Building High-Performance Remote Cultures: What CTOs Can Learn from Affirm & Spotify
Remote work isn't new—but building high-performance cultures remotely? That's still a competitive edge. At Affirm and Spotify, it works. Not because of tools. Because of how they structure trust, outcomes, and autonomy.
Remote work isn't new—but building high-performance cultures remotely? That's still a competitive edge. At Affirm and Spotify, it works. Not because of tools. Because of how they structure trust, outcomes, and autonomy.
Why Culture Is the First System You Should Design
For first-time CTOs building their first teams, it's tempting to think culture is something that "just happens." But in distributed teams, it doesn't. The lack of hallway chatter and in-person rituals means your team culture defaults to entropy unless you intentionally design it.
Remote work has been linked to improved productivity, but without a strong culture, it's a short-term win. Buffer's 2023 report found that 44% of remote workers feel disconnected from their team [1]. This affects performance, engagement, and retention.
The fix isn't more Slack messages or Monday check-ins. It's systems that build clarity, trust, and shared momentum. That's exactly what Affirm and Spotify have figured out.
How Affirm Does It: Clarity Over Control
Affirm is remote-first. Not just "remote-allowed." Their cultural operating system is built around documentation, asynchronous rituals, and radical clarity.
Documentation-first by default. Affirm relies heavily on written, accessible documentation—from engineering updates to internal security education [2] [3]. Everyone knows where to find what's happening, and what's expected. No ambiguity, no dependence on meetings.
Asynchronous by design. Their communication style emphasizes full context and outcome-driven writing. Affirm publicly embraces the idea that remote teams should "assume no one has time to decode what you mean" [4].
Outcome-based performance. Time tracking isn't the point. The real metric is what shipped. Their internal systems focus on delivery, not screen time—making it easier to spot blockers, not just busywork [5].
Affirm also backs it all up with comprehensive wellness policies that aren't just PR—mental health days, generous PTO, and "away days" where the whole team steps back together.
How Spotify Does It: Autonomous Teams, Shared Learning
Spotify made headlines with its "Work from Anywhere" policy in 2021, but the real story is the system behind the scenes: the Spotify Model.
Squads: Small, autonomous teams that ship independently. They choose their tools, methodologies, and timelines. CTOs should take note: autonomy removes bottlenecks, but only if paired with accountability.
Chapters & Tribes: Squads are grouped into Tribes (same product area), and individual contributors are part of Chapters (same role across Squads). This dual structure maintains consistency without killing agility [8].
Guilds: Voluntary groups where employees share knowledge (e.g., "QA Guild," "Frontend Guild"). They're informal—but powerful. They solve the "distributed expertise" problem that kills speed in remote orgs.
Spotify's async-friendly culture lets teams stay agile and aligned. They use project management tools to provide visibility across time zones, and they constantly update internal processes based on employee feedback [10].
The Pattern That Works
Both Affirm and Spotify have cracked the same code: they've replaced surveillance with systems. Instead of watching people work, they've built structures that make good work visible and bad work obvious.
The pattern is simple but not easy:
- Clear expectations replace constant check-ins
- Written context eliminates meeting dependency
- Outcome tracking beats time tracking
- Shared knowledge prevents single points of failure
This matters because remote work exposes weak management. If your team relies on physical presence or emotional pressure to stay productive, you're not building a sustainable system.
What CTOs Can Do Now
You don't need Spotify's headcount or Affirm's budget to build something that works. Here's how to start:
Adopt documentation-first. Every decision, update, or roadmap shift gets written down. Use Notion, Confluence, or your internal wiki.
Default to async. Start meetings with a shared doc. Use Loom for context. Set response-time expectations.
Track outcomes, not hours. Define goals in terms of features shipped, PRs merged, bugs closed—not time spent. Look for tools that monitor delivery rhythm and remove blockers without micromanaging.
Encourage cross-team sharing. Start lightweight Guilds. Invite engineers to share learnings in async channels. Build momentum through knowledge—not mandates.
The Measurement Challenge
The hardest part of implementing these patterns? Knowing if they're working. You need visibility into team rhythm and delivery patterns—but without falling into surveillance.
That's exactly why we built StatsAware. It tracks the outcomes that matter (delivery pace, collaboration patterns, blockers) while preserving the trust-first culture that makes remote teams thrive.
Instead of monitoring keystrokes, you get:
- Weekly delivery rhythm analysis
- Cross-team collaboration insights
- Async-friendly reporting dashboards
- Pattern recognition for early blocker detection
The goal isn't more data—it's better decisions with less guesswork.
Final Thought
Culture is your operating system. Get it wrong, and everything else slows down. Get it right, and you build a compounding advantage.
Affirm and Spotify don't win because of tools. They win because they treat trust, outcomes, and rhythm as their first principles.
So should you.
Sources:
[1] Buffer State of Remote Work 2023
[2] Affirm Engineering Careers
[3] Affirm Security Communications
[4] Remote.com: Why You Should Be Doing Async Work
[5] Velocity Global: Embracing Asynchronous Communication
[6] Atlassian: The Spotify Model