What async-first means
Less than 5 hours of meetings per week. Most decisions happen in writing (Notion, Linear, Slack threads). You’re evaluated on shipped output, not face time. These are the companies where an African timezone is least limiting.
Companies that are genuinely async
Automattic, GitLab, Buffer, Doist, Zapier, Posthog, Linear, Plaid (engineering pods), Discourse, Tessian. Many YC-backed remote-first startups also operate this way — check their hiring page for "async" mentions.
How to apply
Async-first companies love written interviews and Loom video answers. Treat every application as a chance to show your written thinking — a paragraph in your cover letter that explains *how* you’d ramp into the role often outperforms a polished CV.
How they evaluate
Expect: a written take-home task, an async Loom intro, then maybe 1–2 live calls. The "test" is whether you can finish good work without supervision and write up your thinking clearly. Practice that — it’s exactly what the job is.