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Building the Dream Team: Misfits wanted

Ordinary people build ordinary things. We want to build extraordinary things so we look for extraordinary people.

Arne Wolfewicz · Co-Founder & CEO

Published on July 24, 2024

When we went into our recent hiring marathon, we needed to figure out what we were looking for. As believers in growth mindsets our main concerns are around character traits and personal passions. School, grades, or previous work experience are merely directional pointers than decision gates for us.

We want to share our thoughts around this subject so you, as a potential future team member, get a better sense if this could be for you.

What we value

Authenticity. We hire humans, not just their skills. We invite you to bring your whole personality and work on things that excite you. We started this company not because we want to fit in but work on interesting problems – and we offer this opportunity to anyone joining us.

Drive. For us, being a "nerd" is a badge of honor. We seek to work with individuals who want to work on interesting problems, take responsibility, and strive to improve the status quo. We don't impose greatness but we create an environment that fosters it.

Entrepreneurial spirit. Our goal is to be a catalyst for growth, whether for customers, partners, or team members. We strive to create an environment where individuals take risks and ownership – to grow our business as well as themselves.

Builder mindset. More labor does not make companies better, but focused attention does. We create compound effects by stacking the right "bricks” and we seek individuals who enjoy building things – whether that's in code, customer relationships, or any other area.

Diversity. Our goal is to raise the average with every hire. We don’t have all the answers so we look to enhance our collective knowledge and capabilities by bringing together bright minds with various backgrounds.

Our hiring process

During all interviews we primarily look for two things:

  1. Fit with the outlined values
  2. What gets you out of bed and if we think that will move us forward

The best way to demonstrate both is by being yourself and showing us what you did in your free time. We don’t expect you to have built full applications or written a novel. We want to understand how you act on your interests and tackle problems when nobody is evaluating your work other than yourself.

Finally, we proceed if we have a strong yes from everyone involved in the process. The reason for this is two-fold: Upon joining you should have full confidence that you are wanted on the team by everyone you spoke to. And we want to keep our team surprisingly small, hence you will have tremendous leverage on our progress.

How we work

We win through learning. Everyone makes mistakes. Our goal is not to avoid them but take calculated risks and courageous actions to learn from the results and adjust as fast as possible.

We give responsibility. We aim to make this company a playground for adults to express themselves. This works if everyone pulls their weight and constantly challenges their and our collective assumptions for how we can reach our goals.

We give ownership. For us it goes without saying that we pay as much as economically feasible and offer generous options packages on top. Beyond that, we hire people who take charge of what they are working on with minimum interference – unless you ask for it.

We keep meetings to a minimum. We believe great things happen during deep work phases and that planning and alignment are essential. When we hold meetings, we minimize the number of people involved and aim for focused attention.

We go places. We think that work can be done in different parts of the world and try to use that liberty through regular company trips. This offsite hackathon environment is both productive and fun, and we want to keep this up as long as possible.

Curious?

Check out our open positions here.

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