The Year of Donuts: A Retrospective

A Slackbot named Donut was introduced at PagerDuty to foster connections and collaboration among employees across different teams and international offices. The app pairs employees every two weeks for casual meetups, encouraging them to connect over coffee or other activities, thereby addressing the challenge of maintaining a sense of community during the company's growth. Over a year, Donut facilitated over 1,000 introductions and nearly 500 confirmed meetings, becoming an integral part of the onboarding process and helping to maintain the company's welcoming culture. Despite the initial quieting of the channel, Donut remains popular, even leading to creative adaptations such as "Almond" meetups when there are odd numbers of participants. This initiative has been instrumental in breaking down barriers between departments and promoting a friendly work environment, demonstrating PagerDuty's commitment to its "People First" values.