As the People Champion at Tarka Labs, I speak to incredibly talented, ambitious, and (fiercely) independent people every day. It’s always a balancing act, to understand if our internal vision aligns with a potential hire’s expectations, personal goals, and where they want to be.
We’re a focused and small collective on the lookout for seasoned tech experts, and frankly, so is everyone else — some of them with bigger teams and deeper pockets. This is where having an active hiring philosophy helps.
At Tarka Labs, our hiring philosophy has been an end result of deep internal discussions, and hours of self-reflection and analysis.
So here are my thoughts on our blueprint for hiring a potential ‘Tarkan’.
Wait, do we need to hire someone?
It’s important to start with the ‘Why’ of hiring.
We don’t believe that hiring is a ‘solution’ that magically fixes problems or the cure for an unhealthy growth obsession.
There are two crucial guidelines that define our hiring process.
1. We don’t hire for project needs
We don’t hire to fill seats for ongoing projects or add to our bench strength. It’s much simpler. We hire to find and build relationships with awesome and interesting folks worldwide, who align with our culture, vision, and philosophy of work.
2. Talent scouting is better than gatekeeping
As a recruiter, I’m given the direct autonomy of deciding anyone’s candidature. Our team engages with applicants based on my observations. This gives me skin in the game, is refreshing, and helps me have deeper and more meaningful conversations with candidates, rather than just screening their resumes.
When it comes to who we hire, we have guiding principles in place.
We ❤ makers, more than managers.
We’re a remote-first collective of experts, with a culture of absolute transparency.
We believe that a good organization gets out of the way of inspired individuals, helping them realize their full potential, and our policies are shaped by this belief.
We strongly encourage our team to build their personal brand (we’re happy to invest in them), take on side projects (in their personal time), shoulder accountability for their projects, and use our flexible leave policy at their discretion. We’re happy to sponsor new ideas and fund subscriptions.
And when we say flat, we mean it. We hire makers, not managers.
Software development is a craft that evolves like everything else, and we look for craftsmen who are ready to get their hands dirty, learn new technologies, and are inspired by more than just the monetary benefits of coding.
We prefer people who write code and avoid ivory tower architects who are disconnected from daily project challenges.
Getting our hiring down to a T.
We love people who can go both wide and deep.
Software consulting problems call for a balance between breadth of knowledge (multiple frameworks + languages) and depth of expertise in specific stacks. There’s no magic fix, so we love meeting people with T-shaped skills who can bring more than one solution to the table.
And then there’s the mindset.
In an environment without rigorous rules or hierarchies and in the absence of management, it’s difficult for people with a fixed mindset to set and pursue professional goals. We actively hire people with a growth mindset who believe that their potential to learn new skills is infinite and have the ambition and drive to pursue their vision.
We’re lucky to have team members who actively start internal initiatives, set up processes where they see gaps and anticipate and solve client problems — and this is something we’ve come to appreciate and look for in potential hires.
Okay, we found someone. Now what?
Mutual evaluation is at the heart of our hiring experience, so we built a flexible system around it.
1. Starting with an honest outreach
This is simple. When we find someone interesting, we reach out in good faith. We schedule a personal discussion with them to get to know them better and see if our paths are aligned. If they’re curious, we share more on who we are, what we do, and our work philosophy.
And if they’re interested, we dive deeper into their aspirations.
2. Discussing ideas and common values
Hiring only ‘culture fits’ sets a tricky and dangerous precedent, where a team can be overrun with clones and miss nuanced debates and diversity of thought.
So rather than culture fits, we look for shared values that define an individual’s attitude and approach to work. During my initial discussion, I talk to people about what inspires them and where they want to be and see if our plans are mutually aligned.
More importantly, I try to understand if they’re agile — people who move quickly, roll up their sleeves and become a part of the solution. Given the nature of work at Tarka Labs, we’re always on the lookout for people who don’t just have ‘ideas’, but the power to breathe life into them.
3. It takes two to tango (and code!)
In our second round, we set up an informal meeting where candidates meet evaluators from our team, usually picked based on their preference of language, framework, or stack. Our team is always excited to meet new people, and they discuss problems and challenges while pairing remotely with interviewees.
When it comes to coding, the environment is crucial — so we always make sure that our potential hires are at ease, familiar with our evaluators, and are in the right frame of mind.
This technical round is followed by another casual session with a few senior Tarkans, who talk more about our goals, commercials, and opportunities for mutual growth.
And to close the loop…
We respect the time that candidates put into our hiring process, so we carefully document our thoughts in detail, every step of the way. This isn’t just useful for them — it also helps us streamline our thoughts after every round, make objective observations, and maintain a transparent window into our hiring system for the entire team.
Our hiring process is never final and always evolving, so we welcome feedback from everyone we talk to on how we can improve our approach.
It gives us something to work towards every day!
