Every growing company is engaged in an ongoing battle for ‘talent’. There aren’t enough great developers to go around and they have plenty of choices when it comes to employment, commanding high salaries, share options, and all the perks. In this talk, Elpie and Alex will share some of their experience in finding, hiring, nurturing, and developing technical talent in a fast-growing not-for-profit company (hint: it isn’t all about the salary). You will learn how maximizing culture, impact, and opportunities for personal development enables Simprints to hire effectively and stand out from the crowd. Those lessons are applicable to all businesses. Video of this talk is available here: https://businessofsoftware.wistia.com/medias/1cdn2uztc1

1. Finding and Nurturing Tech Talent
BoS Europe - April 2019
www.simprints.com

3. www.simprints.com

4. Alex Yang
VP Engineering

5. Elpie Bannister
Director of Talent

6. www.simprints.com

7. Global deployments
www.simprints.com

8. www.simprints.com

12. Growing a superstar team
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13. ● High-level strategy
● Sourcing candidates
● Screening candidates
● Assessing candidates
● Closing candidates
● Data-driven approach
www.simprints.com

14. Purpose
Early
Career
Unusual
Places

15. Value proposition for candidates
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16. Broadly, there are five key factors that attract and motivate top talent
1. Learning. How much am I learning and growing?
2. Autonomy. How much freedom do I have over my time and
tasks?
3. Culture. Do I love the people and environment where I work?
4. Salary. How much am I paid?
5. Purpose. Does what I do resonate with my personal values?
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19. Sourcing candidates
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23. “Like all craftsmen, hackers like good tools. In fact,
that's an understatement. Good hackers find it
unbearable to use bad tools. They'll simply refuse to
work on projects with the wrong infrastructure.”
-Paul Graham
List specific tech in your stack
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24. ● Use the latest technologies:
○ Languages: Kotlin
○ Libraries: Jetpack, RxJava, Dagger 2
○ Testing: Espresso, Mockito, Robolectric
○ Cloud: Firebase, BigQuery, Cloud Functions
○ Other tools: Jira, Bitrise
List specific tech in your stack
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25. ● Co-workers committed to writing high quality code.
If you haven’t read ‘Clean Code’, we highly
recommend it! Our informal Clean Code Officer
helps keep us honest.
Demonstrate value
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27. ● Incredible perks
○ Unlimited paid time off. Last year, the average
Simprints employee took a total of 31 days off
(annual leave plus UK bank holidays), an
increase from 26 two years ago.
○ Two ‘LEGO Days’ each quarter where you can
work on any project you want. Past projects
have ranged from exploring image processing
techniques to building a LEGO train to deliver
beer around the office
Be specific
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31. Requirements - Before
Tech Skills
● Computer Science degree or equivalent experience
● Highly capable at reading and writing complex code
● Ability to break down complex ideas into simple pieces
● Understand the importance of automated and scalable testing
● Passion for great design and user experience
Human Skills
● Learning. You love learning new things and can pick up new tools quickly
● Flexibility. The best tool for the job won’t always be the most familiar tool
● Detail-oriented. You understand the importance of the small things
● Passion. If building technology for global health sounds exciting, we want to
meet you
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32. Requirements - After
About you
● At least four years of experience building, integrating, testing, and supporting
Android applications for mobile and tablet devices
● Professional experience writing tests and running continuous integration
systems
● Solid understanding of the full software development lifecycle including
application architecture design
● Deep understanding of Android SDK
Bonus points:
● BS/MS/PhD in Computer Science or a related field
● Experience in other languages such as Kotlin
● Familiarity using third-party libraries like Jetpack, RxJava, and Dagger 2
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33. Screening candidates
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40. 1. A job offer
2. Feedback
3. Radio silence
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41. 1. A job offer
2. Feedback
3. Radio silence
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% response rate

43. Assessing candidates
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Candidate applies
via our careers page
Values Interview
Attract applicants CV Screen and
Coding Challenge
Technical Interview
Trial Day

45. Clean Code
Succinct CV
GitHub
Side Projects

46. Mistakes?
Appetite for
learning?
Pride in work?

47. Perfect & Late
v
Good & On-
time
Warning label?
Technical
Expertise
Teach us
something

49. 5
£900
62%
46%
50:50

50. Pros
Day-in-the-life
Build relationships
Deep dive into
skills
Cons
Cost
Time
Feels bad to say no

51. Closing candidates
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55. Be data-driven
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56. 1. Days to Offer
1. Qualified Candidates Per Hire
1. Offer Acceptance Rate
3 key metrics
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57. 60
12
86%
1. Days to Offer
1. Qualified Candidates Per Hire
1. Offer Acceptance Rate
3 key metrics
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58. Simprints relies heavily on Stack Overflow for volume

59. Non-Stack Overflow sources small but promising
1% of Stack Overflow candidates progress to Trial Day, vs 25% for other sources
AngelList + LinkedIn + Word of mouthStack Overflow

60. We don’t have enough local candidates

61. Takeaways
● Nontraditional channels
● Specific job postings
● Must-haves vs. nice-to-haves
● Tailored approach
● Personalized offer letter
● Signature page
● Test both conceptual and
practical knowledge
● Align on salary early
● Trial Days
SourcingAssessing
● Coding challenges > CVs
● Coding + CVs in 1 screen
● 100% response rate
ScreeningClosing
● Measure everything
● Use an ATS
● Monitor key hiring metrics
Data
www.simprints.com

63. ● Email me at alex@simprints.com
● We’re hiring for multiple roles - come talk to me
www.simprints.com

64. Any Questions?
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