The people questions a software company cannot postpone

I design a reduction by deciding first which work the company will stop doing, and only then which roles that removes. An even percentage across departments leaves the work in place for fewer people, which is how the second round I saw in Ottawa came about. In Canada, the notice set by provincial employment standards is a floor; courts can award reasonable notice well above it unless an enforceable contract says otherwise, and Ontario adds longer notice and a filing with the province when fifty or more people at one establishment lose their jobs within four weeks. I set terms we can explain in a paragraph and apply to everyone, review every name with counsel for leave and other protected grounds before anyone is told, and plan separately for colleagues whose immigration status depends on the job. I also decide who tells each person, in what order and with what access left on, because that is what people remember.

Stock options are a large part of what a Canadian software company pays its engineers, and most employees understand them less well than the investors whose shares sit above them. I work with our chief financial officer and outside counsel on the plan rules, the third-party valuation that sets fair market value for grants, exercise windows for leavers and what to do when a financing values the company below the price at which options were granted. After our 2024 round I recommended a repricing rather than new top-up grants, because it did not add shares and it answered the actual grievance. Tax treatment differs between Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom, and in Canada it can depend on the company's status, so we pay for individual sessions with tax advisers rather than letting HR give tax opinions. I also insist on telling employees how liquidation preferences work, with figures.

Kestrelford hires in Ontario, Québec, Nova Scotia, British Columbia and several US states, and the rules on posting pay differ across them. British Columbia has required a pay range in public job postings since late 2023, Ontario's equivalent requirement took effect at the start of 2026, and several states where we employ remote staff, including California, Colorado, New York and Washington, have their own. Québec's pay equity legislation requires employers above a certain size to complete a pay equity exercise and to audit it periodically. I treat those obligations as the floor of a single practice: one band structure by level and job family, published internally to everyone, with ranges in postings that match it. The hard work is not publication but the clean-up beforehand, when people paid below their band have to be moved up and people paid above it have to be told plainly why their increases will be smaller.

About 8% of our Canadian workforce holds a work permit, and the share was higher at Studio Corvelle. I run immigration as part of workforce planning rather than as an administrative service. That means knowing which routes suit which roles, including the Global Talent Stream, the faster route the federal temporary foreign worker programme offers for certain technology occupations, and how long each realistically takes. It means paying the fees and legal costs an employer should carry, offering advice on permanent residence, and keeping a current register of whose status depends on their employment with us. That register matters most in the worst week. A permit tied to one employer can turn a lost job into a lost right to stay, so in our 2023 reduction we offered permit holders working notice instead of pay in lieu, to give them more time with status while they looked for their next role.

Our Montréal office grew from the 46 people of Atelier Sorbier, a computer-vision company we acquired in 2022, to 190 today. Its engineers write code, tickets and documentation in English for customers in four countries, and Québec's Charter of the French Language entitles them to work in French. Once we employed more than fifty people in Québec we registered with the Office québécois de la langue française and began a francization programme, which we completed in 2025. I treat the obligations as questions about specific work. Which documents must exist in French, and which internal tools can be configured in French, including our AI coding assistant? When does a role genuinely need English, and can we explain that in writing before posting it? We now justify the English requirement role by role, hold Montréal team meetings in French with English summaries, and translate the policies, contracts and training that employees rely on.

Kestrelford's engineers, designers and support staff are spread across four offices and two other countries, so a rule about days in the office would have applied to some people and been meaningless for others. Since September 2021 each team has instead spent one full week a month working together in an office, chosen by the team and fixed a quarter ahead, and remote colleagues travel to it at our expense four times a year. The rest of the month is the team's to arrange. The policy costs about C$3.4 million a year in travel and accommodation, and I report that figure to the committee rather than hiding it in departmental budgets. I review it each year against two measures: how quickly new colleagues reach independent work, and how often teams escalate disagreements they could have settled together. New graduates are the exception; in their first six months they are in the office three days a week, with a mentor beside them.