section when you file the expense.
  • Laundry charges for trips longer than five days.
  • When required and justified for the trip, expedited service fees, travel visas, and inoculation fees necessary for the destination are reimbursable.
  • Reasonable mobile, roaming, or hotspot connection fees to allow you to work while travelling would be covered. However, we suggest purchasing a local SIM card or eSIM providers, such as Airalo.

• Non-reimbursable expenses examples:

  • Travel programs, airline upgrades, fast tracks, or premium services.
  • Airline/accommodation no-show, cancellation, or rebooking fees.
  • Convenience products, alcohol, cigarettes and fees for the use of the gym, spa, and other facilities.
  • Travelling companions' hotel, flights and meals.
  • Room service (except for meals within the daily limit) or in-room movies/entertainment.
  • Mobile, roaming, or hotspot connection fees for personal use.
  • In-flight entertainment
  • Any personal expenses and fines, custom charges, etc.

If there are any issues or you believe that you should get reimbursed for any of the expenses above, please speak to your People Partner, who can review your request on a case by case basis. Ultimately, it will be in IFT’ sole discretion to determine whether an expense is a “reasonable expense” and whether it will be reimbursed.

Whether using a card or requesting reimbursements, you're responsible for submitting your expenses correctly as a traveller. We currently process expenses together with payroll or invoices. When you're back from your trip, follow the instructions on How to file expenses or get reimbursed for uploading your receipts in a compliant and timely manner to keep our finances healthy.

🛩 Getting there

Usually, the earlier you plan your trip, the cheaper and better it's going to be. We suggest preparing 4 to 6 weeks ahead to have enough time to communicate your plans and stay within budget. We understand that sometimes last-minute bookings are unavoidable, however, please be mindful of flights and accommodation costs and always look to book the most reasonable option.

Commuting rates and guidelines

• Sometimes it's more convenient to travel by train or bus within Europe. So keep that in mind as an option when you're looking at routes.
• We travel in economy class with carry-on luggage included. You can add one checked luggage for trips longer than 5 days or when you're carrying additional baggage for IFT or the event.
• For flights that are 12+ hours, premium economy is permitted, but please ensure that the overall cost is still reasonable (if the price is more than 2x the economy price, please do consider alternate options).
• For moving around, choose the most affordable ground transportation option. In some places, traffic is unpredictable, and public transport is more reliable. In others, car rental, and ride-sharing, such as Uber or local equivalents, are better to move from/to the airport and share the ride with others travelling with you.

💡 Pro-tip: in-flight entertainment might be limited. You might want to bring a book or download media, music, or documents offline beforehand. For some people, commutes are a great way to disconnect or do some reading or focus work.

💻 Where to stay and work from

You can book your stay at a 3-4 star hotel or an Airbnb. We generally recommend hotels for solo or two person trips and Airbnbs for groups or project travel.

An Airbnb can be more practical for spending quality time together and setting up a coworking space in the dining or living room, than a hotel. It's also more convenient to coordinate meals and share rides to/from the event or airport when we're staying together.

If you are organising a project off-site, reach out to your People Partner who can help with logistics and bookings of an AirBnb.

💡 Pro-tip: it's useful to check the wifi speed of your accommodation before confirming a booking.

🚨 Emergencies

In case of an emergency, we'll use the emergency information provided in BambooHR.

📌 Useful resources

Some insurers specialising in global travel insurance:

• World Nomads
• True Traveller (EU-focused)
• IMG (US-based)
• Safety Wings

International prepaid SIM cards:

• TravelSIM
• Holafly
• Airalo

If you are a Budget Owner or a member of the Service Units team, you may find this Travel report useful.

⚡️ Health resources for your working space

We spend almost as many hours working as sleeping. Having great working habits is as essential as getting a good night's sleep, and more often than not, they go hand in hand.

Here you'll find some resources to manage stress and best practices to make your working routine lighter from complaints from your future self.

🏃‍♂️ Move

The number one rule is move! Everyone's body needs some stretching, standing up, and moving around every now and then. And it's easy to forget about moving when we're too focused on something.

Think about it as a system where when certain parts become more passive (your body), others overload to compensate (more mental effort to do things). Taking moving breaks helps sustain balance.

Some people organise their days so that training, lunchtime, or picking up kids from school happen between focus work blocks. If you don't have a smartwatch, here are some desktop tools that can remind you to have frequent, short breaks:

• Stretchly
• Workrave

Think about what this means to you and what tools and habits you'd like to incorporate into your routine.

🐒 Workspace ergonomics

The second most relevant rule is your working ergonomics. That is the set of improvements on posture and setup that help prevent muscle, joint, and bone injuries and improve performance and productivity.

It's actually a pretty simple theory, and it's a matter of bringing consciousness to this area. With practice, it will eventually become intuitive and effortless to do.

Experts recommend a posture where the neck, shoulder, and lower back are aligned with your monitor at eye level. Ideally, you'd switch from sitting to a standing desk, so you strike rules one and two all at once.

Most injuries are reversible, so if you experience pain or discomfort, seek advice.

🌀 Blue light

Constant exposure to blue light over time can mess with your sleep and may cause harm to your eyes. Your eyes are precious so treat them kindly with some time and attention to your blue light exposure.

Some ideas for minimising the strain on your eyes: Enable Night Shift or a similar blue light reduction app on your mobile device. Night Shift pro tip - move the colour temperature slider to warm because the default still allows some blue light. Install f.lux on your computer to gradually fade out blue light as your working day turns to night. Buying a good monitor. Two things you can check: a) that there is no extra blue light in the LED, and b) that there is no PWM (Pulse Width Modulation), which is used as a cheap way to reduce brightness.

Got any other tips and tricks for filtering blue light? Create a PR!

👑 Referrals

There are many ways you can help IFT grow: engaging with the community, interviewing, helping out with events, etc., but referring outstanding people to IFT is one of the most direct ways you can make an impact.

As an organisation, we're reliant on many groups to help us reach our goals: freelancers, community members, testers, researchers, users and more. We need these groups and individuals who make hugely valuable contributions, alongside core contributors who contribute to Status on a full-time basis.

Engaging with potential core contributors that align with IFT' values and excel in their field is essential to us; and we'd love your help! Below, you'll find helpful information to connect the extraordinary people you know, with IFT.

Referral bonus

If you've worked with someone amazing and think they would be a great fit at IFT, not only would we like to know, but we'll also reward you once they've successfully completed their trial period.

IFT will reward you a referral payment of USD 5,000 worth of SNT after a successful trial period. At times, we might offer higher rewards for specific critical roles, so stay tuned for updates in the #people-ops channel!

Eligibility criteria

• You can only refer potential core contributors who have not applied to us independently within the last 60 days.
• Referrals are for individuals; we are not responsible for any fees related to resumes received from recruitment agencies.
• The initial contact between IFT and your referral must be facilitated by you.
• The referral payment only applies to engaging core contributors. It does not apply to engaging freelancers.
• For someone you refer, you would be removed from any interview process involving them (this ensures we are fair and unbiased in our acquisition. process).
• Team Leads should recuse themselves from decision-making if they stand to gain financially. i.e. they can refer someone, and get the bonnus. But the decision to hire should be made by someone impartial, or a team committee.

Sorry for the many conditions! We want to be fair and apply some common-sense guidelines, but let us know if you have any better ideas! 🙂

How to make a referral

Here are the basics of referring incredible people to join IFT. There are a few ways:

• Send the CV, GitHub or LinkedIn URL along with a note detailing why you recommend them, how well you know this person etc to [email protected] (Talent will upload to Greenhouse adding you as referrer; alongside the notes you provide).
• If you are a Greenhouse user, you can also make use of it to make a referral - you’ll find the detailed steps here. Make sure to add their contact information, CV, and where and why you think they'd be great for IFT. The project leads your comments when reviewing referrals, so this can help them stand out among other potential core contributors.
  • Ask the Talent team to give you access to Greenhouse if the URL isn't working for you.
  • While you should share people whose work you can speak to and are impressed by (i.e., the top 25% of people you've worked with), don't feel pressured to refer everyone who asks. If you feel uncomfortable saying no (we get it; it can be awkward), you can mention it in the notes in the referral form.

What happens after you’ve referred someone?

