ZipRecruiter’s TechWeek focuses on rendering relationships
ZipRecruiter’s technical team is growing at a record pace. That’s what it takes to fuel the unprecedented reshuffling of our nation’s workforce, and actively connect each job seeker to their next great opportunity.
We bring together the entire tech, product, and analytics teams twice a year for TechWeek; five jam-packed days of socializing and team-building, honing technical skills, and launching new projects.
2022 was special. After a pandemic apart, we were eager to reconnect. Over 300 engineers, PMs, and data scientists converged in Santa Monica, CA, from across the US, Israel, Canada, and Australia. In addition to hands-on technical workshops and inspiring TED-style talks, we enjoyed fancy receptions, foodie delights, award ceremonies, and workouts to burn it all off.
Casual chats and non-formal interaction as top-priority
The number of ZipRecruiter engineers more than doubled in the past two years and many had gone the entirety without ever meeting face-to-face. Reconnecting, mingling, and networking were therefore made a top priority by Boris Shimanovsky, ZipRecruiter’s CTO.
“We’re all geeks here, so naturally workshop participation was very high,” says Lior Knaany, a Senior Software Engineer in ZipRecruiter’s Job Seeker team. “The casual chats and laughs in between yoga poses or during trivia night, however, were extremely important, especially for later when you’re remote again. One tends to interpret the intention and tone of a message or email much more positively after spending a good time with someone.”
“It was inspiring to see how much the company invested in us — parties, get togethers, all very classy and really designed to make the most of non-formal or non-tech interactions. A five-minute lightning talk, given by two folks from the Core Infrastructure team, showcased psychological aspects of such prolonged separation. We did some breathing exercises and mentally focused on enjoying ourselves.”
“It’s natural to laugh, learn and chat with top management”
ZipRecruiter prides itself on having an open culture, where good ideas prevail and everyone can be a leader. This is driven by senior management who continuously create systems that encourage employee-led initiatives (think guilds, committees, forums…) and always have an ‘open door’.
“From my perspective, it’s natural to laugh, learn and chat with top management,” notes Amit Munichor, a Machine Learning Engineer in the SEO team. “They frequently come up to me in the office, ask what I’m doing today and how they can help. It’s not trivial that being interested in what I do is a routine part of their work. TechWeek was no different. Boris and Ian, our CEO, both made sure to connect with every single person on site, and also held an open Q&A session. Let me tell you — no question was too taboo.”
ZipRecruiter 2022 TechWeek management Q&A session (Left: Boris Shimanovsky, CTO. Right: Ian Siegel, CEO & Co-founder)
Many opportunities to grow, and teaching is one
Knowledge, knowledge, and more knowledge. Over 10 different workshops and 20 lightning talks were delivered voluntarily by ZipRecruiter employees to their colleagues. Presenting an idea eloquently in five minutes or teaching hands-on actionable skills in a 1.5-hour workshop is not an easy feat, especially when you’re in front of some of the world’s most seasoned engineers.
Kobi Salant, is a Big Data Engineer in the Recommendations team which matches between job seekers and relevant open positions, a core feature of ZipRecruiter’s offering. “At the moment we’re rebuilding our whole data pipeline to use Spark Structured Streaming on Kubernetes instead of Amazon EMR,” says Kobi “giving us data freshness with mere seconds latency. In other companies, that’s science fiction”.
“Our workshop covered the basics of how Spark Structured Streaming works, and we explored real use cases using real data. People from many different backgrounds attended, all interested in learning new skills and applying it in their field. There’s so much effort that goes into creating a workshop, and you grow so much just preparing for it, but seeing actionable value delivered to others is a real treat.”
ZipRecruiter 2022 TechWeek Workshop
Lior Knaany says he has a love-hate relationship with presenting: “I’ve been on stage a lot in my career, but I still get butterflies and anxiety, it’s never easy. Nevertheless, it was important for me to pass on the knowledge and also proudly present what our team has achieved. Luckily, sharing in ZipRecruiter is very fulfilling — everyone is keen to learn, support, and build new things together.”
The focus of Lior’s workshop was ‘Enriching existing datasets’ using standardized common-code. This is what makes the whole process faster and ensures the data is trustworthy. “There is lots more insightful data available than what a user actually inputs,” explains Lior. “For example, by analyzing the right information about the positions each job seeker applies for, we can create new secondary datasets that help understand what people with certain backgrounds are looking for, and then actively offer it to them.”
This article provides a peek into #LifeatZipRecruiter on our Tech Team. Interested in working with people like this, in an unmatched environment? Visit our Careers page.
