Take a sneak peek inside Squarespace’s Dublin office

31 Mar 2017

A Squarespace laptop in front of one of its brainstorming rooms. Image: Connor McKenna

Unlike the bright and colourful surroundings of some other major tech companies, Squarespace prefers to live on the ‘dark side’.

Website and domain provider Squarespace has been in Ireland for almost four years, since deciding that Dublin would be its first location outside of its native US, creating 100 jobs in the process.

At the time, CEO and founder Anthony Casalena described the city as offering “a friendly, young and talented workforce in a vibrant centre city location”, ahead of other major European locations.

In the years since, it has added another 100-plus staff members, with space to bring more in under the command of the company’s director of operations for the EMEA region, Rapha Fontes.

Located in Le Pole House on Ship Street Great – a stone’s throw away from St Patrick’s Cathedral – Squarespace’s Irish operations are largely focused on providing customer support to users across the world.

Financially, the company has performed quite well in Ireland, with its accounts last month revealing that its profits doubled to €182,000 in 2015.

But what would it be like to work there?

Paint it black

This week, Siliconrepublic.com got a tour of Squarespace’s Dublin office to coincide with the arrival of Casalena in town to address his Irish employees, as well as those in New York and Portland, via a video feed.

One noticeable trait is that it is quite unlike offices such as Google’s, with their brightly lit walls and playground atmosphere. Instead, Squarespace opts for an alternate approach that favours the ‘dark side’ of things.

In trying to differ itself from its flamboyant neighbours, the blacks and greys of Squarespace supposedly offer an environment in which “creativity, comfort and collegiality could coexist”.

This isn’t just for Dublin though, as the decor is shared across all three of the company’s offices.