Index

Inside Stile

Our work philosophies

We want Stile to be an awesome workplace – a place for people who love their job. We aspire to build a team of exceptional individuals who are a genuine delight to work with every day. We firmly believe that working with outstanding people is, aside from purpose, what makes getting up and going to work delightful, day after day.

Oh, and we want to have fun doing it.

We’re a community, not a group of people.

The modern organisation has the incredible ability to achieve more than the sum of the individuals that make it up. A thousand individuals can’t make the iPhone in all its success, but an organisation can.

But an organisation isn’t merely a group of people doing the work that has been assigned to them. The magic comes through genuine collaboration, discussion and debate amongst a group of people with a shared mission. The magic comes through the formation of a community.

Community is more than getting work done, it’s an important part of the human experience. In an age where we have less community than ever before, we want Stile to be a place where people feel a sense of shared purpose in something bigger.

Kinda like a high performance sports team.

High-performance sports teams have their stars, but always value the team over the player. We like to put personal egos aside to achieve excellence as a group. 

Every individual within an elite sports team receives candid feedback on their performance, and are given constant feedback with the aim of helping them be at the top of their game. Stile is no different. 

When individuals hit a temporary rough patch, personally or professionally, we carry them through it as a team, because we expect they’ll become stars for us once again.

Results matter.

We don’t care how many hours you’re at work. B-level performance, despite A-level effort, earns a generous severance package, with respect. A-level performance with little effort is rewarded with great pay and increased responsibility.

More on performance

So does having fun.

You only live once. Given how much of the week is dedicated to work, we should have a damned good time doing it. We get serious work done, but we try not to take ourselves too seriously. We’re less about ‘enforced fun’ through corporate events (though we do that too), and more about having a laugh every day. We prefer to fund activities that are spontaneously created by individuals or teams within the organisation.

We prefer to work in-person wherever possible.

Every community needs a meeting space. A place to build relationships and collaborate in person. Online is possible, but it’s hard mode, so we strongly prefer to be in-person.

Collaboration means both within your team, and the serendipitous kind that happens as you interact with others in the office. These everyday interactions are also the foundations of building community.

We also appreciate that many people do their best deep-focus work away from the distractions of the office.

To accommodate, we’ve designed our offices to be primarily for collaboration, with central communal spaces, team areas, and designated quiet work spaces.

By default, we work full-time from our offices, with the flexibility to work remotely. We leave exact working arrangements to the discretion of your manager, as optimal requirements vary widely based on the type of work being done, and how long a team has worked together. Having said that, to facilitate cross-company collaboration, we have an expected minimum of working from an office 2 days per week on average.

Expect that a meeting is in-person unless specified and pre-agreed otherwise.

Flexibility is a two-way street.

We believe in having a high degree of flexibility in both directions: we’re flexible in accommodating your schedule, if you’re flexible in accommodating ours. 

Work from home on a schedule that suits you, but make sure that aligns with your team. It’s OK to usually work from home on a Wednesday, but if your team needs you on Wednesday next week, you can accommodate that. We should avoid imposing last minute changes on each other wherever possible. Need to take your dog for a routine check-up later in the week? That’s totally cool but don’t bail on an important meeting to do it. 

With all high trust situations, it is essential that everyone communicates effectively.  Always inform your manager if you’re going to be unavailable when they would otherwise expect you to be at the office.

If you’re not in the office, please make sure you’re contactable by phone during normal business hours.

More on flexible working

We’re always looking for outstanding people.

Hire like it matters, because it does.

Hiring exceptional people is one of the most important things we do at Stile. Get it right, and your team levels up. Get it wrong, and you’ll be untangling the mess for months.

So take your time. Prioritise hiring over your other tasks when you need to. This is not admin, it’s strategy.

And remember: hiring is absolute, not relative. Don’t hire someone just because they were the best of the bunch. Hire them because they’ll thrive in the role. If no one fits, keep looking.

We don’t go off gut feeling alone. We use job scorecards and our behaviours to make sharp, evidence-based hiring calls. It’s how we keep our standards high, and our teams strong.

More on hiring

Stilish Behaviours

And we like to get shit stuff done. ✅

… without losing your mind.

If this guide has a theme, it’s probably this: we care about results. Getting meaningful stuff done, and not just staying busy. That means figuring out what actually matters, and giving it your full attention. Everything else can wait.

None of that happens by accident. It takes structure and rituals.