The Talent team will take good care of them and keep you posted on their progress through the selection process. Still, you can be a critical layer of support to them by:

• Help them prepare for interviews or activities, just enough for them to be prepared. But not too much. Why? We’ve had instances in the past where referrals were prepared too well, meaning they did great during the interview process but then struggled once they were onboarded.
• Answering questions about working at IFT and your experiences as a core contributor.
• If they get an offer, help us convince them to accept it!

✨ Diverse perspectives, backgrounds, and experiences lead to better products. When you refer talent from underrepresented groups, particularly into technical positions, you're doing your part to build a diverse workforce across all functions and levels.

Referral and engagement of a Personal Relation

To ensure that we are being fair and transparent, we have some guidelines around referring and engaging what we call a “Personal Relation”:

We consider a “Personal Relation” to be a core contributor’s spouse or partner, family members or close friends, including any legal entity that any of these listed individuals have a direct or indirect interest in, or any other related party as Status may determine in its sole discretion.

As such, we have set out the following rules for core contributors and their Personal Relations when both are engaged by Status:

• The core contributor should not work directly for or lead a Personal Relation.
• The core contributor should not participate in or influence the decision-making process of a Personal Relation (including interviewing, engagement offers or fee negotiations).
• The core contributor should not participate in or influence the performance management process of a Personal Relation including trial periods and ongoing performance management or any performance-related issues.
• The contributor does not have access to sensitive personal information including payroll, compensation, personnel reviews/files, job performance of the Personal Relation.

To ensure maximum flexibility, fairness, and transparency, please disclose any (potentially) conflicting relationships or relationships that may give rise to favouritism, to your project lead and People Partner at the beginning of the engagement process and we can assess each case individually.

Interviewing Personal Relations

We want to ensure that our engagement process is fair and transparent. As such, best practice for these situations is:

• No interviewer may interview Personal Relations or referrals
• If you, as an interviewer, become aware of any potential conflict of interest, please alert the relevant member of the Talent team immediately.

We understand that Personal Relations and referrals may be highly qualified for open positions and we want to ensure that all applicants receive the same level of consideration and respect. We will make sure that any Personal Relation or referral is given the same opportunity as any other applicant by assigning the interview to another interviewer. This applies to all interviewers across IFT.

Success, your referral is onboard! What's next?

If the referral is successful and passes their trial period, you are eligible for a bonus of USD 5,000 worth of SNT. The recruiter in charge will contact you to give you the green light to submit the SNT bonus on an invoice.

• Submit a separate invoice for the referral bonus payment to finance ([email protected]).
• The deadline to submit your invoice is 3 months.
• Once submitted, the bonus will be paid with the next monthly payment.

Note: Please, make sure that you attach your correct wallet address to the invoice AND have it updated in BambooHR!

Important: In case you are not legally allowed to receive crypto in your country, please reach put to #people-ops team or the recruiter in charge.

It doesn't always work out...why hasn’t my referral been engaged?

While referrals generally have a much higher success rate than those engaged via the full recruitment process, there may be a chance that your referral doesn't end up being a core contributor engaged by IFT (the performance of the core contributor won’t be held against you, after all, it’s on the project to interview and come to a decision on whether they deem the referred individual a fit for the role/project). This might happen due to:

• Timing: their qualifications don't match the roles currently available.
• Suitability: they don't meet all of the minimum requirements listed for the role.
• Competition: there was someone else who was more qualified.
• Demand: the role was reduced or closed.

Thank you for your support in bringing great people into IFT!

🔆 Headspace: manage stress and unwind

Headspace is one of the leading apps that focuses on mindfulness, meditation and has a range of tailored workouts for the mind. There's research that the app can positively impact stress, focus, mood, and work.

If you contribute to IFT, you can enjoy a premium subscription (free of charge). To use one of the subscriptions, signup with your @status.im email here. If there are no available seats, please reach out to your People Partner and they will purchase a new seat for you.

Here you can find some helpful resources to help you on your journey.

While meditation and mindfulness might not be for everyone, we hope that some of you will find Headspace useful.

Fundamentals

In this section you will find some information on the fundamentals of IFT such as our legal and security frameworks.

If you have any questions, please reach out to People Ops who can help navigate your questions or concerns.

🎓 Recommended reading

We encourage using some time to learn about things related to your tasks and our collective mission. Make your fellow project core contributors aware of you being on/offline and that the project's progress doesn't get hindered. Feel free to discuss it openly and agree on timing with everyone involved.

We offer an annual learning budget of USD 170 for each core contributor. You can use this budget towards things like books, conferences, or online courses.

For the purpose of purchasing learning & development items (learning platforms, courses, online conferences), you need to raise the request via SpiffWorkflow to get okays from your Project Lead and/or PeopleOps partner.

If you need a reference, a core contributor could spend their first 1-3 weeks spending 50% of their billed hours to learn and ~2 hours p/w after that on an ongoing basis. This is just an example, and we encourage you to figure out a learning cadence that best helps you succeed in contributing to IFT.

We've made a selection of readings that can help give you more context of our vision and culture.

We've added PDFs whenever possible, but you can also order them and file a reimbursement for books or other applicable learning expenses. Read them at your own pace! We highly recommend you read the first group; the second one is nice to go through but less critical.

Essential reading

• The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations
• Decentralization by Vitalik Buterin
• The Cluetrain Manifesto
• The Cathedral and the Bazaar (PDF)
• Radical Markets: Uprooting Capitalism and Democracy for a Just Society
• The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom
• The Myth of Leadership: Creating Leaderless Organizations
• Organization after Social Media
• Swarmwise

Recommended reading

• Pirate's Dilemma: How Youth Culture Is Reinventing Capitalism
• Cyberchiefs: Autonomy and Authority in Online Tribes
• Capitalism 3.0: A Guide to Reclaiming the Commons
• Protocol: How Control Exists after Decentralization
• Pirate Organization: Lessons from the Fringes of Capitalism

🔐 Security guidelines

Security is a priority at IFT, and we'd like to thank you in advance for taking steps to secure your devices and online accounts.

Here you'll find helpful links to resources to protect yourself and the organisation from attackers.

In much the same way we've decentralised the organisation and applications, we've done the same for security.

It means the vast majority of the attack surface is you, the people that contribute. Furthermore, the controls and information a security specialist has in terms of making decisions and monitoring how things are run is constrained. It also means education takes a forward step in importance across the organisation, and personal responsibility of quality security practices become paramount. It is up to the people to understand potential threats, take preventative measures, and report any issues they come across to the security team to protect the organisation as a whole. – @petty

Ask for help

Above all else, never be afraid to ask for help, ask questions, or report security concerns. Until we have an official infrastructure for support tickets, drop by:

• #security for more broad, public questions, or
• Drop an email to [email protected].

All contributors with an onboarding process will have a security touchpoint with the security team during the first month of their onboarding.

Best practices checklists

Review & follow this checklist to make sure you are complying with our best practices.

Fancy giving your security a spring clean? Check out this crypto advent calendar with daily bite-sized security tips.

Phishing attacks are the most common: discord bots, telegram messages, and email, amongst other channels. Take this phishing test to see how savvy you are when it comes to detecting phishing.

Hardware

Check out this list of essential hardware. Core contributors can expense hardware security keys (yubikeys) and should be used for Github, Gsuite, and Bitwarden.

Here's Corey's Status Learn-Up session about hardware wallets and best practices.

Password manager

Our password manager is Bitwarden. All organisational passwords should be kept and shared here. So if you plan to store an IFT related password, or get access to platforms that require username/passwords/2fa, then it should all be shared using Bitwarden.

You can request an invite in #people-ops. By signing up with the organisation, you get the premium features and sign up with any email you like. That way, if you ever leave the IFT, you can take your password manager secrets with you, and you only lose access to IFT related items.

Security team

Learn more about Security @ IFT at:

• Status Security
• status-im/status-security
• status-im/security-internal

In case of a dispute

Background

• While we hope that you may never have to run into this issue, and for the most part it is relatively exceptional, IFT, like any other organisation, faces the risk of entering into disputes, whether they are arising from internal or external events, within or outside of IFT’ control and with different types of counterparties, from service provides to (former) core contributors (“Counterparty”).
• Therefore we have developed this guidance for core contributors on how you can help prevent and mitigate potential disputes, protect IFT’ interests and how to best collaborate with Legal to resolve any disputes in the most peaceful and amicable manner possible.

