If you’re a developer who wants to join a team of friendly and welcoming people dedicated to learning, growth and building great software, this post is for you.
Wait, you said remote?
The times are changing! Like many companies before COVID, thoughtbot was already thinking about what combination of in-office and flexible remote work made sense for us. COVID and quarantining accelerated some of those decisions, and we entirely revisited how we are structured and serve clients.
We’re no longer looking for developers in specific cities but anywhere throughout Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (UTC through UTC+3) instead. These timezones match our client base, which we are keen to grow this year!
Greater diversity in our team
Our team used to work together out of a studio in London. Now we are all adjusted to remote working within our team and with our clients, and we are excited to explore the opportunities that hiring from further afield brings. Finding new team members who live outside of London, or even the UK, means we will become a stronger team. For example, when we work in diverse groups, we design software with greater empathy and ultimately make products more successful.
Diversity, equity and inclusion are crucial to thoughtbot. Our colleague, George, recently wrote about our hiring activity in the Americas, which applies to us too, and in 2021 we have updated and invested more in our internal training for all employees to educate and support them.
Improving interviews
Our new “Work from Anywhere” position meant we needed to think about the interview experience, too - both for us and the prospective new team member.
We are conscious that we live in the real world and that your time is essential to you. You don’t have time to spend hours on a code test. You have work to do; you have a life to live. We consider your time throughout the hiring process. We only ask for more of your time as we progress through the stages, and our confidence in a good match increases.
At each stage of the hiring process, we care for all of our candidates’ attributes. We are not looking for those “10x” engineers with an excellent Computer Science background. We are looking for well-rounded individuals who care about the product as much as their code quality. We want to know about you and what drives you. Yes, we expect a technical proficiency level, but we want to know about you as a person too. We’ll be spending a lot of time together!
We are well aware that we all have unconscious biases. We pick up these biases throughout our upbringing, and it is impossible to live in this world without acquiring some assumptions. We don’t want to ignore these biases. Instead, we want to work to recognise and counteract them. We have designed our interviews to use a standardised rubric. Each interviewer also independently submits their feedback to reduce the likelihood of one person influencing the other. We want to ensure that we give everyone a fair and equal chance, from inviting applications from every suitable person to making equitable offers to successful applicants.
Continuous improvement
Continuous improvement is central to how we work at thoughtbot, and that applies to how we build our team as it does to how we develop our software.
We’re not perfect, but we’re committed to doing the work and always getting better. We’ve already had some beneficial feedback from candidates, e.g. ensuring there are breaks built into the final stage interview day to avoid the famous zoom fatigue! We won’t stop asking for this feedback - the world does not stand still, and neither do we.
We encourage candidates from all backgrounds and locations in the EMEA region to apply.
Check out the following roles and apply today!