Start with Byron’s talk on how he organises his week. This isn’t about being a productivity robot. It’s about keeping your sanity while doing high-impact work. Then check out the checklists we’ve put together. Use them, tweak them, make them your own.

Whether you run your life in Asana, a bullet journal, or sticky notes on a fridge, the goal’s the same: keep your important stuff front and centre, and finish it.

Byron’s presentation

GSD checklists

There’s always too much to do.

High performing teams always feel resource constrained. There never seems like there is anywhere near enough people to get all the work done. This is what ambition looks like. 

The trick is to not get sucked into working more hours than you can sustain. This is the road to burnout. Rather, it’s all about aggressively prioritising, and in doing so, deciding that a bunch of the least important things will simply not be done.

One of your manager’s biggest responsibilities is to help you to build the muscle to do this (but not do it for you).

We also have managers.

What managers are (and what they’re not)...

One marker of a great workplace? Having a manager who supports you to do your best work.

That kind of support takes time and real conversation. Which is why we don’t expect anyone to manage more than around eight people. Any more than that and the quality of support drops. So we build just enough hierarchy to make high-quality relationships possible.

We ask a lot from our managers. Most important of which is to really get to know their people, building the genuine trust required for open and honest conversations about performance. We ask them to be generous with their feedback, particularly the positive, without shying away from providing candid negative feedback, all with the express desire of helping those that work for them to level up.

Your manager represents and speaks for the company. You can expect your manager to take the time to understand what they’re hearing from the executive team and from their peers, and translate what that means for you and your team. From time to time, they may personally disagree with the direction of the company. When they do, we ask that they disagree and debate the point vigorously with their manager, but if a consensus decision can’t be reached, we ask that they “disagree and commit”, so that we can work as one towards a common goal.

Of course, your manager is ultimately responsible for achieving results for the business.

You’ll have a scheduled thirty minute weekly one-on-one (we call them O3s)—not just for status updates, but to build trust and tackle roadblocks together. This is your time, and your manager will encourage you to talk about whatever is on your mind. 

Good management isn’t about control or cheerleading. It’s about clarity, support, shared goals, and delivering results in a way that helps people want to stick around.

The Leadership Charter

Unreported work doesn’t exist.

Reporting upwards is part of the job.

You know what’s on your plate. But unless you tell them, your manager doesn’t.

It’s your responsibility to keep your manager in the loop—on what you’re working on, what’s getting in the way, and where you need support. If you don’t, they can’t help you prioritise. And that’s not good for anyone.

Your manager wants to be informed. They want to know:

  • What’s blocking your top priorities
  • Where your projects, OKRs, and KPIs are up to
  • How they can help you hit your goals

That’s why we do weekly planning and reporting. You’ll be asked to submit a short report each week—not just to reflect on what happened, but to plan what matters for the week ahead.

It’s not bureaucracy. It’s how we stay focused, aligned, and effective.

Planning aligns our work with our mission.

At Stile, you’ll hear acronyms flying around—OKRs, KPIs, BAU, work plans, projects. If you’re new to it, don’t panic. They’re just our way of making sure we’re focused, accountable, and not reinventing the wheel every quarter.

Here’s the short version:

  • OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) are for new things. Experiments. Big bets. They’re what we want to try, change, or improve—often with the hope they’ll become part of our regular toolkit.
  • KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) are how we measure the stuff we’re already doing. Business as usual. Are we doing it well? Are we doing it at the right scale?

Every quarter, each team plans their next moves—reviewing KPIs, setting fresh OKRs. This isn’t busywork. It’s how we stay aligned and avoid the trap of working hard on the wrong things.

You’ll also have deeper planning days a few times a year, but OKR setting is a regular, company-wide ritual. Same rhythm, same time, across the board.

If you want the full picture, here’s the explainer doc. But if you remember just one thing: OKRs = what we’re chasing; KPIs = how we know we’re doing our job well.

More on planning at Stile

Your job isn’t email.

Respect your focus (and your downtime).

Stile’s a global company, which means messages can land in your inbox or Slack at any time of the day. That doesn’t mean we expect you to respond immediately.

If it’s not your working hours, don’t feel pressure to reply. Assume your colleagues are working when it suits them, not asking you to drop everything. If something’s genuinely urgent, they’ll pick up the phone. Otherwise, it can wait.

