Top all-time · #769
Buffer: All-you-need social media toolkit for small businesses
Company blog · open.buffer.combusinesscareer
Buffer: All-you-need social media toolkit for small businesses is the company blog at open.buffer.com, writing about business and career. Since 2015, 82 different Hacker News readers have linked it 93 times, most often “Salaries and salary calculations for every Buffer employee”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-29, and you can follow it by feed.
Rarely recommended · 3 of 40 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN readers mostly cite Buffer's open blog as a source for its public salaries, salary formula, transparency dashboard, remote-work practices and company finances, and for comparisons with other startups.
- Recommended for · 3 comments
- Called 'worthwhile reading' (the transparency dashboard and the open salaries post); a 'very open blog' worth comparing with other startups; a place to 'read mo
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 40 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Join us as we share what we’re learning as we build a company that approaches work from a fresh perspective. We write about workplace culture, our finances, and our business decisions and strategies.
Most-linked posts?
- Salaries and salary calculations for every Buffer employee13 people · 14 mentions · first linked 2015-11-24
- /introducing-open-salaries-at-buffer-including-our-transparent-formula-and-all-individual-salaries/6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2016-06-16
- Buffer Layoffs4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2016-06-16
- We're ditching the office completely3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2015-10-14
- Buffer's Equity Formula and Full Individual Breakdown (2014)3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2017-03-19
- Buffer’s Salary Formula 3.03 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2018-01-04
- State of Remote Work 20183 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2018-03-27
- /2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2017-12-27
- New Remote-First Formula and Updated Salary Calculator2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2017-12-06
- Leading Ideas: Buffer’s New Engineering Career Paths Framework2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2018-10-11
What Hacker News says?
Except for I think California, it means no payout whatsoever. Fun! I've had unlimited policies before and I'm much happier having a specific number of days now that I use every year. Banks often require that employees take vacation, typically around 2 weeks a year. An employee-focused software company should implement a similar policy of "required minimum vacation" [1]. The connections I have in Germany working in r…
Comment linking /minimum-vacation/
on “Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever”Submitted Buffer Layoffs as a story · 593 points
HN discussionBuffer is mostly if not all remote and they adjust salaries based on employee location. Their salaries are open for everyone to see as well. https://open.buffer.com/transparent-salaries/ It looks like GitLab does the same thing
Comment linking /transparent-salaries/
on “GitLab Made $10.5M in Revenue with Every Employee Working from Home”Submitted We Spent $3.3M Buying Out Investors: Why and How We Did It as a story · 443 points
HN discussionI've only ever heard of one company with a public cap table. After a bit of googling, I found them again: https://open.buffer.com/buffer-open-equity-formula/ . EDIT: lol the same link is in TFA. The problem with a public cap table is that it amounts to a public salary database. Usually companies (and employees) don't want everyone to publicly know everyone else's salary. When people do jobs you don't understand (lik…
Comment linking /buffer-open-equity-formula/
on “Questions to Ask Before Joining a Startup”Submitted We're ditching the office completely as a story · 337 points
HN discussionhttps://open.buffer.com/hiring-at-buffer-in-february-2024-ap... i wouldn't be worried about an employee exodus as they get loads of applications as is. and everyone is replaceable IMO. the company fascinates me with their high salaries for customer service and relative low salaries for engineering. from that post, they've way more applications for customer service than engineering. why not save money by paying way l…
Comment linking /hiring-at-buffer-in-february-2024-applicants-3-offers-made/
on “Buffer Layoffs”Submitted Change at Buffer: The Next Phase, and Why Our Co-Founder and CTO Are Moving On as a story · 237 points
HN discussionUnlikely; that's probably the amount they would have spent until they'd have run out of money (in 5 months). They don't have any $40k salaries AFAICT (it's all public). Lowest salary was "junior happiness hero in Manila/Delhi/Hanoi" at $45k: https://open.buffer.com/introducing-open-salaries-at-buffer-...
Comment linking /introducing-open-salaries-at-buffer-including-our-transparent-formula-and-all-individual-salaries/
on “Buffer Layoffs”Submitted New Remote-First Formula and Updated Salary Calculator as a story · 123 points
HN discussionInterestingly, their last retreat ( https://open.buffer.com/inside-buffer-retreat/ ) totaled $111k. The tripling of staff since last year makes the economics more difficult.
Comment linking /inside-buffer-retreat/
on “Buffer Layoffs”Submitted How Our Marketing Team Spends Money Each Month as a story · 76 points
HN discussionIt's part of their ethos, be totally transparent on how much everyone gets paid. You can't negotiate or ask for a different salary, there's a calculation. They've got blog posts about it. https://open.buffer.com/introducing-open-salaries-at-buffer-...