Guidance

When to involve Legal - the earlier, the better. However, please contact Legal immediately if:

• It is more than likely that IFT will fail to fulfil its obligation(s) towards a Counterparty or if IFT has already failed on its obligation(s) towards a Counterparty (doesn’t matter if the Counterparty is aware about this or not). For example,
  • IFT failed to pay, or failed to pay on time any amounts due (e.g. an invoice has been unpaid past the stated due date);
  • Breached a term of a contract in any way, for example, by inappropriate use of services (e.g. a service is being used contrary to a service’s acceptable use policy); or
  • Breached confidentiality (e.g. a core contributor inadvertently shares confidential information with another third party that is not compliant with the contract).
• If a Counterparty claims that IFT is not fulfilling its obligations (whether this is accurate or not) or threatens legal action against IFT in this respect; or
• if a legal counsel or a law firm has taken over communications with IFT;

If any of the above takes place - the following should be observed:

• Follow good practices: Preserve all communications with the Counterparty, such as discord chats, emails, any social media chats (e.g. Telegram), calls and meeting notes.

After you contact Legal:

• Do not let the Counterparty know you are involving Legal, (for example, do not include Legal in -cc to an email with a Counterparty) unless Legal has advised you to do so. In our experience, if a Counterparty becomes aware that Legal is being involved, it may escalate an already sensitive situation or unnecessarily provoke hostility.
• Communicate with the Counterparty only in consultation with Legal and other internal stakeholders as relevant, for example, your team lead.
• Any communication with the Counterparty must be screened and approved by Legal.
• Any strategy or potential proposals/compromises must also be discussed with Legal.

After the dispute has been resolved:

• Rectify/Monitor - Legal and core contributors should continue to monitor for any potential signs that the dispute may resume or re-escalate and ensure that events or factors which led to the dispute have been adequately addressed (e.g. has IFT’ failure to perform an obligation now being rectified?)
• Lessons learned - Legal, core contributors, relevant team lead, and any other relevant internal stakeholders should form a “lessons learned” group to review the events and factors, which led up to the dispute and determine whether any changes to procedure or practices should be made to prevent or mitigate the chance of such a dispute arising again. Notes and conclusions should be well documented for future reference

☢️ In case of emergency

Although we don't usually encounter emergencies (and that's why they're exceptional situations), when they happen, it's good if we all know how to react to them.

Here you'll find helpful information about what to do and expect from each other in case of emergency.

Keep your contact information up to date

We'll use your emergency contact info in Bamboo if we ever need an emergency contact for you. Please keep it up to date! Navigate to My info > Emergency Contact to maintain it.

It's also helpful to review your contact phone number and email address from time to time if we need to reach you directly.

IFT emergency contacts

In all emergencies and only after you are safe and out of harm’s way and/or in a secure location contact [email protected] or ping your People Partner directly via DM (or phone for urgent matters) for immediate attention. Your People Partner will use their reasonable efforts to coordinate with others (i.e., legal or security) on your behalf to the extent required.

Reporting a potential legal claim or dispute

As a responsible organisation, we take all potential legal claims or disputes against the IFT very seriously.

We would ask all core contributors to promptly report to the Legal team and your project lead about any (potential) legal claims or disputes against the IFT, once you have become aware about it. If you suspect or become aware of an incident that may be likely to develop into a legal claim or dispute, please also promptly bring this to the attention of the Legal team and your project lead. The earlier we identify and address any of these issues will allow the IFT to take the appropriate steps to minimise any potential negative impact on the IFT.

⚓️ Code of Conduct

The Code of Conduct serves to establish guidelines on how to conduct your behaviour.

We are all responsible for maintaining and developing this shared environment. We want to have a common productive, collaborative, and socially accountable space.

We hope that all our community members share our views and nurture this spirit and culture in their dealings within the organisation and the wider community.

This code acts as both a courtesy to the overall organisation and an effective way of making your interactions with other core contributors mutually beneficial.

Familiarising yourself with the guidelines here is an essential precondition to your participation in our community.

This Code of Conduct governs how we behave in public or in private whenever the project will be judged by our actions. We expect it to be honoured by everyone who represents the project officially or informally, claims affiliation with the project, or participates directly.

Respect other users

IFT is about showing respect and humanity for one another: the word itself captures the spirit of social esteem in a human community. We want to grow a productive and agile place that can welcome new ideas in a complex field. We wish to improve every process in every development cycle and foster collaboration between groups with very different needs, interests, and skills.

We gain strength from diversity and actively seek participation from those who enhance it. This Code of Conduct exists to ensure that diverse groups collaborate to mutual advantage and enjoyment.

Reciprocate

Nothing is more important than to show appreciation for every and anyone's contributions, no matter if big or small. We show reciprocation by saying "thank you," contributing ourselves, and paying it forward.

Be Considerate

Other people will use our work, and we, in turn, depend on the work of others. Any decision we take will affect users and core contributors, and we should consider them when making decisions.

When somebody leaves or disengages from the project, we ask that they do so in a way that minimises disruption to the project. They should tell people they are leaving and take the proper steps to ensure others can pick up where they left off.

Respect other core contributors

Core contributors have been chosen on a specific basis to have good judgement. Core contributors will always attempt to implement universally peaceful solutions but are tasked with establishing the most civil solution for the majority of the community.

Therefore, they cannot always please everyone with the decisions made. Please, help out to contribute to a healthy community.

Responsibility of actions

We can all make mistakes; when we do, we take responsibility for them. If someone has been harmed or offended, we listen carefully and respectfully and work together to resolve the problem. We expect those involved in the project to resolve disagreements constructively.

The participants in the project should be able to accept and give constructive criticism, be it positive or negative. That is how we learn to work better.

Civility

Uncivil behaviour will not be tolerated in our community. Sutton's "No Asshole Rule" has these concise pointers on the kind of behaviour that is considered uncivil:

Two tests are specified for recognition of the asshole.

1. After encountering the person, do people feel oppressed, humiliated, or otherwise worse about themselves?
2. Does the person target people who are less powerful than them?

Their unpleasant actions are catalogued as The Dirty Dozen:

• Insults
• Violation of personal space
• Unsolicited touching
• Threats
• Sarcasm
• Flames
• Humiliation
• Shaming
• Interruption
• Backbiting
• Glaring
• Snubbing

Feel Free to Ask

If there's something you don't know, do ask. Questions are encouraged.

Nobody is expected to be perfect in this community. Many newcomers just want to get acquainted with the project, so asking questions early avoids many problems later. The project is fast-paced and ever-evolving, so even people that have been around a long time might have questions. Those who are asked or answer a general question should be responsive and helpful. Directing people to the appropriate forums or channels is good, but answering the question is more important.

Be Collaborative

What we work together to produce is a complex whole made of many parts and is the sum of many dreams. Collaboration between projects that each have their own goal and vision is essential. To be efficient and effective, and for the whole to be more than the sum of its parts, each team must make an effort to understand the system as a whole.

Wherever possible, we work closely with other projects in the same space and others in the Ethereum community to coordinate our efforts. We prefer to work transparently and involve interested parties as early as possible. Collaboration at all levels improves the quality of our work, and we value it both internally and externally.

Discuss and Communicate

Our community values discussion, information, and decisiveness. We all lead by example, both in discussion and in action. We want to encourage new participants to feel empowered to take action, experiment when they feel like their innovation could improve the project, and lead.

Sometimes not all of the data is available to everyone or a consensus on how to act can't be reached, but a decision must still be made. Not every participant will always agree on everything, but once a decision is made, it should be respected, accepted, and work continued to achieve the common goal.

Give credit where credit is due

Some members may be more visible than others, but good ones use their visibility to highlight the great work of others. This may be accomplished in various ways, not limited to rewarding community members for their efforts.

Open Source Community

We invite any and everybody to participate in any aspect of the project. Our community is open, and any responsibility can be carried by any core contributor who demonstrates the required commitment, capacity, and competence.

Enforcement

Instances of abusive, harassing, or otherwise unacceptable behaviour may be reported by contacting the People Ops team at [email protected] or pinging your People Partner for a confidential chat.

All complaints will be reviewed and investigated and will result in a response that is deemed necessary and appropriate to the circumstances. The People Ops team is obligated to maintain confidentiality regarding the reporter of an incident.

