Smartcat is an AI-native enterprise platform for global content creation, localization, and automation. The company is remote-friendly, with a globally distributed team and hubs in Boston, Belgrade, Lisbon, Tbilisi, and Yerevan. As Smartcat scaled to 250 people spread across 38 locations, the People team needed the same operational rigor: consistent workflows, reliable reporting, and a performance process that supports trust and clarity across regions.
But as Smartcat grew, managing its expanding workforce through spreadsheets became increasingly complex and manual.
“Google Sheets was wonderful when we were maybe a 50- or 100-person company,” says Stacey Richey, Global VP of People at Smartcat. “Once we reached the 200-employee threshold, it became increasingly difficult to manage. We really needed to position ourselves with a partner who could scale and customize our growth with us.”
That partner was HiBob. Smartcat chose Bob for its innovative approach, global flexibility, and a product roadmap that aligns with Smartcat’s AI-native operating model. As Stacey puts it,
“HiBob was the perfect partner.”
Scaling a global team through smarter workflows
With people working from 38 countries, Smartcat needed an HR platform that could scale with its global footprint. Finding a truly flexible and customizable HCM to manage regional payroll, reporting, and compliance became mission-critical.
The implementation of Bob took just two months—an efficient, collaborative process that cemented a strong partnership between HiBob and Smartcat.
Since the switch, Smartcat’s people team has left spreadsheets behind and now runs HR entirely on Bob—their single source of truth for people data and workflows. With Bob, Smartcat runs HR with the same agility and innovation that defines their tech.
“We’ve customized every single workflow with Bob that you can imagine,” says Stacey Richey, Global VP of People at Smartcat, “everything from performance reviews, onboarding, and offboarding, to leave management and time off requests.”
Reflecting on the time that Bob has saved her team, Stacey shared, “The only way that I can think to describe it is that it would be like going from walking to supersonic speed. It’s been incredible.”
Managing talent across 38 global locations
As Smartcat scaled globally, the People team introduced a company-wide performance review cycle to support its rapid growth across regions. This Spring, they launched their first in Bob and hit 100 percent participation. They’re already gearing up for their second cycle in the fall.
Smartcat’s people team found Bob’s performance reviews to be very intuitive. They love the way they can easily reference Bob’s one-on-one meetings, goals, and feedback when completing performance reviews, providing a lens to create fair and unbiased reviews based on past achievements rather than a moment in time. They also value AI support that enables managers to easily extract employees’ accomplishments and growth areas. Stacey sums up her experience with Bob nicely, “Out of all the talent review platforms I’ve worked in—and I’m talking about Lattice and Paylocity and all the big names out there—I’ve never worked with one that is so intuitive as both a user and an administrator.”
Stacey also highlights the attrition indicator, which is included in Bob’s Talent module. This tool provides managers with an overview of each team member and their attrition risk, based on various factors such as tenure, team stability, seniority level, and whether they’ve had a recent manager change.
Having this information at hand enables Smartcat’s people operations team to identify people at risk of attrition and take the appropriate measures, such as through Stay Interviews, to identify and act on any potential risks.
Stacey sums up her feelings about Bob’s Talent module and the Bob platform in general.
“HiBob is a single source of truth for all our workforce and people-related decisions. It allows us to be proactive, data-driven, and unified, which gives us an advantage.”
With Bob, Smartcat has standardized HR workflows and people data under one platform for its global team, giving leaders clearer visibility and reinforcing a culture built on trust, ownership, and feedback.
Main takeaways
- Bob helps Smartcat scale HR operations across 38 global locations.
- HiBob’s workflows support Smartcat’s AI-native approach to operations, empowering managers to lead with clarity and confidence across a global team.
- 100 percent participation in Smartcat’s first company-wide review—powered by Bob’s intuitive design.
- Smartcat now manages all performance, feedback, and headcount directly in Bob, their single source of truth.
