Paid time off and sick leave - codemagic-ci-cd/company-handbook GitHub Wiki

Paid time off and sick leave

reviewed 9 Dec 2025

It is important to take time off to recharge batteries and refresh your mind so you can come back to Codemagic with renewed energy and be prepared to do your best work ever!

Everyone gets 29 days of paid time off (PTO) in a year. You earn these PTO days progressively as you work in the company. That being said if you want to go on vacation without having the required PTO days in your reserve talk to your team lead and see if it would still be possible!

PTO specifically in our company context is, in other words, the number of vacation days in your balance, and when requesting PTO or marking PTO in calendars, all team leads should understand that we need to distinguish which requests go towards this PTO balance and which are time off which is part of some other policy e.g. holidays, sick leave, bereavement.

A Codemagic Team Members Guide to Time Off

Paid time off (PTO) is in addition to any official public holidays that apply to the country where you live. Here’s how to get started with taking paid time off (this applies for ALL team members, including Estonia, except for people employed via Deel, although Deel employed team members should just add their PTO in the team and personal calendar to indicate when they are unavailable)

Planning

Please coordinate with your Team before taking time off, especially during popular or official holidays, so that we can ensure business continuity.
As a guideline, you should inform your Team of your planned PTO at least a week ahead
You can do this during cross-functional meetings, for example. It is important to communicate this with everyone in the team so they know and can make sure you know what you should get done before you go on vacation.
If you are employed via Deel please use their respective platforms to request for time off. (still complete making request section as well below this part!)
You don't need to worry about taking time off to go to the gym, take a nap, go grocery shopping, do household chores, help someone, take care of a loved one, etc. If you have urgent tasks, but something comes up or takes longer than expected, just ensure the rest of the team knows (check out your Team's handbook for more information if applicable).

Vacation days reserve is available here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1XxddloqL69crLVeCVS2Xwya32rtNOU6DHCr2lPHrBHE/edit?usp=sharing

Teams vacation calendars

Product team

[!TIP] Information for Accounting: How to Count PTO Days:

Person on vacation - all days should be counted towards PTO.

Person day(s) off - no days should be counted towards PTO.

Person on sick leave - no days should be counted towards PTO.

Person on paid leave - no days should be counted towards PTO.

Person on conference (or specific conference name) - no days should be counted towards PTO.

Making a Time off request

Each team has their own vacations calendar. All requests for time off should be made by sending a calendar invite to this calendar and marking the days you want to take time off.

Those employed through Deel need to still put their vacation in the team calendar. Only difference is that Deel will >calculate your PTO days not the company. That said in your team it is important to communicate and mark yourself on vacation in team >calendar, so continue reading!

The days that you put as PTO in the vacation calendars are considered days counted towards your PTO days balance so don't put public holidays as PTO days. Ask your team lead how to use your vacation calendar if you need help.

In most countries where we employ people, including Estonia, we need to be able to demonstrate that the employee who is on PTO actually requested it for the period they are on PTO. This is required by law. Otherwise we accumulate a debt on balance sheet that is required to pay out on leave since officially we have no proof that the person took out PTO. Traditionally this is done by submitting a vacation request to accounting and hollding it on file. It's more convenient to do so using Google Calendar and everyone on team personally request it to demonstrate that they indeed are on PTO.

If you request PTO yourself in the team vacation calendar, you can

See who else has leave while requesting time off.
It is easy to show that the person requested leave for the period for auditing purposes.
Accounting does not need to double-check every request made since the individual who is going on vacation is the one who sent the request in the vacation calendar. Otherwise, we need proof that this person actually requested the type of leave for the period.

When making a time off request, make sure this information is in the title:

What type of vacation is it? Paid time off (PTO), study leave, sick leave? Non-paid time off? This is necessary for accounting purposes and is legally required in Estonia
Your full name
Mark this event as an event with type free and not as an out of office; otherwise, there will be formatting issues and it will be difficult to read the team vacations calendar.

e.g. title of event is PTO Martin Remmelgas

Mark yourself out of office in gmail settings and set an out of office email which includes the dates you are away and who to contact if you're away and not replying to emails

Hi,

Thank you for your email. I'm on vacation and back on 27 March. I will not be checking my email regularly. For urgent matters please contact >our CTO or Head of Sales Vladimir Markov - [email protected] for Sales - Kevin Suhajda [email protected] Cheers, Martin Remmelgas

Also, do so in Slack - set status as vacation with a description of when you'll be back.

While on vacation

Don't look at Slack and don't look at emails

Counting PTO days

Public holidays do not count towards PTO. This means if you request time off do not request it for weekend. for 1 week from Monday to Monday (returning to work on next Monday) then you use 5 PTO days. If on the other hand there was a public holiday on Friday you will have used 4 PTO days instead because public holidays do not count towards PTO. You should still request for PTO by stating the time you will go on vacation and time time you will return to work. We will calculate the days you have remaining.

(not concerning product team) Every month Anu will ask you to confirm your PTO taken in the given month. This is to ensure that all your PTO is accounted for. Please double check if you had PTO this month and if you have entered it in the calendar

PTO balance is available here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1XxddloqL69crLVeCVS2Xwya32rtNOU6DHCr2lPHrBHE/edit?usp=sharing

Carrying over PTO days from one year to another

Your PTO day balance at the end of the year will be carried over to the next year. However, you cannot carry over your PTO balance twice. This means you cannot start the year with over 29 days of PTO.

Communicating Your Time Off

As outlined above, it's expected that you provide your Team who may expect to work with you with as much advanced notice as possible about your planned time off.
Set your gmail setting to out of office.
If you are the organizer of any meetings, cancel or move them.
It may be useful to share your planned time off as an FYI on your team's Slack channel(s); especially if you lead a team.
Mark in Slack your status as vacationing with description saying when you'll be back

Study leave

Study leave is available for matriculated students in higher education (excluding post doctors) taking exams and is available up to 14 days per year in addition to your average PTO days.

Sick leave

Take time off if you are unwell. This does not count towards your PTO if it is one or two days. This is assuming you need a day or two off, then just take them.

If you need more than 2 days off, please speak to your team lead so we can work out a plan. In some countries, we may be required to request a doctor's note from you.

This is the case for example in Estonia where you need to register your sick leave with family doctor (GP) in order for national health insurance to compensate your salary instead of the employer.

Bereavement policy

This time does not count toward your PTO.

If you lost a family member, close relative or a child you need to take some time off. Whether it is to plan for the funeral or recover emotionally and mentally. Please talk to your Team Lead when you need to take time off and during your time off please let us know every now and then how you are doing.

We can accommodate up to 2 weeks of paid time off. Anything longer than that needs to be agreed on separately and you may need to use your PTO days.