Allegations of misconduct typically require some behind-the-scenes fact-checking to verify what happened. If you're involved in an incident of misconduct, you'll be asked for your observations and recollections of the event. People Ops will follow up with you to let you know the next steps.

Depending on the severity of the misconduct, this may be a formal warning, through to immediate termination of the relevant contract.

licence

IFT creates software to be a public good and makes use of free and open-source licences in this regard. This ensures that the individuals and communities around it are its custodians. We choose not to exclude others from using, understanding, modifying, and distributing our work. In doing so, we trust one another to act in the best interests of the broader human community that IFT is designed to serve. This open-source licence holds the developers to account in the knowledge that the software is a common trust and that it is a privilege and a responsibility to continue to develop it.

The Code of Conduct is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 license and has been adapted from the Ubuntu Code of Conduct v2.0, and the Contributor Covenant v1.4. You may re-use it for your project and modify it as you wish. Please allow others to use your modifications and give credit to Ubuntu, Contributor Covenant, and IFT.

🔑 Core Contributor Privacy Policy

This Privacy Notice is effective as of February 2022.

This Privacy Notice refers to our commitment to treat all Personal Data (as defined below) of the relevant individuals, including contractors, and Provider’s Workers providing services to the Beneficiary (“Data Subjects”), with the utmost care and confidentiality.

With this Privacy Notice, we ensure that we gather, store, protect and handle Personal Data fairly, transparently and with respect towards individual rights, even after the termination of the contractual relationship with the Beneficiary, where applicable.

We process Personal Data lawfully, fairly, securely and in a transparent manner. We only collect and process Personal Data that is adequate, relevant and limited to what is necessary for specified, explicit and legitimate purposes and we do not further process such Personal Data in a manner that is incompatible with those purposes. We keep Personal Data accurate and up to date and keep it in a form which permits identification of Data Subjects for no longer than is necessary.

This Privacy Notice is issued by the Beneficiary, to explain how we process Personal Data before, during and after any contractual relationship with us and in connection with affiliation with us. We process Personal Data, in accordance with the applicable data protection laws, including the EU General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679 (the “GDPR”) where applicable. The Beneficiary is the entity that is considered the controller with respect to Personal Data processed by us.

In this Privacy Notice where we refer to "we" or "us", we mean the Beneficiary.

What data do we collect?

The Beneficiary will process certain Personal Data related to Data Subjects. "Personal Data" means any information relating to an individual and processed by us, including any information through which an individual can be identified or identifiable, directly or indirectly, which may include:

• Contact and general information, such as name, surname, postal and/or email address, phone number, date of birth, gender, marital status, and photo (if such is provided to us).
• A resume and any other information required to apply for the role with the Beneficiary.
• Professional information, such as education credentials and professional experience and qualifications, professional networks, training employment history, board memberships and employment status.
• Other information, if applicable, such as government issued identification number, social security number, identification document, passport, or national insurance details where required by law, tax status, bank account details, wallet address, travel and expenses, performance management, emergency contact details, compensation, holidays and benefits related information.
• In case of contractors, details of the deliverables and/or services provided to compensate appropriately.
• Assessments of a performance during the trial period and on an ongoing basis (based on peer feedback and evidence of performance provided, as relevant) and where relevant, details of periods of leave taken, and notes of relevant discussions as applicable. We endeavour to maintain accurate information.

How do we collect Personal Data?

Sometimes individuals directly provide us with most of their Personal Data we process. We collect and process Personal Data when someone registers online or applies for a position through any online site where the Beneficiary posts a new role and when they enter into a contractual relationship with us. Sometimes we will obtain Personal Data from alternative sources, including but not limited to: other affiliates and service providers (such as recruitment agents and background checking services to the extent permitted by applicable law) and government bodies where required by law (such as tax authorities). If the requested information is not provided, we may be unable to conduct certain business operations or comply with the applicable legislation. We may also receive Personal Data indirectly from sources such as Greenhouse, or others.

Exceptionally, we might process sensitive information and only for limited and strictly defined purposes, such as equal opportunities monitoring and diversity monitoring and initiatives may involve us using race or ethnicity data such as information contained in the passport or other citizenship document.

How will we use Personal Data?

We will process Personal Data for the following purposes:

• For entering into and the performance of a contract with an individual and to manage our contractual relationship, including business communication, maintaining relevant records, payment of compensation, evaluations, and legally required procedures.
• For the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by us and in our role as the controller of Personal Data.
• To comply with applicable laws and regulations.

Where relevant, we will only process Personal Data with an express prior consent of the Data Subjects.

We store most of Personal Data in our internal systems. We keep some data in a secure Google Drive folder. Between affiliates of the Beneficiary we only grant access to Personal Data on a need-to-know basis, necessary for the purposes for which such access is granted. In some cases, the Beneficiary uses third parties located in various countries to collect, use, analyse, and otherwise process Personal Data on its behalf. We tightly control access to the data to only members of the organisation that have a valid reason to access the information (generally - Legal, People Ops and Finance).

We maintain records of processing of Personal Data in accordance with the applicable laws, including obligations established by the GDPR.

How do we share Personal Data?

We may share Personal Data with our group entities and third-parties in accordance with the applicable laws. When we share Personal Data with a data processor, we will put the appropriate legal framework in place in order to cover data transfer and processing.

Outsourcing

We may outsource all or part of Personal Data processing to outsourcee. When executing an outsourcing agreement, the eligibility of the counterparty as an outsourcee is sufficiently investigated. Safety management measures, confidentiality, conditions for the outsourcee to outsource to another party, and other matters regarding the appropriate processing of the data are prescribed in the outsourcing agreement, and our outsourcees are appropriately supervised by implementing periodic monitoring, etc. of the outsourcing conditions.

Corporate affiliates and corporate reorganisations

We may share Personal Data with all our corporate affiliates. In the event of a merger, corporate reorganisation, acquisition, joint venture, assignment, transfer, sale or disposition of all or any portion of our business (including in connection with any bankruptcy or similar proceedings), we may transfer any and all Personal Data to the relevant third party.

Legal compliance and security

It may be necessary, by law, legal process, litigation, and/or requests from public and relevant governmental authorities that we disclose Personal Data. We may also disclose Personal Data if we determine that, for purposes of national security, law enforcement, or other issues of public importance, disclosure is necessary or appropriate.

We may also disclose Personal Data if we determine in good faith that disclosure is reasonably necessary to protect our rights and pursue available remedies, enforce our internal regulations, investigate fraud, or protect our operations or users.

Transferring data

Disclosures or sharing of Personal Data as described above may involve transferring Personal Data out of the EEA. For each of these transfers we make sure that we provide an adequate level of protection to the data transferred.

Sharing

We may share the minimum necessary amounts of Personal Data with the following third-party partners as required and applicable for statutory filings, benefits, and reporting, these include:

1. Greenhouse
2. Juro Online Limited
3. Google LLC
4. Bamboo HR LLC
5. Spiff Workflow
6. Odoo

There might be other third-party providers we will use in the future. If necessary, we will request the relevant Data Subjects’ permission before releasing Personal Data to any other third-party.

How do we secure Personal Data?

The Beneficiary takes the protection of Personal Data seriously and we intend to protect Personal Data and to maintain its accuracy. We process Personal Data in a manner that ensures such data undergoes appropriate security (including protection against unauthorised or unlawful processing and against accidental loss, destruction damage, unauthorised access, use and disclosure etc.) using appropriate technical or organisational measures to achieve this. We also require that our suppliers and providers protect such information from unauthorised access, use and disclosure.

How long will we store Personal Data?

We will not retain Personal Data longer than necessary to fulfil the purposes for which it is processed, including the security of our processing, complying with legal and regulatory obligations (e.g. audit, accounting and statutory retention terms), handling disputes, and for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims in the countries where we do business.

Therefore, we will hold Personal Data for a maximum of six years if an individual is a contractor and for a maximum of 18 months, if an individual is a candidate, to comply with applicable laws.

What are applicable data protection rights?

We would like to make sure that we inform Data Subjects of all data protection rights, such as:

The right to access - The right to obtain from us confirmation as to whether or not Personal Data concerning the individual is being processed and request access to and copies of such Personal Data.