With the exception of our Support team, we don’t expect anyone to be glued to email or Slack all day. In fact, we highly encourage the opposite.

Check messages at regular intervals. Then close them. Deep work matters, and constant pings kill it. If something’s urgent, talk face-to-face or make a quick call—HiBob has everyone’s number.

We also don’t expect after-hours replies. Evenings and weekends are yours, unless your role specifically requires availability. If it’s truly urgent, someone will call—and that should be very rare.

Your best work happens when you’re focused and well-rested. We back you to protect both.

More on our expectations

Staying in the loop is vital to our organisation.

It’s your manager’s job to keep you informed. We call it waterfalling—making sure important info flows down clearly and quickly to the people it affects. One of your manager’s jobs is to have strong situational awareness of what’s going on in the business, then package that up to let you know what it means for you.

But staying across what’s happening at Stile isn’t a one-way street. We’ve set up a few key channels to keep everyone in the know—and it’s on you to show up, listen, and read.

Here’s what to keep an eye (and ear) on:

  • Stile Weekly: Dropped every Friday (AU), this is our internal newsletter. It’s where we share the key headlines from the week—no fluff, just the stuff that matters.
  • Wavelength: Our internal podcast, released monthly. It’s not for teachers; it’s just for us. Big topics, deep dives, and updates from across the business—designed to be worth your time.
  • All Hands: Once a quarter, we get everyone together to zoom out. If you’re in Melbourne or Portland, it’s in person. We unpack the big strategic goals, where we’re headed, and how we’re going to get there.

These aren’t optional extras. They’re how we stay aligned and effective. Context is everything, so we highly recommend you tune in.

Access Wavelength

You have an obligation to dissent.

At Stile, every member of the team has what we call the Obligation to Dissent.

In plain English: If you disagree with something – a decision or direction inside the business on any level – you are required to ‘speak up’ and professionally voice your concern.

Everyone at Stile brings something to the table—regardless of role, seniority, or how long you’ve been here. So if you’ve got a different perspective, speak up. You won’t be penalised for disagreeing, as long as you do it professionally and with the business’ best interests in mind.

But here’s the deal: you don’t get to drop your opinion and walk away. If there’s disagreement, it’s your responsibility to work through it and reach consensus.

Sometimes that means convincing someone. Sometimes it means disagreeing and committing—backing a decision even if it wasn’t your first pick. What matters most is that you take the time to understand each other’s views. Really understand them.

If having that kind of conversation doesn’t come naturally, you’re not alone. Your manager can help you build the skills to make it safe, constructive, and worth everyone’s time.

Still stuck? Don’t sweep it under the rug. Book more time. Ask for help. The only real problem is pretending there isn’t one.

We have an open door policy.

At its heart, this means that every leader at Stile, including Byron and Danny, are always open for a chat—about anything that’s affecting your work life here. Big or small, professional or personal, if something’s on your mind, we want to hear it. If something isn’t working or is holding us back, let’s talk about it. We call it our Open Door Policy.

Here’s how this works in practice:

  • If the issue is urgent, if it involves imminent harm to you, a colleague, or the company: come straight to us, and we’ll make time immediately.
  • If it’s important but not urgent, we’ll still prioritise making time for you that day.

That said, this isn’t about bypassing our management structure. The best first step is always to talk to your manager, then their manager if needed. But if for any reason you feel like you can't, or you need to speak directly with the CEOs, you absolutely can. They will listen, and in some cases, they may be able to help guide the issue back through the right management channels for resolution.

This approach extends beyond Danny and Byron. You can expect all our managers to be equally open and available as well as the senior members of P&C.

We want Stile to be a place where everyone feels heard and supported, so please, don’t hesitate to reach out.

To book in with the CEOs, please reach out to their respective EAs and let them know you have an “open door request” and they will ensure it gets prioritised without any questions asked.

Spending Stile’s money shouldn’t be careless.

From time to time, you’ll need to make judgment calls about spending Stile’s money. The rule is simple: act in the company’s best interest.

In practice, that looks like this:

  • Only expense what you wouldn’t spend otherwise, and only if it’s genuinely useful for your work.
  • Travel like it’s your own money. Choose options that are comfortable and reasonable—not extravagant.
  • Use company resources for personal stuff only when it’s minor and saves time. Printing out a concert ticket? Totally fine. Running your side hustle from the office printer? Probably not.

