I've always enjoyed smaller environments, where people are more free to work in the way they want to, when they want to, as long as they are productive. I applaud the efforts of small companies to design offices or spaces where employees feel comfortable working and enjoy spending time. Some large companies do this as well and maybe this is necessary to offset the grind of long hours, but I believe the owners and founders of smaller companies often cultivate a friendly, close atmosphere and they hope their people to want to come to work. After all there are plenty of places one can work that will exact and demand long hours, often without any recognition of the hardships or without any additional benefits for your efforts..

I ran across this piece on the culture and hiring at Valve, a gaming company that makes Steam and Half Life. They have a very free flowing culture, depending on the individuals to make good decisions for the company and their own teams. I'm not sure how scalable this is, or even how easily this can be replicated to other companies. As I've watched Red Gate grow over the years, it's been an amazing place to work, but it's not without some pain points. We've done well, though I don't know that the ideas from Valve would work there.

Read the rest of "Two Plugs Away" at SQLServerCentral.