The right to rectification - The right to obtain from us without undue delay the rectification of inaccurate Personal Data concerning the individual. The right to request us to complete Personal Data that is incomplete.

The right to erasure - The right to request that we erase Personal Data without undue delay, under certain conditions.

The right to restrict processing - The right to request that we restrict the processing of Personal Data, under certain conditions.

The right to object to processing - The right to object to processing of Personal Data by us, under certain conditions.

The right to data portability - The right to receive Personal Data we process, in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and the right to transmit those data to another controller, under certain conditions.

The right not to be subject to profiling and automated decision making - The right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing, including profiling, which produces legal effects concerning individuals or similarly significantly affecting them.

The additional rights pursuant to local laws applicable to the processing of Personal Data.

For more information on how to exercise any of these rights, please contact us at email [email protected]. After receiving a request, we have one month to respond.

How to lodge a complaint?

In the event anyone considers our processing of their Personal Data not to be compliant with the applicable data protection laws, a complaint can be lodged directly with the Beneficiary by contacting us via [email protected] or with the competent data protection authority. The name and contact details of the Data Protection Authorities in the European Union can be found at:

http://ec.europa.eu/justice/data-protection/article-29/structure/data-protection-authorities/index_en.htm.

In case of breach of security leading to the accidental or unlawful destruction, loss, alteration, unauthorised disclosure of, or access to, Personal Data transmitted, stored or otherwise processed, we have the mechanisms and policies in place in order to identify it and assess the details of the breach promptly. Depending on the outcome of our assessment, we will make the necessary notifications to the supervisory authorities and communications to the affected Data Subjects.

Changes to Privacy Notice

We may occasionally make changes to this Privacy Notice, as well as any other specific privacy statement. When making changes to this Privacy Notice we will add a new date at the top of this Privacy Notice. Any changes to this Privacy Notice will become effective upon posting of the revised Privacy Notice in the relevant section of our website. If we make changes which we believe are significant, we will inform the relevant Data Subjects and seek the Data Subjects’ consent where applicable.

How to contact us?

In case of any questions related to this Privacy Notice, don't hesitate to contact us via email at [email protected]

Finance

In this section you will find some information on finance processes.

If you have any questions, please reach out to the Finance team or your People Partner.

💰 Getting paid

As a core contributor and those with services agreements with IFT, you'll need to send your PDF invoice to the Billing inbox ([email protected]). Here, you'll find helpful information about deadlines, formats and other requirements to ensure your invoices are processed correctly and you receive timely payment.

Invoices due date

Send your invoice in a PDF format to ([email protected]), latest on the 15th of every month. Your invoicing period is the current calendar month (i.e., invoice by October 15 for your services from 1 - 31 October).

What to include

You need to include your total approved expenses per category in your invoice (and these should be submitted separately via Spiff). Check out expense reimbursements for more details on this topic.

Your invoice should include:

• Your legal name (or legal entity) and address as per your agreement.
• A unique invoice number (this number should be sequential based on your invoice numbering, if you have any questions, please reach out to the Finance and Accounting team, or your accountant, if you have one).
• The date the invoice is issued.
• Payment due date.
• The date range of the invoicing period according to your agreement (i.e., "March 1 to March 31").
• Description of the service rendered or reference to your contract.
• Total approved expense reimbursements per category as per the expense reimbursements guide.
• According to your agreement, the full fee and the fiat currency (in CHF, USD, EUR, or other).
• Your contributor number as per your BambooHR profile.

You can create an invoice by downloading/copying this template. Please remember to download the finished invoice as a PDF before sending it and that the exported PDF is on a single page.

Address the invoice to IFT Studio Pte. Ltd, 160 Robinson Road, #24-09, Singapore 068914.

There are exceptional cases where another legal entity applies. Please use the company and address as detailed in your agreement.

Payment method

Bank and Wallet details

Please maintain your details on your BambooHR profile if you have one. For simplicity, we only allow the indication of one wallet and one bank account (if you have intermediary accounts, please use the appropriate fields of the Bank Information section). You can edit it directly if you want to change the % paid in ETH, DAI, or SNT. Once you save it, BambooHR will send an approval request to the Finance team —the reason is so that we get a notification that something has changed and can update our payment records timely.

Only after we confirm the approval, will your changes be reflected in your BambooHR profile. If you need to change your bank details or payment preference, any pending changes will need to be approved first, in order for you to be able to make a new change.

If you need a specific reference to complete this payment, please state it explicitly on your invoice.

⚠️ To make sure that your changes are considered for the current month, change your info before the 15th of each month. Remove accented or special characters. We can only correctly upload plain text to the system.

Please be sure that your services agreement reflects your registered address for banking purposes, as our bank sometimes asks us to validate that banking details match contract details.

Getting Paid in Crypto

If you are new to crypto payments and wallets, this guide provides a good introduction.

We recommend using a hardware wallet like the Ledger Nano S or a Trezor to secure your assets.

Don't be shy to ask your more experienced core contributors in the #finance channel on logos discord or Status app when you have questions about crypto payments and wallets. Not everyone starts with the same level of knowledge, and building it up is part of working with IFT.

Rate Calculation

For determining rates when paying in crypto, we establish the following two rates: using coinmarketcap.com as a price source, and the rate which is most attractive for the individual receiving crypto:

• The average closing rate across the last five days of the invoiced period, OR
• The current rate when payments are being issued.

You can change your crypto split % preference monthly. Just make sure you update your preferences before the 15th of each month.

Special situations

December pay

Due to operational considerations in December, we might bring forward the December payment run. Please be aware of date changes for the December payment run.

Hourly rate contributors

If you're paid on an hourly basis and need to estimate your hours in the remainder of the month and reconcile them in the next invoice (as you'll be invoicing by the 15th of each month), it's ok to do that, or you could carry forward actual hours to your next invoice.

If your fees have been agreed on an hourly rate basis, the monthly cap for hours billed is the fee equivalent to a monthly amount (or the calculated monthly equivalent) specified in your agreement with IFT.

Please discuss with People Ops if you intend to bill over this amount.

During your first month

For your first month (if your Fee is stated as a (maximum) annual or monthly amount), please only state the amount in your invoice to reflect the period of time you actually contributed.

Example: If after you started providing your services, you contributed 10 (ten) days in March, your monthly invoice amount will be {your monthly fee amount}/30 x 10.

Expense Reimbursements

From time to time, you might need to pay reimbursable expenses for the development of the project. To read more on how to get reimbursed for these expenses, please follow this link.

🧾 Third-party invoices format

As part of contributing to IFT, you might need to submit invoices or engage with service subscriptions or external vendors and contractors. This page has information about what we'll need to provide fully compliant invoices.

Here's a sample of how invoices should look, as well as all the appropriate data points needed. If any data is missing from the invoice, we won't be able to pay it and will ask you to arrange a revision with the vendor.

Invoice Header

Document Information

• The word INVOICE or CREDIT NOTE or DEBIT NOTE (mandatory);
• Invoice/note number (must be unique) (mandatory);
• Invoice/note date (dd/mm/yyyy) (mandatory);
• Due date (dd/mm/yyyy) (mandatory);

Supplier Information

• Supplier Name (mandatory);
• Supplier Address (mandatory);
• Supplier’s tax registration number (if applicable);
• Supplier’s telephone number, contact person and email address (optional);
• Payment information (optional).

IFT Information

• Invoicing address (mandatory).

IFT Singapore

IFT Studio Pte. Ltd. 160 Robinson Road, #24-09, 068914, Singapore UEN: 201625575Z

Invoice Content

Product/Service Description

• Currency (mandatory);
• Specification of goods and/or services delivered (mandatory);
• Total net amount (if no taxes are applicable) (mandatory).
  

If taxes are applicable

• Tax amount;
• If multiple taxes are applicable, the tax rate for every net amount should be specified;
• Total payable amount.

You can download a copy of this checklist here.

Without this information, we run into issues with properly booking the expense for accounting purposes, which creates extra work hours to resolve on the backend. So thanks in advance for helping us out on this 🙌🏻

If you have any questions on whether your invoice has the format and information needed, feel free to reach out to the Finance team, and we'll look into it together!

Expense reimbursements

How to get reimbursed for expenses?