If you need something to be productive, don’t wait—talk to your manager and get it sorted. We trust you to use good judgment. Let’s keep it that way.

More on finance

More on traveling for Stile

Working late is occasional, not habitual.

We work hard to keep workloads sustainable. Burning the candle at both ends isn’t a badge of honour—it’s a sign something’s off.

That said, every now and then, a project might need a late push. If you’re working past 7:30pm with your manager’s OK (and it’s not part of your flexible schedule), Stile’s got your back—order dinner and grab an Uber or Lyft home, on us.

Just flag it ahead of time. And remember: if late nights are becoming a pattern, that’s a conversation, not a new normal.

Inside Stile Home

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Not-work philosophies

The day-to-day at Stile

Security & Privacy

Representing Stile

Handy-dandy Stilish resources

Need help with Stile, the platform?

 

Is Stile down? Have you found a bug? The team is here to help.

Get help

Stile is an equal opportunity employer, and we actively promote a culture of respect, inclusion, and belonging.

 

As a science education company, Stile understands and appreciates the immense knowledge and understandings held within the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.

 

Stile HQ is located at 136 Exhibition Street, Melbourne, Australia, on the traditional lands of the Boon Wurrung and Woiwurrung (Wurundjeri) peoples of the Kulin Nation. We pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging. 

 

Stile’s US office is located on the land we now call Portland, Oregon. We recognize and honor the Indigenous peoples on whose ancestral lands we live and work. These include the Willamette Tumwater, Clackamas, Kathlamet, Molalla, Multnomah and Watlala Chinook Peoples and the Tualatin Kalapuya who today are part of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, and many other Indigenous communities who made their homes along the Columbia River.

Go back

Index

Inside Stile

Our work philosophies

We want Stile to be an awesome workplace – a place for people who love their job. We aspire to build a team of exceptional individuals who are a genuine delight to work with every day. We firmly believe that working with outstanding people is, aside from purpose, what makes getting up and going to work delightful, day after day.

Oh, and we want to have fun doing it.

We’re a community, not a group of people.

The modern organisation has the incredible ability to achieve more than the sum of the individuals that make it up. A thousand individuals can’t make the iPhone in all its success, but an organisation can.

But an organisation isn’t merely a group of people doing the work that has been assigned to them. The magic comes through genuine collaboration, discussion and debate amongst a group of people with a shared mission. The magic comes through the formation of a community.

Community is more than getting work done, it’s an important part of the human experience. In an age where we have less community than ever before, we want Stile to be a place where people feel a sense of shared purpose in something bigger.

Kinda like a high performance sports team.

High-performance sports teams have their stars, but always value the team over the player. We like to put personal egos aside to achieve excellence as a group. 

Every individual within an elite sports team receives candid feedback on their performance, and are given constant feedback with the aim of helping them be at the top of their game. Stile is no different. 

When individuals hit a temporary rough patch, personally or professionally, we carry them through it as a team, because we expect they’ll become stars for us once again.

Results matter.

We don’t care how many hours you’re at work. B-level performance, despite A-level effort, earns a generous severance package, with respect. A-level performance with little effort is rewarded with great pay and increased responsibility.

More on performance

So does having fun.

You only live once. Given how much of the week is dedicated to work, we should have a damned good time doing it. We get serious work done, but we try not to take ourselves too seriously. We’re less about ‘enforced fun’ through corporate events (though we do that too), and more about having a laugh every day. We prefer to fund activities that are spontaneously created by individuals or teams within the organisation.

We prefer to work in-person wherever possible.

Every community needs a meeting space. A place to build relationships and collaborate in person. Online is possible, but it’s hard mode, so we strongly prefer to be in-person.

Collaboration means both within your team, and the serendipitous kind that happens as you interact with others in the office. These everyday interactions are also the foundations of building community.

We also appreciate that many people do their best deep-focus work away from the distractions of the office.

To accommodate, we’ve designed our offices to be primarily for collaboration, with central communal spaces, team areas, and designated quiet work spaces.

By default, we work full-time from our offices, with the flexibility to work remotely. We leave exact working arrangements to the discretion of your manager, as optimal requirements vary widely based on the type of work being done, and how long a team has worked together. Having said that, to facilitate cross-company collaboration, we have an expected minimum of working from an office 2 days per week on average.

Expect that a meeting is in-person unless specified and pre-agreed otherwise.

Flexibility is a two-way street.

