The recruitment took around six weeks. There was a single point of contact throughout the complete journey. The person was very informative, friendly, and always quickly responded to my questions. He organized the process very well, and at every step, I was clear where I am in the pipeline and what to expect next. The recruitment was conducted entirely online and remotely, over Zoom audio and email. Through the entire process, I was talking only to software engineers with different backgrounds and roles in the company. It was easy to understand and answer their questions as I was talking to people with the same experience and mindset. The talks and the test were revolving around real-world questions, a simplified replica of the typical day-to-day developer work in this company. I was surprised by how well this simple model worked. The process was simple, yet offering plenty of opportunities to demonstrate the qualities the team needs from a new member. The first step was a set of screening questions the applicant has to answer while applying. The questions were not difficult, yet helpful to select the people with the right technical knowledge and the right attitude to continue the process. The next step was 30 min general interview with the person who was the primary contact. It covered mostly general, non-technical topics, and was a friendly talk. Then there was a coding challenge. The task was simple in technical terms, and the candidates had several days over a weekend to complete it, so everyone could give the best solution one can. The focus of the challenge was not only to check technical knowledge, but also to test handling ambiguous requirements, to get practical judgment making and justifying technical decisions, and to prove an ability to write professional, production-ready code. Next, there was a 1-hour interview with two developers from the team looking for a new member. It included some technical discussions about the coding challenge and past projects, as well as general topics. Finally, it took some weeks to prepare and finalize the offer.

I applied through an ad I found on remoteok, and was eventually put into contact with someone. I took an initial interview over the phone, then I had an at-home programming project. Then followed several interviews with different employees of different parts of the company. I accidentally totally missed one and they were kind enough to reschedule. The whole process took a few weeks from start to finish.