Recapping the Stacker offsite in Washington, D.C.

While the last two years at Stacker have been defined by virtual happy hours, the #pets Slack channel, and the 1-week period where one of our reporters was stuck as a virtual potato on Zoom, we know there's something special about getting together in-person that can help rejuvenate and unite the whole team.

Stacker is a remote-first company, focused on building work systems that allow us to hire a diverse group from all over the country. With our team spread out over 19 states and growing, we want people to work from the place that fits their lifestyle—whether that be our NYC hub, the slopes of Jackson Hole, sunny California, or other cities and towns across America. Since our inception 5 years ago though, we have seen the impact that face-to-face interactions can have on creating lasting team culture, which means twice a year we make a point to bring people together to tackle the big stuff while building stronger working and personal personal relationships.

To kick things off for 2022, we gathered over 40 Stacker journalists, product managers, and business leads to Washington, D.C. to hold our newsroom and business off-sites.

Across both off-sites, we balanced working sessions on the biggest challenges and opportunities for our company today with team-bonding in the form of rooftop dinners, minigolf, and various levels of karaoke ability.

During the newsroom offsite, we focused on analyzing the needs of local news partners, developing more collaborative work systems, and examining all stages of the story ideation and production process—all geared towards opening up space for deeper reporting that can drive impact for our partners.

After sessions, the team hit the mini golf course, explored the National Mall, and grabbed dinner and drinks across D.C.

On the business side, we combined our sales, account management, and marketing teams with our distribution team to examine how we engage with our partners, spanning our local publishing partners and Studio clients. We covered topics ranging from building a better client experience to taking a deeper look at the organizations big and small that make up our local publishing network.

By day, we outlined existing processes and brainstormed improvements, and by night we hung out over food and drink (three-course Italian meal, anyone?) and learned more about what makes each member of our team unique and special. Notably, we also sang karaoke where song choices exhibited a similar level of variety to the daily sessions (ranging from an exuberant rendition of Kid Rock and Cheryl Crow's “Picture” to singalongs of “Wagon Wheel”).

At both off-sites we scheduled a session focused on team culture and core values, lead by our Head of People Ops Brandon Poindexter. We are dedicated to constantly improving employee experience and realize there is no better way to do that than to allow team members to share feedback and ensure we're preserving and evolving culture as the company grows.

Our full-company Summit is in Denver in July, where we expect to gather a team of 60+ to bond and chart the future of Stacker. If you’re interested in learning more about open roles on our team, check out our careers page or reach out to careers@stacker.com.