We believe in having a high degree of flexibility in both directions: we’re flexible in accommodating your schedule, if you’re flexible in accommodating ours. 

Work from home on a schedule that suits you, but make sure that aligns with your team. It’s OK to usually work from home on a Wednesday, but if your team needs you on Wednesday next week, you can accommodate that. We should avoid imposing last minute changes on each other wherever possible. Need to take your dog for a routine check-up later in the week? That’s totally cool but don’t bail on an important meeting to do it. 

With all high trust situations, it is essential that everyone communicates effectively.  Always inform your manager if you’re going to be unavailable when they would otherwise expect you to be at the office.

If you’re not in the office, please make sure you’re contactable by phone during normal business hours.

More on flexible working

We’re always looking for outstanding people.

Hire like it matters, because it does.

Hiring exceptional people is one of the most important things we do at Stile. Get it right, and your team levels up. Get it wrong, and you’ll be untangling the mess for months.

So take your time. Prioritise hiring over your other tasks when you need to. This is not admin, it’s strategy.

And remember: hiring is absolute, not relative. Don’t hire someone just because they were the best of the bunch. Hire them because they’ll thrive in the role. If no one fits, keep looking.

We don’t go off gut feeling alone. We use job scorecards and our behaviours to make sharp, evidence-based hiring calls. It’s how we keep our standards high, and our teams strong.

More on hiring

Stilish Behaviours

And we like to get shit done.

… without losing your mind.

If this guide has a theme, it’s probably this: we care about results. Getting meaningful stuff done, and not just staying busy. That means figuring out what actually matters, and giving it your full attention. Everything else can wait.

None of that happens by accident. It takes structure and rituals.

Start with Byron’s talk on how he organises his week. This isn’t about being a productivity robot. It’s about keeping your sanity while doing high-impact work. Then check out the checklists we’ve put together. Use them, tweak them, make them your own.

Whether you run your life in Asana, a bullet journal, or sticky notes on a fridge, the goal’s the same: keep your important stuff front and centre, and finish it.

Byron’s presentation

GSD checklists

There’s always too much to do.

High performing teams always feel resource constrained. There never seems like there is anywhere near enough people to get all the work done. This is what ambition looks like. 

The trick is to not get sucked into working more hours than you can sustain. This is the road to burnout. Rather, it’s all about aggressively prioritising, and in doing so, deciding that a bunch of the least important things will simply not be done.

One of your manager’s biggest responsibilities is to help you to build the muscle to do this (but not do it for you).

We also have managers.

What managers are (and what they’re not)...

One marker of a great workplace? Having a manager who supports you to do your best work.

That kind of support takes time and real conversation. Which is why we don’t expect anyone to manage more than around eight people. Any more than that and the quality of support drops. So we build just enough hierarchy to make high-quality relationships possible.

We ask a lot from our managers. Most important of which is to really get to know their people, building the genuine trust required for open and honest conversations about performance. We ask them to be generous with their feedback, particularly the positive, without shying away from providing candid negative feedback, all with the express desire of helping those that work for them to level up.

Your manager represents and speaks for the company. You can expect your manager to take the time to understand what they’re hearing from the executive team and from their peers, and translate what that means for you and your team. From time to time, they may personally disagree with the direction of the company. When they do, we ask that they disagree and debate the point vigorously with their manager, but if a consensus decision can’t be reached, we ask that they “disagree and commit”, so that we can work as one towards a common goal.

Of course, your manager is ultimately responsible for achieving results for the business.

You’ll have a scheduled thirty minute weekly one-on-one (we call them O3s)—not just for status updates, but to build trust and tackle roadblocks together. This is your time, and your manager will encourage you to talk about whatever is on your mind. 

Good management isn’t about control or cheerleading. It’s about clarity, support, shared goals, and delivering results in a way that helps people want to stick around.

The Leadership Charter

Unreported work doesn’t exist.

Reporting upwards is part of the job.

You know what’s on your plate. But unless you tell them, your manager doesn’t.

It’s your responsibility to keep your manager in the loop—on what you’re working on, what’s getting in the way, and where you need support. If you don’t, they can’t help you prioritise. And that’s not good for anyone.

Your manager wants to be informed. They want to know:

  • What’s blocking your top priorities
  • Where your projects, OKRs, and KPIs are up to
  • How they can help you hit your goals

That’s why we do weekly planning and reporting. You’ll be asked to submit a short report each week—not just to reflect on what happened, but to plan what matters for the week ahead.

