Tally

Tally is built by a deliberately small team that aims to stay close to users and ship with focus. They emphasize simplicity across the product and the way they work, keeping priorities clear and avoiding distraction so the team can move quickly without losing quality.

Their operating model is iterative: they “MVP everything”, ship small, learn fast, and then improve in public. That approach is reinforced by ruthless prioritization. Tally is not trying to be everything for everyone, and they explicitly avoid feature bloat and unnecessary meetings.

In practice, engineers are expected to own work end-to-end. The role description highlights building new product features from start to finish, improving performance and reliability (including debugging and polishing), and creating internal tools that increase team productivity.

They hire and operate like a bootstrapped, user-driven company, optimizing for long-term sustainability and creative freedom over organizational complexity. Staying small is considered a feature, and the team looks to amplify output through focus, craft, and leverage rather than headcount.

Tally hires carefully because team size is intentionally kept small. The company emphasizes that every hire materially shapes the product and culture, so they aim to bring in “A-players” only when it really matters.

They're looking for candidates who are pragmatic and business-oriented, who can balance craft and speed, and who put users first by thinking through how each build decision impacts the user experience. They also look for engineers comfortable owning outcomes across the full feature lifecycle, including performance and reliability work, not only feature delivery.

They also hire for “tiny team” compatibility: people who can operate with focus, prioritize well, and thrive with minimal process overhead. The expectation is that strong judgment, clarity in trade-offs, and an ability to ship incrementally are as important as raw technical ability.