The Philippine cryptocurrency exchange Coins no longer exists, it was acquired by a Chinese company. But in 2020, they were assembling a squad of superheroes — they needed people with knowledge of Golang, Python, Redis, Postgres, Docker, Kubernetes, AWS and with 7+ years of experience. And there were 15 of them. GetIT Agency recruiter Tatiana found them all in 1.5 years. Well, here's how it happened.
What was the request
Coins approached GetIT Agency in October 2020. They needed to create a team of 15 developers. But the difficulty was not in the number, but in the requirements.
Coins employed super professionals and the candidates had to be of the same level or higher - so that they could immediately get into the work. Therefore, the requirements were very high and strict:
There were seven stages of selection for suitable candidates:
These were the superheroes Tatiana had to find.
Coins employed super professionals and the candidates had to be of the same level or higher - so that they could immediately get into the work. Therefore, the requirements were very high and strict:
- 7+ years of experience as a programmer with a strong team.
- Technical background: Go/Python, Redis, Postgres, Docker, Kubernetes, AWS.
- Designing microservice architecture.
- Setting up a test framework from scratch.
- All types of testing (manual, unit, functional, integration, performance, load).
- Fluent English.
- Willingness to work according to Philippine time. That is, you need to be in touch from 5 a.m. Moscow time.
There were seven stages of selection for suitable candidates:
- 2 technical interviews;
- 2 test homework assignments;
- an interview with the team followed by a vote "for / against" — the candidate who received 2/3 of the votes passes;
- interview with the Russian-speaking founder;
- interview with the Filipino founder;
- security check.
These were the superheroes Tatiana had to find.
I presented the first candidate to the customer 4 days later
After the interview with the client, Tatiana realized that the specialists she was looking for had to:
Really serious guys!
And very rare.
Tatiana wrote a vacancy and posted it to all possible job sites and social networks. At the same time, she was also working through the agency's candidates' database and sourcing.
Such rare specialists usually don't look for employment and don't monitor job advertisements, so it's not surprising that Tatiana found almost all the candidates through sourcing. Showed the first applicant to the customer after four days of work.
It was a person who had worked at Wildberries for 13 years and was very afraid to change anything in his life, and even more so to leave his old job for a foreign company. It was extremely difficult to lure him away, but Tatiana managed.
Taking into account the candidate's preferences in terms of tasks, she negotiated the position of an architect for him and this prevailed over all doubts. And after all the stages of selection, Tatiana literally helped him step by step with the registration of an individual entrepreneurship and opening an account so that he could receive his salary in dollars.
- work with Golang and Python for seven years;
- and combine it with Kubernetes, AWS and DevOps engineer tasks;
- be systematic, flexible, and switch between languages quickly;
- and at the same time do not "jump" from one company to another.
Really serious guys!
And very rare.
Tatiana wrote a vacancy and posted it to all possible job sites and social networks. At the same time, she was also working through the agency's candidates' database and sourcing.
Such rare specialists usually don't look for employment and don't monitor job advertisements, so it's not surprising that Tatiana found almost all the candidates through sourcing. Showed the first applicant to the customer after four days of work.
It was a person who had worked at Wildberries for 13 years and was very afraid to change anything in his life, and even more so to leave his old job for a foreign company. It was extremely difficult to lure him away, but Tatiana managed.
Taking into account the candidate's preferences in terms of tasks, she negotiated the position of an architect for him and this prevailed over all doubts. And after all the stages of selection, Tatiana literally helped him step by step with the registration of an individual entrepreneurship and opening an account so that he could receive his salary in dollars.
All this took two months, but it was not in vain. After three months of work, the candidate became the head of the department.
The second candidate was one of the founders of the Golang language.
The second was the founder of the Golang language — he was hired without question
Tatiana found the second candidate through the sourcing on LinkedIn. That was a young professor from St. Petersburg State University who was a member of the Golang language development working group.
He was teaching at the university and simultaneously was engaged in another project. In other words, he was working two jobs, but he wanted to work one. And there was simply no time to look for a new job. This was the key that helped lure the professor away.
