Hiring Insights in Different Companies

A comprehensive guide to understanding how different types of companies conduct interviews and what they look for in candidates. Learn about seniority levels, company types, and career path recommendations.

What Influences Company Interview Processes?

Your Seniority Level

  • • Junior
  • • Middle
  • • Senior
  • • Lead

Type of Company

  • • Consultancy
  • • Startups
  • • Scale-ups
  • • Corporations

Seniority Levels

Junior

Very motivated to learn. Should be "smart" or really dedicated.

Middle

Can "make it work", but requires supervision, cause might fall into serious pitfalls.

Senior

Independent. Can do and can support product in the future.

Lead

Same as Senior, but with focus on building a team and software development processes.

Example: Soft Skills & Processes

Middle:Follow established processes, understand what's used (Scrum/Kanban)
Senior:Follow + suggest improvements, propose tweaks
Lead:Choose, implement, change processes from scratch

Interview Questions by Seniority

Direct vs Situational Questions

Middle/Senior:"How does garbage collection work?"
Lead:Situational scenario (memory consumption pattern, analyze & solve)

Quality Assurance Example

Middle/Senior:"How would you implement tests? CI/CD?"
Lead:"How do you ensure code quality?" + "Customer says product is shit - approach?"

Key Difference

  • • Lead questions: abstract, no clues, test understanding vs memorization
  • • Situational questions prevent prepared answers

Company Types

Outsourcing Companies

Characteristics

  • • Mostly they are looking for a specific project
  • • They are looking for hard skills. You should be able to contribute tomorrow
  • • Well-established processes
  • • Clear expectations from the roles: competency matrices
  • • Interested in growing the employees competence
  • • Internal mobility
  • • Educational platforms & meetups

Note: The tech interview most likely will be with another engineer not related to the project

Best For

  • • Beginning of the career: Perfect start, learn from professionals, see all roles
  • • End of the career: Stable environment, consulting opportunities
  • • Surrounded by specialists

Example: EPAM Systems

  • • Company culture
  • • Growth focus
  • • Clear expectations
  • • Knowledge sharing opportunities
  • • Mentorship programs

Startups

A whole new dimension of hiring

Story: Seniority ≠ Delivery

Senior engineer:perfect code, 2 months, low commitment
Middle engineer:crappier code initially, 2 weeks, evolved quickly

Lesson: motivation & delivery > seniority

Belbin Roles Approach

  • • Research on successful teams
  • • 12 roles in teams
  • • Assess team gaps before hiring
  • • Hire for missing puzzle pieces

Characteristics

  • • No established processes
  • • Rapid evolution, unique situations
  • • People wear many hats
  • • Unstable positions (gaps when people leave)
  • • Radical responsibility - crucial skill

What They Look For

  1. 1. Motivation (primary)
  2. 2. Competency/Smartness
  3. 3. Culture fit (chemistry matters)

Hard skills gaps more acceptable. Check: GitHub, personal projects, passion for profession

When to Join

  • • NOT as junior (risky, might learn bad practices)
  • • AFTER outsourcing experience (know typical processes first)
  • • Lots of responsibility opportunities
  • • Best: outsourcing → startup

Scale-ups

Characteristics

  • • Growing, expanding teams
  • • Formalizing processes
  • • Communication complexity (team-to-team)
  • • Not limited in money
  • • Established hiring conveyor

Hiring Process

  • • 3-5 interview rounds (can afford it)
  • • Focus on competency & hard skills
  • • Hiring for new departments/streams
  • • Looking for leaders to establish new processes
  • • Culture fit still important
  • • Lower cost of hiring mistakes

Promotion Opportunities

  • • IF company develops: lots of opportunities
  • • Vacant positions for newcomers & existing employees
  • • Earlier you join, better positions available
  • • May or may not have competency metrics yet
  • • Best place if actively growing

Corporates

Characteristics

  • • Big, slow, lazy
  • • Trying to be "agile" (often superficial)
  • • Greenfield projects might work startup-style
  • • Legacy products: very slow development

Example: Dutch Telecom

  • • 1.5 years of "MVP" development
  • • Designer says UI is bad → 6+ months redesign
  • • Continuous delays, no urgency
  • • No pressure to release & test

Reality

  • • No release pressure
  • • Lots of money, rigid vision
  • • Outsourcing companies help (but paid to wait)
  • • Slow decision-making

Career Path Recommendations

Optimal Path

  1. 1. Start:Outsourcing (learn processes, see professionals)
  2. 2. Growth:Startup (apply knowledge, take responsibility)
  3. 3. Scale:Scale-up (opportunities, structured growth)
  4. 4. Stability:Corporate or back to outsourcing

Key Takeaways

  • • Different companies = different priorities
  • • Motivation vs competency vs culture balance varies
  • • Hard skills importance varies by company type
  • • Radical responsibility crucial in startups
  • • Belbin roles to build a team

How Candidates May Impress

  • •Teach me something!
  • •Personal Chemistry
  • •Having pet-projects - indicates interest in your field/profession:
  • -Having a personal website
    -GitLab or GitHub repo
  • •If you tested the product and provided some feedback
  • •Come back after the interview with questions/followup/suggestions

Additional Resources

Reverse Interview Questions

Prepare questions to ask your interviewer:

https://github.com/viraptor/reverse-interview

Job Search = Sales Process

The process of a job search in a nutshell is the same as sales process. But you sell yourself, and you should be picky about it. So you can use same principles.

How to Get Through HR (First Layer of Defence)

  • • Have someone inside of company to refer you
  • • Reach out CEO, CTO, Managers directly in LinkedIn/email
  • • Use AI!