Hey Jason,

I'm going to cut to the chase: I want to work at Basecamp more than anywhere else.

Your words are a guide I've relied on for navigating my own work. 10 years ago, I read Rework while working as a Front End Developer and Designer at a small Web Development firm. My eyes opened as each page resonated deep within my soul.

Years later, those pages echoed in my mind while working as Creative Director at a vinyl record subscription startup. They were mulling over an offer for outside funding. By all measures, they were successful and profitable. They were achieving their goals and paying their people well. They had enough in their war-chest to continue improving at their current pace for years to come. I was the only outlier against accepting the funding. Within weeks of accepting the offer, things took a dramatic change. Their current profits were no longer 'good enough' for their new investors. Ad-buys skyrocketed, hiring hit hyper-speed, and confusion and waste propagated like wild fire. Leeches and vultures filled the halls in the form of consultants, selling things like "Corporate Operating Systems." Within months, the company laid off of half their staff. Their reputation with their core customers plummeted.

As Director of UX for the largest technology startup in the cannabis industry, I turned to Remote for strategies on managing remote members of a fast-moving design team. It Doesn't Have to be Crazy at Work was the perfect salve for an intense stint as a contracted UI Designer for the world's #3 SVOD app. As Product Design Manager at Spectrum Enterprise, I use Shape Up to change conversations around how work gets done.

It's not only my professional career that's benefitted from your words. I front a death metal band that you've also helped. Using lessons from your books I've been able to achieve things I never thought possible. Things like landing songs in movies, playing with my favorite bands, or getting implicated as part of a global conspiracy. And I've been able to keep all royalty and song credits along the way due to words you wrote. When you were writing Rework, I bet you never thought your ideas would get traction with a heavy metal band.

Your products have aided my career. Basecamp has helped me organize work countless times. After a long love/hate affair with Google, Hey has been my daily driver email client since its release.

I want this job because Basecamp is the standard against all other jobs are measured. What I consider to be common-sense appears to be common-practice at Basecamp. I've spent a lot of time admiring from the outside, and the prospect of working within scares the hell out of me. But it's a good fear. The kind of fear that motivates me to rise to the occasion rather than run screaming into the night.

Hey Jonas,

I'm the right person for this job with Basecamp.

I'm a Designer (with a capital D). Design isn't a job to me. It's a framework for solving problems of any kind. Honing my practice as a Designer has improved my life. When Charles Eames was asked "What are the boundaries of design?" he answered: "What are the boundaries of problems?" The first time I heard that, I literally hooped and hollered.

The greatest weapon in my Design arsenal is an insatiable craving to learn. The thing that excites me most in life is learning something new. I believe this is why I've been able to switch industries and mediums often in my career and find success.

I believe to be the best designer, you should become intimate with the means of production. When I worked as a printer, I got my hands dirty with ink learning how a letterpress works. When I designed mobile apps, I partnered with iOS and Android developers to download their SDKs to understand how things worked. When I worked on TV apps, I hacked together a way to navigate my laptop with a TV remote to better experience my prototypes. When I have work to do in the yard, I get dig in the mud and get dirty.

I believe in selecting the right tool for the job, not pledging blind allegiance. As a result, I'm tool agnostic and constantly looking for new and novel ways to solve problems.

My process is simple:

• Research to understand the problem from as many angles as possible. Identify and embrace constraints.
• Brainstorm options to solve the problem, working through the 'shitty first draft.' Assess each option in a ruthless process of elimination.
• Prototype the survivors in a way that feels as real as possible. Subject myself and others to these solution.
• Learn from self provided and solicited feedback, make adjustments, and move forward.

I have a track record of joining Design teams, and then running them. I don't attribute this to being a slick negotiator or having a craven desire for power. I am often asked to run Design teams because of the way I manage myself. When I identify problems on a team, I work to solve them without asking for permission. I have high standards for myself, and hold myself accountable to them. It is my belief that every promotion I've received is because I lead by doing, and encourage others to do the same.

Currently, I run the Product Design team at Spectrum Enterprise. I started as a contract UI designer in March 2020, and was asked to run the team in July. I'm well compensated, work with smart and talented people, and work my ass off to improve the work we do solving complex problems. So why leave? Because working for Basecamp is a career-long dream and I cannot pass up this rare opportunity.

Hey Conor,

I've been thinking about The Feed in Hey for iOS.

The avatar interaction is great for handling items in batches, but I often find myself wanting to address items in my feed one-by-one in a linear fashion.

When browsing my feed, I want a way to quickly handle individual items. I took a stab at solving my problem, and am interested in your thoughts.

This solution is full of personal bias, and I want to make that known up front. I personally find swipe interactions intuitive, and found myself trying to swipe items in The Feed.

I originally thought about defining my preferred swipe interactions in the settings, so that I could map my most used methods to a left or right swipe. But I saw two problems with that:

1. Is putting the burden of choice on the user the right solution?
2. Mapping an interaction to swiping left-to-right on the feed clashes with swiping left-to-right to return to the Imbox.

Then it hit me - items in the Feed have a set min-height. We can surface the same interactions available in the avatar interaction when swiping right-to-left on an item in the feed.