Of course he quickly passed all the stages of selection, and ideally fit the client's requirements. He moved to the Philippines and returned to Russia only when Coins was acquired by a Chinese company.
And then there was a whole line of candidates.
And then there was a whole line of candidates.
Found 13 more ideal candidates
The flow of candidates was endless: while one was being processed, Tatiana was already looking for several more — a real conveyor! There were about 40 cool candidates in total, but not all of them withstood the rigorous selection process:
- complete 2 technical interviews;
- complete 2 test homework assignments;
- get ⅔ votes after the interview with the team;
- confirm your expertise in an interview with a Russian-speaking founder;
- and only after that will you be allowed to an interview with the Filipino founder;
- and then there will be a security check.
The selection stages were very difficult and could take months. As a result, more than half of the candidates gave up voluntarily. The most resilient remained - 13 more superheroes were recruited from them. And everyone had their own interesting story.
One was found through the VKontakte newsfeed. He immediately showed interest in the job, although he was not looking for one. The candidate requested a little more money than was offered by Coins. The client was fundamentally reluctant to re-buy specialists, but after long negotiations with Tatiana, he agreed. And was not mistaken — three months later the candidate was promoted.
The other one successfully passed all the selection stages, but was lured away by an American startup. A year later the startup closed and the candidate returned to Tatiana. They updated the offer right away and even offered him $1,000 more than expected - so valuable was he.
There was also a candidate who turned down a better offer in favor of Coins. But Tatiana had to compete with his wife. It was a very difficult choice for him: his wife insisted on a more rewarding offer, while Tatiana tempted him with interesting tasks and career prospects. The candidate chose Coins and did not regret his choice — six months later he was promoted to a team leader. Eventually, the wife was also satisfied.
And the last two candidates miraculously managed to finish the registration paper work until February 24, 2022. They received their offers at the beginning of the month, and on the 20th of the month they got to work.
All in all, Tatiana did not suffer from boredom. She managed to close all 15 positions before the Special Military Operation. And there was not a single replacement.
All in all, Tatiana did not suffer from boredom. She managed to close all 15 positions before the Special Military Operation. And there was not a single replacement.
At Coins, all the specialists grew very quickly. The grades were reviewed in the company every six months and each of our candidates grew into an architect or team leader. Someone in three months, someone in six — but everyone was promoted.
"It was the most difficult vacancy to fill in my practice"
Tatiana admitted that she had never had such a difficult vacancy as in Coins. Everything was difficult:
- to find specialists with rare experience;
- to choose the right approach for each candidate;
- to spend months getting the candidates to the offer.
"The most difficult part was waiting for the voting results after the interview with the team. As if the candidate did not get enough votes, consider that all previous efforts were in vain. It was a very hard thing to experience"
In a year and a half, Tatiana became almost a family member for many candidates: she knew what was going on in everyone's life, what worried, scared, inspired them. She was always in touch with them and supported the candidates at all stages. She is still friends with some of them to this day.
Coins Company Feedback
Here is what Ekaterina Pisarenko, Senior HR BP, Coins.ph wrote about working with GetIT Agency,
We will close the most difficult vacancy
The story of our work with Coins is about how important it is not to give up when it seems that there are no relevant candidates left. Our recruiter Tatiana is just one of those. She spent a year and a half persistently screening the market and managed to find 15 superheroes for the client's team.
All GetIT Agency recruiters are professionals. Look at how they have already helped companies close the most difficult vacancies:
If you have a challenging vacancy, tight deadlines, are looking for a rare specialist and need guarantees - fill in an application form and we will provide you with the first CVs in as little as 24 hours.
All GetIT Agency recruiters are professionals. Look at how they have already helped companies close the most difficult vacancies:
- Two Heads of the Development Department for Gazprom-Media
- Senior Rust Developer with experience in Trading Platforms Developing
- Two Middle Java+DevOps in 12 days
If you have a challenging vacancy, tight deadlines, are looking for a rare specialist and need guarantees - fill in an application form and we will provide you with the first CVs in as little as 24 hours.