You can request a reimbursement for reasonable expenses incurred on behalf of IFT during the project's development. You can read about some of these expenses at:

• Computers and devices
• Events and meetups
• Travelling for IFT
• Essential reading

It's essential that you carefully read the following instructions to get reimbursed and so we can file expenses correctly. This process applies to all IFT contributors and employees In order to get your expenses reimbursed correctly and in time:

• ensure that your purchase or travel request in SpiffWorkflow gets approved before you purchase goods or services
• after the purchase or travel, submit the expense receipts on Spiff
• add these expenses to your monthly invoice sent to [email protected]

In addition to these notes, you can find a guide here.

How to report expenses

This guide will tell you how to upload your receipts and invoices to Spiff so that you can claim the expenses on your invoices.

There are 3 different types of expenses:

1. Coworking and books - these expenses do not require approval from your lead before you incur the expenses.
2. Travel expenses - these will have been approved before you incur the expenditure.
3. All other expenses - these will also have been approved before you incur the expenditure. At present, the way that you will upload your receipts to Spiff is slightly different depending on which type of expense it is.

Coworking and books

1. To start, log on to Spiff. Choose Start New + at the top of the page and select Start under Upload expense evidence.

2. In this process you can only upload coworking and book receipts, so choose the type of expense you are claiming. In most instances you will be uploading receipts on your own behalf so the next box is automatically populated with your name. If you are uploading a receipt on behalf of someone else, please enter their name here.

3. On the next page, you will include details of the expense, plus you will be required to upload a copy of the receipt or invoice. Details of the fields and how to complete them: Legal (entity) name - this is prepopulated with either your personal name, or the name of your legal entity Period - in which month will you be claiming these expenses on your invoice? Short description - what are you claiming? Category - this is prepopulated depending on the type of expenses you chose on the previous page

4. Further down this page, you will enter details of each receipt that you are uploading. Details of the fields and how to complete them: Sub Category - this is prepopulated Vendor - who did you buy the goods/services from? Name - what did you buy? Quantity - how many items/days etc did you buy? Currency Type - fiat or crypto? Fiat currency - choose the correct currency Crypto currency - choose the correct currency (this will only appear if you chose crypto as the currency type Unit price - what is the price per quantity entered above Receipt date - what is the date of the receipt that you are uploading Supporting file - please upload a copy of the receipt or invoice to support your claim. If you would like to add more than one file, choose the add new option bordered in red below

**If you would like to submit any other claims for the expense type that you chose in step 2, choose the add new option bordered in blue, otherwise choose Next. **

5. The next page shows a summary of your claim. Please review it and edit it if there is anything that requires changing. You may save the claim if you wish to submit the claim at a later date. Once happy, please choose Submit.

6. The final page shows a summary of your claim. Please include the amounts shown on your invoice for the month chosen in step 3. Ensure that the type of expense is included, for the example below the entry on your invoice would read “Coworking 232.70 EUR”

Travel and all other expenses

For travel and all other expenses, you will have already requested approval before incurring this expenditure. If you have not already received approval, you will not be able to claim these expenses for reimbursement unless you request retrospective approval.

1. Log into Spiff, browse to In Progress and find the approved request that you wish to upload evidence for. Select Go to launch the next step. In my example below, you can see that it is a travel request. If you are claiming for other expenses, the process will be Request Goods/Services.

2. Choose Yes on the next page to launch the evidence upload process.

3. Browse back to the home page and the In Progress processes. It may take a moment for step 2 to complete, but once completed there should be a new process at the top of your list called Upload expense evidence - travel/goods/services. Choose Go to launch this process.

4. The next page will show a summary of your original request and the amount that was approved. Double check that this is the correct item that your receipts relate to, then Continue

5. On this page, you will enter details of your receipts and upload copies to support your claim. Several fields are pre populated based on your original claim as follows: Legal (entity) name - this is prepopulated with either your personal name, or the name of your legal entity Category - this is prepopulated Sub Category - select what kind of subcategory expense you are claiming for? Name - what did you buy? Quantity - how many items/days etc did you buy? Currency Type - fiat or crypto? Fiat Currency - choose the correct currency Crypto Currency - (this will only appear if you chose crypto as the currency type in your original request) Unit price - what is the price per quantity entered above These are shown in red below. Please review the above and make any amendments as necessary. This is particularly important for the unit price field as the actual amount spent may differ from the amount requested.

The following fields are not pre populated require your completion: Period - in which month will you be claiming these expenses on your invoice? Vendor - who did you purchase the goods/services from? Receipt date - what is the date of the receipt that you are uploading Supporting file - please upload a copy of the receipt or invoice to support your claim. If you would like to add more than one file, choose the add new option bordered in green below

If you would like to claim any other expenses (an example for travel would be meals, sim cards or taxis) choose the add new + option bordered in blue below

6. Once complete, submit your report. If you exceed the original amount of your claim, your claim may be sent to your lead for additional approval, but you will be notified of this if it applies to you.

7. The final page shows a summary of your claim. Please include the amounts shown on your invoice for the month chosen in step 5. In this example you would include the following on your invoice: Meals - 23.21 EUR Flights - 465.36 EUR Transportation - 9.31 EUR

If you will need to upload additional receipts against this claim in the future (for example, you may wish to claim for flights before the event, but for meals after the event, please choose yes as indicated below to keep the claim open. If you choose no, your request will be closed and you will be unable to upload any additional claims.

To finalise the process, click submit.

Adding expenses to your monthly invoice

Your invoice should only contain the total per category, not each expense item.

As guidance, we have added these categories in the invoice template here.

If you would like to set up these categories in your accounting software, please ask the Finance team for the complete list of expense categories.

Getting reimbursed

In order to reduce delays in payments, invoices received after the invoice deadline (15th of the month), will be paid in the payment run of the following month. This applies to all invoices (contributors and third-party suppliers). We will still issue the normal reminder before the cut-off date, but we will not chase invoices after that date.

Expense claims are submitted via Spiff as usual, but each report should span a calendar month.

Expense reimbursements are paid together with the monthly fee invoice. If you have questions or concerns regarding the expense reimbursement date, please get in touch with the Finance team, and we'll be happy to help you with that.

Example Scenarios:

Scenario 1:David submits an invoice on the 16th February. This invoice was received after the payment cut-off date for February, so it will be paid in the following payment run.

Scenario 2: David submits an invoice on the 15th February, and he includes an expense claim that shows as approved in Spiff. The Finance team will include it in the payment run as usual.

If you have other questions related to this process, please feel free to ping the Finance team in the #finance channel or through an email to [email protected].

💠 Offboarding

We’re sorry that you’re leaving the IFT and wish you the best of luck in your next endeavours ☘️ - thanks for everything you brought to IFT during the time we had together! 🙌

Your People Partner will help facilitate this process with various other stakeholders such as your project lead, Legal and Finance.

There's a lot to do before you leave so please follow the steps assigned to you in BambooHR and outlined below:

⏬ Logistics

• Final working day

Your People Partner will agree on a final date with you which you’ll be providing your services. Generally, this will align with the notice period mentioned in your (services) agreement. If you have any concerns about being able to wrap up your work in progress during the notice period available, please let your People Partner know, who’ll be happy to help you.

• Bamboohr offboarding checklist

  The offboarding process will be initiated in BambooHR. Please go through the checklist and complete all tasks assigned to you.

• Letter of Termination

  Your People Partner will share a confirmation of termination with you, confirming your last day of service with IFT.

• Offboarding Agreement

  This document will be sent to you via Juro once your last day and asset buyback / return is confirmed. Please kindly sign this document and keep a copy for your records.

• Returning or buying back devices

  Check out this guide to finalise purchasing or returning any IFT-owned devices.

• Last invoice & Expenses

  Please submit your final invoice & expense report within one day of your final working day. Send your final invoice to [email protected]. Your final invoice should include any equipment buybacks and expenses.

• Verify your payment details in BambooHR are accurate

  This will be how your final invoice and expenses are settled so make sure it's correct!

• Handover & transferring responsibilities

  Share any ongoing work/files/deliverables with your project. You should transfer ownership of any critical documents so that these don’t get deleted when your accounts are closed. Transfer your routine tasks and responsibilities within your project and draft a handover document to share with your project lead.

