Equip Yourself for Success
By: Topher Cyll, Director of Engineering & Grace Bettinson

Perseverance, passion, and a little bit of personality are all keys to success in landing your next job. Topher Cyll, one of our Directors of Engineering at Salsify, gave us a few tips on how he evaluates candidates during our interview process. As a successful entrepreneur and Ruby expert himself, Topher is one of our engineering leaders tasked with hiring great software developers. In his own words, “We’re looking for individuals who are passionate for tech, are clear communicators, and have a sharp focus on delivering business value.”
To code this out for you (ha!), he follows the Salsify engineering values.
Empathy
Quality
Utility
Improvement
Passion
Empathy
Hiring team players is very important. Encouraging others to succeed and solving problems together are core parts of the office culture. In addition to typical whiteboard coding problems, expect to spend time talking through “tell me about a time when” style questions. These help us understand how you work, how you think about teams, and how you analyze project successes and failures.
Preparation tip: Reflect on your career before the interview — what have been your best professional experiences and why?
Quality + Utility
Just about all engineering interviews test for Quality (writing great code) and the smart companies make sure to cover Utility as well (code drives business value). Expect whiteboard coding and design discussions.
Preparation tip: It’s not worth trying to cram for this section of the interview. Building skill takes time and practice. However, a few good interviewing habits can help you put your best foot forward.
- Think Out Loud: Let us know what is going through your mind.
- Rephrase and Regurgitate the interviewer’s question: We want to know that you understand the question so you can focus on the problem at hand.
- Ask For Help: If you don’t know how to do something, propose alternatives, like walking us through the process you’d use to figure it out.
Improvement
We’re a fast growing company and we’re looking for engineers who are excited to grow with us! For example, every Friday, we give the engineers the opportunity to work on a project of their choice. Our engineers take on prototypes, refactoring, bug fixes, learning, writing, or teaching. We like ambitious projects and ideas.
Preparation tip: Be prepared to talk about opportunities where you moved out of your comfort zone and took on heavy, new projects. Did you work with others? Or Alone? Tell us everything!
Passion
A resume shows the journey of your career, but what gets you excited? Understanding your motivation is key to understand you and your capabilities. Does your passion come through in your work?
Preparation tip: Think back, has there been a unique project that you have worked on? Or have you studied an obscure programing language? Hint at ways that you are different: what makes you unique?
You’ll find a Salsify Engineering interview has lots of smiling faces, interesting problems, and plenty of chances to get a feel for what makes Salsify special.
Spend some time before an interview thinking through what matters to you in your next job. Does Salsify feel like the right fit to you? Apply today to find out!
Still need convincing?
If you still need convincing, check us out on Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, (@LifeAtSalsify).
Want to see your future coworkers? Read Here.
Interested in applying? Click Here.
