Kiwibot Framework for Technology Hires

Kiwi Campus team — Medellín, Colombia. Nov 2018.

As obvious as it is, I’ll say it out loud. Hiring technical people is no easy task. Even for a company like ours, in which, for its very nature attracts a ton of great people, attracting, selecting and actually hiring the right people is a hard problem. Keeping true to our startup DNA, we have always been ready for a good dose of experimentation. Hiring, of course, is not outside the realm of trying and improving over your mistakes. What I present next is our current philosophy for hiring, together with some insights and learnings. This document is intended for whoever is currently in the process of hiring, either technical recruiters, CTO’s and technical leaders. All comments are more than welcome 😃.

Attract talent

Technical people are first and foremost motivated by learning. The two most important items that will attract the right candidates will be what you as a company are doing, and who the teammates are going to be.

What we are doing

The what question is a little tricky. A lot of writers and thought leaders will tell you that you have to first speak about the why. I have found that when you describe really well what you are doing, it actually works better, mainly because the right what will convey a lot of right why’s.

When I speak about what we do, I like to first establish that we are not a tech company, but a delivery company. That is our business. Delivery is what we want to accomplish. The technology in our case is not a goal in itself, but a medium to get where we want. Having this clarity allows you to set the expectations right from the beginning, creating the right alignment even before candidates are hired. But of course, it does not end like that, because you have to show your ambition, your goals. Our case again: We are a delivery company, but an ambitious, innovative one. We want to make all traditional delivery companies obsolete, reducing cost by an order of magnitude. We want to make delivery completely free for everyone. Fast, reliable, scalable. We want to create a world where humans and machines interact alongside daily, out in the streets, the most unstructured environment possible. We want to enable new business models and defeat the likes of Amazon, Doordash and Postmates in their own game.

The bar is set really high from the start. Technology is not a goal but the only way we can achieve such high goals. Let your candidates imagine the kind of technology they will have to create in order to solve the problems posted but the what.

The team

There is no better way of learning than having the most amazing team. The dynamics of teachings, learnings, and exploration that occur amongst a great team are incredible. Showcase the strengths of the team from the very beginning. If you feel proud of your team, make sure your candidates know it!

Understanding Candidates

People’s motivations at work are quite different. You should define your filters to try to understand what makes your candidates move. The main motivators I’ve found so far are:

1. Learning: Quite a big deal for engineers and technical people. This one is a MUST for ANY candidate. If he/she is not interested in learning, we should rule them out right away. But do not get fooled, not all positions offer the same learning opportunities for everybody. If you, above all else, want to learn AI, getting into a Mobile Dev position will become frustrating even if you are on an AI heavy company. You should be open and honest about the learning possibilities, understanding exactly what is the candidates are really interested in.
2. Achievement: Often the main motivator for salespeople. The feeling of a closed deal or a successfully completed project should be really important for candidates applying to positions in charge of guiding the execution for the company. This positions should be fulfilled by goal-oriented people. It is less necessary for technical positions, but a good measure of this motivator complements a candidate, independently of the position they are applying for.
3. Money/perks/life quality: Quite important for people, we want our employees to be relaxed about the more mundane aspects of life. But if candidates are way too focused on this part, it might be a red flag right away. We will compensate appropriately people, but this never should be the main motivator.
4. Love for the art: Of course it varies amongst people, but some of them just want to do their craft for craft’s sake. They love what they do and don’t care about much else. Not the context, not the company nor anything beyond the art itself. If this is the main motivator for a person, they become purists. it is clear we want people who love what they do, but working with purists can become tricky in no time. If this the main motivator for a candidate, he or she should be assessed quite carefully as the problems they bring might outweigh the gains in no time.

The main take away is: Understand what candidates want deep in their hearts, see if it matches what you have to offer.

David Cardozo — AI & Robotics Lead at Kiwi Campus

Candidate dimensions

By identifying individual performance dimensions and testing them individually, we can have a better match between candidate and position, making sure we get what we need at the end.

Logic and abstract reasoning

In general the brighter the better. Right now we are applying tests that serve to identify a candidate’s ability level. Our programming test is designed to apply algorithms that require a good enough level of logic and abstract reasoning. The questions located at the end also help measure this.

Learning Ability

Not sure yet how to directly test for this in a quick interview. One way that we are trying to do so is by sending our questions an hour and a half in advance. This way, we are also testing for candidate’s resourcefulness.

Resourcefulness

We ask directly: “How do you handle situations when you don’t know what to do?”. We expect answers that describe an attitude of:

• Problems can be solved, you just have to look for the answer
• The candidate first tries to solve it himself, really fast
• Candidate does not stop easily
• Asking for help is ok but if it is the only resource the candidate speaks about, it is a red flag.

Discipline

Discipline is always good, as the old Japanese saying reads: “Sooner or later, discipline defeats intelligence”. Intelligence plus discipline are the perfect combination.

Knowledge

Specific tests will depend on the specific position

Experience

We have found that experience is important, but do not over-rely on that. So far, the best people we have worked with are a good balance of enough experience (not necessarily the most) and the other dimensions here mentioned.

Soft skills

Candidates that cannot speak to people are a rather poor selection.

Proposed Hiring Framework

This is yet an initial approach to a formalized framework, a guide for our hiring efforts. So far it is intended for technical recruits mainly, but might be further extended. Again, just an initial approach. This document might guide the selection process for several levels though (from intern to senior)

1. What do you need? I mean, what you really, really need across several dimensions.
2. Define your minimum across dimensions
3. Not necessarily the best people for all circumstances? I mean, seniority level is important. It will depend on the intended activities to be executed by the role. Developers are quite expensive. Amazing people will have a great impact but some roles might just not need that much. That being said, you should always try to hire the best people for your budget.
4. Sourcing of candidates: LinkedIn plus referrals have been our best allies so far.
5. Cultural fit. Will they fit in our culture? The way we work is suitable for them? It is important to test for this and set the expectations right from the very beginning. I’ve found it indispensable to be honest and clear from the onset. Many candidates won’t actually back down if you say the bads in your company. No company is perfect, yours probably is not either. By the way, transparent, clear honesty is a value we have put a lot of effort towards. We have not yet got there, but I’ll talk more about culture in a different post.
6. Important: What we have to offer is something they want? This one is tricky. For example, we do a lot of AI, and people at the company can learn a lot from their pairs. That said, not all positions will offer a chance to directly work on AI. What I said about motivators above applies here.
7. Test each dimension individually as much as possible.

Our process

What we are doing right now (and subject to change at any moment) is:

1. Reach out
2. Over the phone cultural fit interview. Some basic questions trying to identify candidates with the correct intelligence, discipline, and character. We want nice people working with us. It is indispensable for us to be resourceful.
3. Video call technical interview. This one I’m doing myself. I test in depth for intelligence, abstract reasoning, and general tech knowledge.
4. Supplementary interviews or programming test depending on previous performance.

Final thoughts

Hiring is yet to be fully invented and we keep on improving our process. All comments will always be welcomed.

Between, did I mentioned we are hiring? I would post the links here, but where is the resourcefulness to that 😉?