• Announcing your departure

  We’d like to be transparent with all core contributors when someone leaves the project. Please post a goodbye message, or let People Ops know if you’d prefer that they post a general departure message on your behalf (this won’t share any personal details, but will confirm that you are not going to be around, along with your expected last day). You may also want to ping fellow core contributors within other projects directly to let them know about your departure.

• Forthcoming IFT travel

  Should you have any future IFT-sponsored travel/conference arrangements in place, please cancel them and obtain a refund for your bookings if possible. Expenses will only be reimbursed for non-refundable travel bookings. Cancellation fees (where incurred) can be added to your final expense report for reimbursement (please attach proof of payment).

• Private keys

  If you have any hardware related to IFT wallets or bank accounts (e.g. Ledgers, Trezors, security keys), mnemonic phrases, or any other resource granting you access to (or control of) IFT's funds (fiat or crypto), please make arrangements with @finance to return them.

• Access to organisation-wide tools

  Access will be revoked by 5pm UTC on your final day. If you need longer to wrap up, please let your People Partner know. Tools including BambooHR, Google, Notion, Github, Bitwarden etc.

• Passwords

  Please clear your password vault of any passwords relating to tools/software licences belonging to IFT.

• Tools

  If you have access to any tools/software specific to your role, please liaise with your project to close out your access.

• Contact details

  Please check your BambooHR profile to verify that we have the correct email and postal address for you (in case we need to contact you in future about something related to your time with us).

• Letter of reference

  We’ll be happy to provide a specific (i.e addresses to a specific person or organisation) letter of reference confirming your contributions to IFT. Should you ever need a reference letter, please email [email protected] at any time, and we’ll get a letter to you within 5 - 10 working days.

"Offboarding" chats

We're not a traditional organisation, but we try to hold 'offboarding' chats with every departing core contributor. This chat is a chance for you to reflect on your time with us, and share your feedback on your experience. The feedback we collect from these interviews will be used to improve the way we work with contributors moving forward.

We’ll share your feedback with relevant project members we think may benefit from hearing your reflections. If you’d prefer the conversation to be 100% private, that’s totally ok - just let us know what you’re comfortable with being shared further.

Feel free to prepare notes in advance, or send us your feedback async if you’d prefer. We're happy to converse via voice/video/text.

Coming back?

We’re open to working with former core contributors again, and we’d consider each situation on an individual basis. As IFT develops capabilities for permissionless participation, our role as a gatekeeper to contribution will fall away, and anyone (former core contributor or not) will be free to contribute to IFT.

We hope to see you again in the community or ecosystem! It's been a blast and know that you will always be missed!

Questions?

Please ping your People Partner or ask in the #people-ops channel For any invoice/expenses questions, please ping the finance team in the #finance channel.

💻 Laptop and device logistics

First make sure that all devices (laptops and mobile phones) details are reflected in the Asset tab of BambooHR for record-keeping purposes, and that factory settings have been restored. To erase your laptop hard drive follow these instructions if you have Mac OS.

Once you have made a decision whether you are buying or returning your device, speak to your People Partner who can help facilitate the right paperwork for your offboarding.

Buying back your devices

The buyback value should be included on your last invoice to IFT, and can be deduced from your last service fee. We're using a 36-month useful life formula for laptops and mobiles to calculate the buy back value:

Purchase value - purchase value * contract duration / 36 months.

Returning your devices back to IFT

Your devices could still be used by someone else at IFT so please check with your People Partner on how best to return your device prior to your last day.

Playbook

In this section, you will find information and guides on platforms, processes and frameworks we have at Status.

If you have any questions, please reach out to People Ops who can help navigate your questions.

2023 self-evaluation guide

How to request goods or services for the organization

Status is a rapidly growing organization with multiple moving parts. As a result, core contributors may need to utilize new tools, technologies, or seek support from consultants and other service providers to support our expansion journey.

To ensure that these needs align with the organizational strategy, priorities, and established policies, it is crucial that each core contributor follows the standard process for requesting goods/services.

Please carefully read the following instructions to ensure a smooth and timely process:

1. When you need to request goods/services falling under the categories listed below, please raise a request for goods/services in SpiffWorkflow.

• Software & Licenses: (new tools, apps, subscriptions, etc.)
• Consulting fees: (consultants, freelancers)
• Other fees: (bounties)
• Events: (rent, insurance, sponsorship, entertainment, etc.)

For instructions on how to raise a request, please refer to this guide.

If you are unsure about the categories or how to proceed with your specific case, you can get in touch with the Finance team.

2. Your request will be reviewed by a Budget Owner (usually the Project Lead) and, where required, by the relevant Service Units. The approval process will be handled automatically. Please ensure that you provide all necessary details regarding your request, as these are crucial for the Project Leads and Service Units to review and make the necessary arrangements.

Note: The Approval strategy for each request may vary based on several variables:

• Category/sub-category: Different sets of approvers may be required based on the category/sub-category of the request. For example, PeopleOps partners need to review requests for learning & development but not for consulting fees or software & licenses.
• Amount: In some cases, a simplified approval strategy may be triggered if the amount is below a certain threshold.
• Project: The Budget Owner is determined based on the selected project in the request. If the Budget Owner is the one raising the request, the L2 Budget Owner will be required to provide approval.
• Requestor name: The approval process ensures that Requestors cannot approve their own requests.

3. You can monitor the progress of the approval process in SpiffWorkflow. For instructions on how to check your process instances, please refer to this guide.

4. To stay informed about the approval outcomes, please check your StatusApp Desktop notifications from the SpiffWorkflow contact. Reviewers may request additional information about your request, so please be prepared to address their questions.

How to submit additional information - pls refer to this guide.

5. Once your request is approved, you can proceed with the purchasing and payments. To access the approval history and other details regarding your request, please navigate to your request in SpiffWorkflow.

6. When Finance processes your payment requests or third-party invoices, they will check for approved requests in SpiffWorkflow. If there are no approved requests or if the amounts differ, they may request additional approval from the Budget Owner and Service Units.

If you are a Budget Owner or a member of the Service Units team, you may find the report useful.

SpiffWorkflow

What is SpiffWorkflow

SpiffWorkflow is a workflow engine which enables our organisation to define their processes in BPMN format (looks like a flowchart) and then allows the orchestration and execution of these processes within the platform. The workflow orchestration can be simple such as allowing multiple people to review and approve a request within the platform, or it could also be super complex orchestration integrated with multiple systems and driving a workflow between them. SpiffWorkflow has a simple interface for the end user to interact with and raise requests.

When to use SpiffWorkflow

Most of the time, you will be using the platform to raise requests which need to be reviewed and approved. E.g. requesting a laptop, hardware/software, permission to travel etc. The full list of processes that are active in the platform can be found here.

Getting setup with SpiffWorkflow

As a new joiner, you will have received an email in your status inbox from "Logos.co Keycloak" which will get you to set your password and OTP. You will have 5 days to action this otherwise the link in the email will expire. If this happens, please contact PeopleOps and they will send you a new email. Once you have logged in, let's make sure that you can receive notifications to your Status Desktop app.

1. Login to SpiffWorkflow
2. Go to “Start New+” and click “start” button on “Set up Status App (Desktop) notifications”
3. Follow the instructions and then accept the contact request from SpiffWorkflow. That's it.

You can read the full instructions with images here.

How to raise a request in SpiffWorkflow

1. On the home page of SpiffWorkflow, navigate to "Start New+". Here you will find all the processes which you have permission to start
2. Click "start" button on the process you wish to start. You will be redirected to a form which you can fill out and submit

If you are halfway through a process and are not sure what you need to fill in the field, you can come back to this process later. Just go down the bottom and "Save and Close". To come back to this process later, you can see this on your home page under "In Progress" -> "Started by me". To resume the process, click the "Go" button.

Useful links

1. SpiffWorkflow landing page
2. User guide

Superset

Basics Tutorial

Superset is an open-source data exploration and visualization platform powered by Apache Superset. It provides a user-friendly interface for data analysts and business users to interact with their data and create interactive visualizations, charts, and dashboards. With Superset, users can connect to various data sources, including databases, and more, to explore and analyze their data in a visually appealing and intuitive manner. Superset offers a wide range of visualization options, such as bar charts, line charts, maps, and heatmaps, allowing users to gain valuable insights and make data-driven decisions. It also supports the use of filters and drill-down capabilities to dive deeper into the data. Overall, Superset empowers users to effectively explore and communicate their data through interactive and dynamic visualizations.