Comment linking /introducing-open-salaries-at-buffer-including-our-transparent-formula-and-all-individual-salaries/
on “Buffer Layoffs”Submitted Buffer Acquired Social Media Customer Service Tool Respondly as a story · 49 points
HN discussionFWIW, here's their public spreadsheet of salaries and calculations. Not sure if it's been recently updated (on closer look, seems to reflect the founders' stated pay cuts, and new hires as recent as last month): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1l3bXAv8JE5RB9siMq36-... edit: Adding links to their blog posts: https://open.buffer.com/transparent-salaries/ https://open.buffer.com/introducing-open-salaries-at-buff…
Comment linking /introducing-open-salaries-at-buffer-including-our-transparent-formula-and-all-individual-salaries/
on “Buffer Layoffs”Submitted Buffer’s Salary Formula 3.0 as a story · 43 points
HN discussionNot the parent but this article discusses benefits: https://open.buffer.com/reading-fiction/ They discuss benefits in: 1. Increasing empathy 2. Decreasing stress 3. Sleep 4. Relationships 5. Memory 6. Inclusivity 7. Vocabulary 8. Creativity 9. Pleasure
Comment linking /reading-fiction/
on “Summer Reading List”Submitted Buffer's Equity Formula and Full Individual Breakdown (2014) as a story · 30 points
HN discussionBuffer | Full Stack and devOps engineers | Remote (anywhere) | Full Time Buffer is an equal opportunity employer with teammates all around the world. Our team is made up of individuals who hail from startups to the theatre - we value diverse and non-traditional backgrounds, and encourage all those who are interested in joining the journey to apply. We try to be “No Ego Doers” who are aware of our assumptions, and jo…
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: Who is hiring? (February 2021)”Submitted After Growing to 50 People, We’re Ditching the Office Completely as a story · 15 points
HN discussionBuffer is most transparent and open startup I know, they've posted their salaries here: - https://open.buffer.com/transparent-salaries/ With a calculator here: - https://buffer.com/salary/ And are open about their sales, subscribers, revenue, churn, etc - https://buffer.baremetrics.com/
Comment linking /transparent-salaries/
on “We Spent $3.3M Buying Out Investors: Why and How We Did It”Submitted Buffer explains equity as a story · 10 points
HN discussionBuffer | Full Stack and devOps engineers | Remote (anywhere) | Full Time We are currently hiring for: * Full Stack Engineers (TypeScript, JavaScript, React, Node, PHP) * Frontend Engineer (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Next, React) * Infrastructure/Devops Engineer ( Docker / Kubernetes / Python / Node / Mongo / AWS ) Our perks: * we put people first, and we mean it (check https://open.buffer.com) * 4 days work week * unlim…
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: Who is hiring? (April 2021)”Submitted Why I Trained Myself Not to Be a ‘Woman in Tech’ as a story · 6 points
HN discussionIt definitely makes sense to not hire for a certain period to see how this salary bump impacts the company as a whole. Anecdotal mention: https://open.buffer.com/layoffs-and-moving-forward/ Fast Hiring at that salary level is probably why SV startups burn through money so quickly. I doubt they will see major performance boosts with the salary increase. If they don't, it indicates the team is already working optimall…
Comment linking /layoffs-and-moving-forward/
on “Basecamp doesn’t employ anyone in SF, but now we pay everyone as though all did”Submitted Buffer raises $3.5m, $2m for founders (2014) as a story · 5 points
HN discussionUnless I'm reading the blog post wrong[1], you've got it totally wrong about Buffer, Joel made Buffer 1.0 and was the technically minded co-founder at Buffer, not Leo. Sunil might have been an early hire, but we're talking a year after company founding. Joel + Leo took a while to grow it. I remember watching a talk by Joel before he'd even brought Leo on board in Nottingham, UK (Joel was starting up in Birmingham, U…
Comment linking /change-at-buffer/
on “Co-founder Conflict”Submitted Salaries and salary calculations for every Buffer employee as a story · 5 points
HN discussionThat sqwiggle tool they use (described here https://open.buffer.com/remote-working-means-tools-use/ ) sounds pretty creepy. A software taking a pic of my face every few seconds and broadcasting it is almost as annoying as having someone in your back all the time, I think.
Comment linking /remote-working-means-tools-use/
on “We're ditching the office completely”Submitted Buffer is Moving to a 4-day Workweek for the Rest of 2020 as a story · 4 points
HN discussion
