How I became part of CodersFirst
Ever since I’d started my adventure as a student at AGH UST in Krakow, I was actively contributing to a non-profit student organisation called BEST (Board of European Students of Technology). To be honest, BEST was my main area of focus as my faculty was not that much demanding. I will not lie or exaggerate to say I was addicted to it — I got to meet great people, travel and create events I would never had thought I’d create. However, after 3 years spend with amazing people organizing amazing things, I’d made the decision to move to a different city — Warsaw.
I still had my last semester to graduate, but I was determined to make it while living 300km away. I felt it was time for me to be get totally in charge of my life, so the first step to do this was to find a job in Warsaw, so that I can actually afford living there. I packed my stuff, moved out from Krakow to live with my parents in Olsztyn (200km away from Warsaw) for a short while and while doing on obligatory internship for my uni I was looking for a job in a different city. Now that I think of it I’m not sure if I was brave of rather crazy, but what I know for sure that I was really determined to make it happen.
The most challenging part was that, since the internship was basically a full time job it was impossible for me to travel for an interview in Warsaw (around 3 hours by train) during a work week and still show up at work the next day. So my only option was to request a remote call, what in most cases wasn’t possible — and I thought it was XXI century…
Anyway, I kept on searching since I didn’t have much of a choice. There were several offers particularly interesting to me and I even had like 2 interviews. Even though the feedback was positive, they decided to go with somebody else. I was getting close to give up and get hired at a small estate shop with that pays 300EUR per month.
And then one offer caught my attention. Actually, it wasn’t exactly the offer, but rather the speed with which this company worked. I sent my CV and like 20 mins later I got a notification that it was opened, even though it was 7:30PM. ‘Wow, they work this late?’ — I thought to myself. It automatically reminded me of long late hours of working on project when being active member of BEST. And that was the first sign that seemed appealing to me regarding CodersFirst. A day later I received an email with official invitation to the first stage of the recruitment process, which consisted of several steps:
- Phone call (1 hour long)
- Online assignment (3 hours long)
- Phone call (30mins)
- Meeting with the Founders (2 hours)
To top all that, at the beginning of the cooperation they were organising a 5-days long onboarding trip covered by the company and they were also providing a smartphone. For a person who was just considering a job at a grocery store with minimum pay this all sounded like a dream.
Of course I decided to take my chances and try. I was impressed by their professionalism — the communication was super dynamic and smooth. Moreover, they used tools like e.g. Calendly that allowed me to very easily schedule a good time for me to have a call. It was brilliant! It seemed so professional I started doubting myself that I could ever get hired in a company like this. After the first phone call I wasn’t sure if I will get to the next step. The issue was that it was a full time position and I still had one semester left to finish my uni in Krakow, which meant that I had to travel once a week to a different city. The call was quite demanding, but when I learnt it was a startup I felt like it was the exact environment I want to involve myself. It could be like my ‘new BEST’, but with actual salary and in Warsaw. It really sounded too perfect to come true.
Anyway, apparently the Founders thought that commuting to Krakow once a week will not be a big problem, because I was invited to another step — 3 hours long assessment. It consisted of a personality test, English test and a practical part: writing an email to a candidate, extracting technological information from LinkedIn profiles of developers and creating a job offer myself (the tasks are different now). I had no previous experience with this field. Sure, I was an engineering student and I had some C or C++ classes, but it was nothing comparing to the whole world of technology. Those were pretty hard tasks for me. I had 3 days to solve all that but I was seriously starting to think that I will not be able to make it good enough to next step. I was hesitating, but in the end I decided to give it a go. After all, the only thing I was risking to lose was 3 hours of my time.
It was around 20 mins after I’d submitted my assessment when recruiter from CodersFirst called me and said that she was actually anticipating my solution and that she’d like to invite me to the meeting with Founders right away. I was astonished, happy and speechless at the same time. It was totally the opposite of what I was thinking. There was nothing left for me to do than to schedule a meeting and travel to Warsaw!
The meeting was very nice, I could get to know more about my probable future job and I was obviously asked a bunch of questions. Even though at the end of the conversation the Founders told me that they were indeed interested in the cooperation with me, I still couldn’t absorb this information I was waiting for a cold shower that would wake me up from the dream. But the cold shower never happened.
An hour after the meeting was finished I received an email with the Letter of Intent with the details of the offer. Netflix, Tidal, Airbnb voucher and a plane ticket for around the world trip after 3 years of cooperation — WHAT?! It was seriously way more than I was expecting. Needless to say, I obviously took the job and a week later I went to the onboarding trip to Poznan. During this I got to know the basic tools we’re using, the style of work, the tasks that were ahead of me and basically what is the goal of CodersFirst. At the beginning of this trip I was also given a welcome pack with a new Nexus, headphones, CodersFirst mug, t-shirt, bag and more. It was also during this onboarding that I had an opportunity to try wakeboarding for the first time.
Even though the process was demanding and the onboarding was a time to absorb lots of information, I go back to this memories with a smile on my face. Seriously, I never had counted to find a job with such a great atmosphere and perspectives, employers that really care about my comfort and a ‘new BEST’ that I can dedicate myself to.
This is the story of how I became part of CodersFirst and I enjoyed every part of it. :)