It’s not bureaucracy. It’s how we stay focused, aligned, and effective.

Planning aligns our work with our mission.

At Stile, you’ll hear acronyms flying around—OKRs, KPIs, BAU, work plans, projects. If you’re new to it, don’t panic. They’re just our way of making sure we’re focused, accountable, and not reinventing the wheel every quarter.

Here’s the short version:

  • OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) are for new things. Experiments. Big bets. They’re what we want to try, change, or improve—often with the hope they’ll become part of our regular toolkit.
  • KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) are how we measure the stuff we’re already doing. Business as usual. Are we doing it well? Are we doing it at the right scale?

Every quarter, each team plans their next moves—reviewing KPIs, setting fresh OKRs. This isn’t busywork. It’s how we stay aligned and avoid the trap of working hard on the wrong things.

You’ll also have deeper planning days a few times a year, but OKR setting is a regular, company-wide ritual. Same rhythm, same time, across the board.

If you want the full picture, here’s the explainer doc. But if you remember just one thing: OKRs = what we’re chasing; KPIs = how we know we’re doing our job well.

More on planning at Stile

Your job isn’t email.

Respect your focus (and your downtime).

Stile’s a global company, which means messages can land in your inbox or Slack at any time of the day. That doesn’t mean we expect you to respond immediately.

If it’s not your working hours, don’t feel pressure to reply. Assume your colleagues are working when it suits them, not asking you to drop everything. If something’s genuinely urgent, they’ll pick up the phone. Otherwise, it can wait.

With the exception of our Support team, we don’t expect anyone to be glued to email or Slack all day. In fact, we highly encourage the opposite.

Check messages at regular intervals. Then close them. Deep work matters, and constant pings kill it. If something’s urgent, talk face-to-face or make a quick call—HiBob has everyone’s number.

We also don’t expect after-hours replies. Evenings and weekends are yours, unless your role specifically requires availability. If it’s truly urgent, someone will call—and that should be very rare.

Your best work happens when you’re focused and well-rested. We back you to protect both.

More on our expectations

Staying in the loop is vital to our organisation.

It’s your manager’s job to keep you informed. We call it waterfalling—making sure important info flows down clearly and quickly to the people it affects. One of your manager’s jobs is to have strong situational awareness of what’s going on in the business, then package that up to let you know what it means for you.

But staying across what’s happening at Stile isn’t a one-way street. We’ve set up a few key channels to keep everyone in the know—and it’s on you to show up, listen, and read.

Here’s what to keep an eye (and ear) on:

  • Stile Weekly: Dropped every Friday (AU), this is our internal newsletter. It’s where we share the key headlines from the week—no fluff, just the stuff that matters.
  • Wavelength: Our internal podcast, released monthly. It’s not for teachers; it’s just for us. Big topics, deep dives, and updates from across the business—designed to be worth your time.
  • All Hands: Once a quarter, we get everyone together to zoom out. If you’re in Melbourne or Portland, it’s in person. We unpack the big strategic goals, where we’re headed, and how we’re going to get there.

These aren’t optional extras. They’re how we stay aligned and effective. Context is everything, so we highly recommend you tune in.

Access Wavelength

You have an obligation to dissent.

At Stile, every member of the team has what we call the Obligation to Dissent.

In plain English: If you disagree with something – a decision or direction inside the business on any level – you are required to ‘speak up’ and professionally voice your concern.

Everyone at Stile brings something to the table—regardless of role, seniority, or how long you’ve been here. So if you’ve got a different perspective, speak up. You won’t be penalised for disagreeing, as long as you do it professionally and with the business’ best interests in mind.

But here’s the deal: you don’t get to drop your opinion and walk away. If there’s disagreement, it’s your responsibility to work through it and reach consensus.

Sometimes that means convincing someone. Sometimes it means disagreeing and committing—backing a decision even if it wasn’t your first pick. What matters most is that you take the time to understand each other’s views. Really understand them.

If having that kind of conversation doesn’t come naturally, you’re not alone. Your manager can help you build the skills to make it safe, constructive, and worth everyone’s time.

Still stuck? Don’t sweep it under the rug. Book more time. Ask for help. The only real problem is pretending there isn’t one.

We have an open door policy.