Step 1: Accessing Superset

• Open your web browser and enter the URL Superset is hosted. https://superset.bi.status.im/superset/welcome/
• Enter your Github username and password to log in to Superset. If this is your first time using Superset it will create a brand new user for you
• If this is your first time, you'll need access to dashboards you need. You can contact laloanaya through discord or at [email protected] to get access to these resources.

Step 2: Exploring the Superset Home Page

• After logging in, you'll be directed to the Superset home page.
• The home page contains a menu bar at the top and various sections with options to explore dashboards.

Step 3: Navigating the Menu Bar

• The menu bar at the top provides different options for managing and exploring data.
• Click on the "Dashboards" option in the menu bar to access the available dashboards.

Step 4: Viewing a Dashboard

• On the Dashboards page, you'll see a list of available dashboards.
• Click on the name of the dashboard you want to visualize.

Step 5: Interacting with Filters (if available)

• If the dashboard has filters, you can interact with them to refine the displayed data.
• Look for filter options on the dashboard interface, such as drop-downs, sliders, or text inputs.
• Select the desired options or adjust the filters as necessary.

Step 6: Exploring the Dashboard

• Once the filters are set (if applicable), explore the dashboard to view the visualizations.
• The dashboard will display various charts, graphs, and data visualizations relevant to the chosen topic.

Step 7: Analyzing the Dashboard

• Take time to analyze and interpret the visualizations on the dashboard.
• Pay attention to trends, patterns, and any insights the data may reveal.
• Use the interactive elements (if available) to drill down into specific data points or explore different dimensions.

Step 8: Navigating Between Dashboards (if applicable)

• If there are multiple dashboards available, you can navigate between them using the menu or designated links.
• Go back to the Dashboards page or use the provided navigation options to switch between different dashboards.

Requesting Changes or New Dashboard

• If you need to request changes to an existing dashboard or create a new one, please reach out to Lalo Anaya.
• You can contact Lalo Anaya through Discord by sending a message to his username (laloanaya) or email him at [email protected].
• Clearly communicate your requirements, including the specific changes or details for the new dashboard you would like to create.
• Lalo will assist you in making the necessary updates or work with you to design and develop a new dashboard based on your needs.

That's it! You've now learned how to access Superset, navigate the home page, view dashboards, interact with filters (if available), explore the visualizations, and analyze the data presented on the dashboards. Enjoy exploring the insights provided by the visualizations! If you have questions or suggestions you can contact laloanaya through discord or at [email protected]

Candidate Tasks in Recruitment

1. What is a task:

It is a practical assessment to evaluate candidate skills.

2. Why do we use tasks in the hiring process?

We use them to:

• Get a better assessment beyond CVs, portfolios, github repos and interviews.
• Gain a deeper understanding of someone's abilities (technical & non-technical) for the role at hand.
• Give candidates a chance to showcase their working style & communication, it’s common to set up a Discord chat so the candidate & task reviewers can chat, ask/answer questions and also provide updates.

3. How to design a task

Step 1: Understand the role's requirements.

Step 2: Design a task that aligns with the expected output of the role.

Step 3: Clearly communicate task instructions, expectations, and deadline.

What does a good task look like:

• Has clear instructions & expectations
• Has a deadline that’s realistic (usually 1 week is enough)
• Has a recommended timeframe in which to complete the task i.e 2-4hrs (this keeps all candidates 'fair' in terms of time dedicated to the task)
• Is aligned with the day-to-day responsibilities of the role
• It is tackling a real problem the team face, some teams use a bounties approach

Examples:

• UX/UI Designer: Create a mobile app prototype/feature based on the target audience.
• Sales: Create a presentation on selling a complex product to a potential client.
• Engineer: Assess problem-solving skills by tasking them with debugging code.
• Customer Support: A simulated chat interaction to assess their communication skills.
• Financial Analyst: Analyze an investment portfolio to gauge forecasting abilities.
• Content Writer: Create a blog post on a specified topic.

4. Time restrictions & compensation:

We want to see a glimpse of what they can do within the allocated time, this shouldn’t be seen as their full potential since they are not integrated into the working styles of the team or the full context of the team.

A simple and effective approach is:

• A flat rate for completion of the task; ie. $200
• A set time allowing completing the task; ie. 2-4hrs (some teams have longer, rule of thumb is allow enough time for the task to be completed) … The longer the task, the more time you/your team have to spend reviewing it

5. Materials for Candidates:

Ensure candidates have all the reference materials needed to perform and succeed on the task.

Examples:

• A digital marketer may need access to Google Analytics data.
• A data scientist may need to be provided a dataset and access to statistical software.
• A content creator may need a brand style guide and existing content for reference.
• A Mobile UI Engineer will need access to Figma

6. Evaluating Tasks:

Setting clear evaluation standards is important so everyone is assessed fairly and we don’t let personal biases get in the way of hiring people who perform well during tasks. We should determine the criteria for task evaluation prior to seeing the first task submitted by a candidate.

Examples:

• Evaluate a coding task based on criteria like code quality, efficiency, and adherence to project requirements.
• Assess customer service interactions based on responsiveness, problem-solving, and professionalism.
• Evaluate a design task considering creativity, usability, and alignment with brand guidelines.

7. Effective Communication:

Maintain transparent and professional candidate communication.

• Clearly inform candidates of the evaluation timeline and when they can expect feedback.
• Use the Discord chat to interact with the candidate throughout their task

8. Feedback and Improvement:

Use candidate feedback to refine task instructions and evaluation criteria.

9. Sample Tasks:

• Engineering: Vac Pair Programming Task
• Communications: Activist Event Manager
• Recruitment: Sourcing Task
• Pops: People Ops Partner

FAQs

Q: How long should candidates typically spend on the task? A: We recommend 2-4 hours to avoid impacting the candidate's current job and any family commitments.

Q: How long should the task take to complete? A: 1-week max (unless the candidate has let us know they have something that won’t allow them to complete the task, ie. health conditions, family, personal, ect.)

Q: What happens if a candidate encounters issues during the task? A: You can communicate with them via the discord chat created by the recruiter.

Q: Is there room for negotiation on compensation for exceptionally well-performed tasks? A: No.

Q: What if I can’t think of any tasks? A: Then check out the tasks templates above as inspiration or/and think of a daily task someone in your team does that you would expect this candidate to be competent with, for example, in recruitment we would expect someone to show their competency & creativity sourcing candidates, so that is what the task is based around.

Q: My team doesn't have time to review every task, what do we do?

A: The number of tasks to review should be minimal as you don’t need to send a task to every candidate, only the good ones that stand out as potential hires.

If that is still too much, revert to a technical discussion, so long as you’re confident you can accurately assess a candidate's suitability this way.

🚀 Contributing to this guide

The Contributors Guide is an open living repo built for you. The truth is, the organisation evolves faster than it can keep the documentation updated. Read it carefully, and feel free to add sections, suggest changes, or make proposals for others to edit.

Here you'll find helpful guidelines on how to contribute to this guide and make it yours!

Note: You can start contributing only once access to the organisation is provided to you by people-ops. Prior to that, the github link will not be working.

👾 Contributing with pull requests

Whether you'd like to fix typos, update information, add sections, or build new content, you can create a pull request to contribute to the guide.

Our current workflow has two main branches: master that deploys to [contributors.free.technology](https://contributors.free.technology) and develop that deploys to [dev-contributors.free.technology](https://dev-contributors.free.technology).

Before creating a pull request, create a new branch from develop and commit your changes to one or multiple PRs. Once finished, assign someone from the People Ops team to review or comment on it. Once merged, we'll delete the branch, and you'll see your contributions on this handbook!

📌 Leaving feedback with issues

Issues open a world of possibilities: from proposing changes to simply dropping an idea or leaving comments or tasks.

There are a few ways to create an issue:

• Go to the issues tab in the Contributor guide repo and create one.
• From the source code of a file, click the + sign at the beginning of a line.
• From a comment from a pull request, click reference in new issue.

Just like a PR, assign the issue to someone from the People Ops team, and we'll tag/re-assign it accordingly to address it.

The People Ops team is responsible for the maintenance of this guide, but it's really a collective effort. So please help us make it better for you and future readers!

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2023 Lead evaluation guide