What’s Fi’s hiring philosophy all about?
Ever wonder what it’s like to start hiring for a company immediately after getting hired by that company yourself? Us neither, because of the sheer unlikelihood of it!
But here’s Daksh Talwar, a software engineer at Fi, who did just that. So, we caught up with this self-professed connoisseur of butter chicken and single malts for a fresh perspective on Fi’s hiring philosophy.
Below are excerpts from the third part in our series on Interviewing The Interviewers at Fi.
First things first, what’s it like hiring for Fi right after getting hired yourself?
It was a new experience. You get to know a company incrementally, and for me it was refreshing to be the face of Fi while I was figuring out my own place here as well. More than anything, I think it shows the confidence that Fi is ready to put into its people.
I usually take the technical rounds of interviews for potential teammates, which is a proxy for testing your software engineering skills. This round is agnostic of the work I do at Fi or what you do at your company.
We don’t have a hiring philosophy, but if we did, how would you put it?
Fi’s hiring philosophy stands on three main pillars:
1. We are very aware that it is not just us assessing the potential teammate, they’re assessing us as a company as well. There is no power dynamics in an interview, we’re both looking for the next meaningful partnership — it’s an interaction of equals. We realize that there’s no shortage of good people and there’s no shortage of good places to work either. It’s a level playing field.
2. Cultural fit makes or breaks an association, and we keep it as one of our core principles. At Fi, we don’t compromise on culture for the sake of skills.
3. At the end of the day, what tends to drive the decision is whether or not we feel that you would make Fi better. Even if it’s 0.1% better, that would be a good signal. It’s called bar-raising — the idea is that every new person joining the team should raise the average bar of talent and culture across the company.
What do you look for in a potential Fian?
When looking for a potential teammate, we look for expertise and understanding of role-related knowledge (RRK), general cognitive ability (GCA), and culture fitment.
We’re not looking only for people with expertise in our tech stack, or the specific solutions that an interviewer may be working on. We’re looking for potential teammates that’ll help us create something meaningful together. So, even if you don’t carry the exact experience or skills we’re looking for today, if you have enough learning potential and culture fit, that’s good enough for us.
If you had to choose between talent and experience…?
For me, it’s equal parts skill, passion, and the ability to work in a team. Technical skills are obviously very important when looking for the right fit for a role, but how much you value your work also matters a lot. If you are passionate about what you do, it shows and greatly impacts how easily you’ll blend in with the team.
There’s a whole lot of tech companies and even fintechs out there. So, what makes you pick Fi?
There are quite a few things that stand out when choosing Fi. You’d always find yourself in a welcoming and positive culture where people genuinely respect each other. You’d be led by a team of seasoned leaders who have a solid long term vision for the product. You’d find that the decision making process relies on logical arguments and no one pulls rank. And overall, everyone understands why focusing on culture and being a great place to work is at least as important, if not more than working on the latest tech.
Interested in helping us build Fi? Check out our open roles here.
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