At its heart, this means that every leader at Stile, including Byron and Danny, are always open for a chat—about anything that’s affecting your work life here. Big or small, professional or personal, if something’s on your mind, we want to hear it. If something isn’t working or is holding us back, let’s talk about it. We call it our Open Door Policy.

Here’s how this works in practice:

  • If the issue is urgent, if it involves imminent harm to you, a colleague, or the company: come straight to us, and we’ll make time immediately.
  • If it’s important but not urgent, we’ll still prioritise making time for you that day.

That said, this isn’t about bypassing our management structure. The best first step is always to talk to your manager, then their manager if needed. But if for any reason you feel like you can't, or you need to speak directly with the CEOs, you absolutely can. They will listen, and in some cases, they may be able to help guide the issue back through the right management channels for resolution.

This approach extends beyond Danny and Byron. You can expect all our managers to be equally open and available as well as the senior members of P&C.

We want Stile to be a place where everyone feels heard and supported, so please, don’t hesitate to reach out.

To book in with the CEOs, please reach out to their respective EAs and let them know you have an “open door request” and they will ensure it gets prioritised without any questions asked.

Spending Stile’s money shouldn’t be careless.

From time to time, you’ll need to make judgment calls about spending Stile’s money. The rule is simple: act in the company’s best interest.

In practice, that looks like this:

  • Only expense what you wouldn’t spend otherwise, and only if it’s genuinely useful for your work.
  • Travel like it’s your own money. Choose options that are comfortable and reasonable—not extravagant.
  • Use company resources for personal stuff only when it’s minor and saves time. Printing out a concert ticket? Totally fine. Running your side hustle from the office printer? Probably not.

If you need something to be productive, don’t wait—talk to your manager and get it sorted. We trust you to use good judgment. Let’s keep it that way.

More on finance

More on traveling for Stile

Working late is occasional, not habitual.

We work hard to keep workloads sustainable. Burning the candle at both ends isn’t a badge of honour—it’s a sign something’s off.

That said, every now and then, a project might need a late push. If you’re working past 7:30pm with your manager’s OK (and it’s not part of your flexible schedule), Stile’s got your back—order dinner and grab an Uber or Lyft home, on us.

Just flag it ahead of time. And remember: if late nights are becoming a pattern, that’s a conversation, not a new normal.

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Stile is an equal opportunity employer, and we actively promote a culture of respect, inclusion, and belonging.

 

As a science education company, Stile understands and appreciates the immense knowledge and understandings held within the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.

 

Stile HQ is located at 136 Exhibition Street, Melbourne, Australia, on the traditional lands of the Boon Wurrung and Woiwurrung (Wurundjeri) peoples of the Kulin Nation. We pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging. 

 

Stile’s US office is located on the land we now call Portland, Oregon. We recognize and honor the Indigenous peoples on whose ancestral lands we live and work. These include the Willamette Tumwater, Clackamas, Kathlamet, Molalla, Multnomah and Watlala Chinook Peoples and the Tualatin Kalapuya who today are part of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, and many other Indigenous communities who made their homes along the Columbia River.

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Inside Stile

Our work philosophies

We want Stile to be an awesome workplace – a place for people who love their job. We aspire to build a team of exceptional individuals who are a genuine delight to work with every day. We firmly believe that working with outstanding people is, aside from purpose, what makes getting up and going to work delightful, day after day.

Oh, and we want to have fun doing it.

We’re a community, not a group of people.

Kinda like a high performance sports team.

Results matter.

So does having fun.

We prefer to work in-person wherever possible.

Flexibility is a two-way street.

We’re always looking for outstanding people.

And we like to get shit done.

There’s always too much to do.

We also have managers.

Unreported work doesn’t exist.

Planning aligns our work with our mission.

Your job isn’t email.

Staying in the loop is vital to our organisation.

You have an obligation to dissent.

We have an open door policy.

Spending Stile’s money shouldn’t be careless.

Working late is occasional, not habitual.

The modern organisation has the incredible ability to achieve more than the sum of the individuals that make it up. A thousand individuals can’t make the iPhone in all its success, but an organisation can.

But an organisation isn’t merely a group of people doing the work that has been assigned to them. The magic comes through genuine collaboration, discussion and debate amongst a group of people with a shared mission. The magic comes through the formation of a community.

Community is more than getting work done, it’s an important part of the human experience. In an age where we have less community than ever before, we want Stile to be a place where people feel a sense of shared purpose in something bigger.