Remote Work: How We Snuggle Our Way to a Healthy Company Culture

🧑‍💻 Reuniting Remote Teams with Heart, Humor, and Cookies: Inside Font Awesome’s Biannual Snuggle

In this wholesome (and slightly nerdy) episode of Podcast Awesome, host Matt Johnson is joined by Font Awesome co-founders and longtime team members — Dave Gandy, Travis Chase, Rob Madole, and Mike Wilkerson — to share the origin story and magic behind The Snuggle, Font Awesome’s biannual in-person team meetup.

Why does a fully remote company with async workflows and nerdy Slack threads still prioritize gathering face-to-face? Turns out, good software starts with great relationships — and a well-timed inside joke.

🧵 In this episode, we explore:

• How humor shaped the name “Snuggle” — and why the team leaned into it
• Real stories about what in-person time means for trust, collaboration, and morale
• How remote work challenges like isolation and “missing the water cooler” are countered with deliberate bonding
• What cookies, karaoke, and late-night debates reveal about team dynamics
• Why investing in remote-first culture isn’t just smart—it’s essential

If you’re building or working on a remote team, this one’s your cozy, cookie-filled blueprint for staying connected (no matter how async your GitHub repo is).

⏱️ Episode Timestamps

• 00:09 – The Snuggle: what it is and why it matters
• 02:31 – Rob Madole on remote work trade-offs
• 05:23 – Humor + connection: the glue for team culture
• 08:00 – Why in-person bonding is worth it
• 11:50 – Reuniting post-COVID
• 13:36 – Chocolate chip cookies and late-night hangouts
• 15:15 – Replacing the water cooler
• 16:52 – Remote vs. in-office productivity at Font Awesome

🔗 Links & Credits

🎯 Learn about Font Awesome’s culture
 🎵 Theme by Ronnie Martin
🎶 Music segues by Zach Malm
🎛️ Audio mastering by Chris Enns at Lemon Productions

Remote Work: How We Snuggle Our Way to a Healthy Company Culture

Meet the Font Awesome Team Through Our Nerd Show and Tell 

Highlights

“So clearly, the Snuggle is about as serious as its name, and yet the effect is that it helps build goodwill and trust among the Font Awesome team so we can work together better. While the remote work versus in office work debate will likely continue, Font Awesome has found a way to make the best of both worlds. And once you start working remote, you may never want to go back to the office again.”

“ So people come in on Sunday. So Sunday is a travel day, and then they fly back out on Friday. That's a travel day. So we've got four days in the middle there for the actual Snuggle. Two of the nights we have where we expect everybody to be there hanging out two of the nights, and we've got two nights that are in some ways, kind of like recovery nights.”

“We make up for a lot of the water cooler stuff that we miss. We make up for those shared experiences on a daily basis. We try to make up for that a lot of that here and compare it. I'm so excited that we got together, that we got to get together right now.”

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