Bastille and MakeSpace — Filling a critical hire while shortening the interview process.
The company:
MakeSpace is a startup that is changing the self-storage industry. They pick up, store, and redeliver the customer’s goods without the need to actually go visit the unit. Everything happens “in the cloud”, via an easy-to-use interface.
The problem:
MakeSpace was looking to make a critical hire on their platform team, which is responsible for building the software that powers the logistics behind the service. Optimizing logistics is key to MakeSpace’s competitive advantage, so the team needed a particularly talented individual to fill the role.
A combination of a high tech bar and a very tight hiring market for engineers in New York made it difficult for MakeSpace to complete the hire. They had gone through dozens of on-sites, and had made a couple of offers. But nothing had stuck yet.
Bastille’s process
Bastille vets each candidate’s technical abilities through a proprietary take-home assessment. Companies receive a scorecard, along with the candidate’s code and grader’s feedback.
Surfaced a non-traditional candidate
Paul Baranay had always planned on becoming a professor, and early in his academic career became captivated by bioinformatics (the intersection of biology, statistics, and engineering). As such coding was something he had learned in pieces, specifically to solve problems related to his field of study. He does not have a computer science degree.
But ultimately Paul grew disillusioned by the prospect of a career in academia. He decided to pivot to the private sector and startups in particular, and focus his energy there.
Although his academic record was impressive, companies were still uncertain about his ability to code at the level of a classically trained CS major with more software engineering experience. To put it simply, his resume was non-traditional.
Thankfully, Bastille’s assessment allowed MakeSpace to evaluate him up front, without risking any time in a potentially poor tech screen.
Optimized interview time
By getting “the tech stuff sorted” earlier in the process, MakeSpace could have a much more interesting conversation with Paul. Instead of the usual screening questions, MakeSpace could focus on higher-level tech conversations, and more importantly gauging whether Paul was the right cultural fit for the startup.
Shortened the interview process
“Bastille allowed us to skip a step and shorten the process,” says Nicolas Grasset, MakeSpace’s CTO. “We ran through the whole process efficiently and without blocking.”
Normally MakeSpace has their own take-home test which can add an additional week to the process, not to mention the potential for interview fatigue on the candidate side.
Removing this part cut the interview time substantially, and thus got MakeSpace to an offer stage before any other interested employers were close.
In the end Paul got to move to a full software development role, the exact kind of role he was looking for. MakeSpace finally closed the position, and can now focus on scaling their platform as the company grows. “With Bastille, I’ve done the shortest interview flow without compromising on quality,” says Grasset.
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