Our company culture is built around our values — build trust, question assumptions, and validate direction. They’re central to everything we do. Building trust influences the decisions we make both externally and internally, from protecting people’s' privacy, to doing right by our staff, vendors, partners, and community. By professionally questioning each other's assumptions, we reject bias and create a more inclusive culture. Through continually challenging the conscious and unconscious biases we bring to work every day, we’re validating our own direction constantly, ensuring that the culture and processes at DuckDuckGo remain productive and empowering. Our commitment to embracing diverse perspectives and empowering all team members is exemplified by the fact that we place equal value on all functional expertise and expect any two people at the same professional level (e.g., a Site Reliability Engineer and a Copywriter at the same level) to make similar impact in terms of value added to company Objectives. Everyone grouped at the same professional level earns the same annual compensation, regardless of functional team, location, gender, educational background, years of experience, or other factors. Similarly, we don't use external job titles when referring to each other internally or follow a traditional vertical chain of command. Internal communication lines aren't limited by professional level or team, so anyone can collaborate directly across teams and levels (yes, it's okay to ping our CEO directly at any point).