How we build our team

We welcome inquisitive engineers, strategists, and creators of all stripes.

At Spark Equation you’ll work alongside adventurers, foodies, researchers, artists, animal lovers, entrepreneurs, writers, gamers, and creators who take tremendous pride in the products they create. We also believe in Building Software That Works ®, it’s a driving principle for building clean and sound solutions that are right by our team, partners, and community.

First, a word on hiring remotely

We help companies build transformational products. We solve difficult cases, engineer complex structures, and build products that are primed for the future, but we couldn’t do it without our amazing team. At Spark Equation, our product is our people.

When things took a turn in the market and everyone moved to be remote, we adapted and moved our team fully into the Spark digital landscape. We saw this moment as an opportunity to widen our net and hire individuals from all over the world, to bring diverse and talented people together.

To deliver the best solutions, we needed as many curious, talented, hungry, bright, and diverse minds in the “room” as possible, and we needed to be able to learn from them once they were there. That’s why at the beginning of this year we set out to do a complete overhaul of our recruitment efforts to support hiring globally. We created a new system to identify potential candidates and focus on what we were really looking for when we welcomed someone to Spark Equation. We also took our learning program and completely revamped everything from the ground up. We believe strongly in learning here, our learning curve is steep yet energizing. That’s why we heavily invest in a vast array of career opportunities and development programs for each of our peers.

How often do we hire

In the past we always had a few positions open every quarter, now we are growing at an exponential rate, and hiring is at the top of our list. This year we are also starting something new by opening an internship and apprenticeship program to offer the opportunity to everyone who wants to grow in the engineering industry. We strongly believe in learning and by treating our new programs as incubators for raw talent, we’re able to widen our net dramatically and recruit diverse candidates early in their careers, bringing a multitude of great minds together.

How we build our team

For each role we fill, we look for individuals who want to create with impact, who challenge themselves to be exceptional, and champion that spirit in others. We believe that building great solutions also takes passion for what you do and what you create. Some of the world's greatest products were developed by individuals who weren’t only talented but they had an impulse for pushing boundaries and an ambition to create.

We work hard to generate an inclusive environment, but even with a diverse group of people on our team, we all agree on the values and standards that guide us daily in our work and look for new team members to be on the same page. Here are our values:

1. Get stuff done

2. Raise the bar

3. Drive

4. Work as one

5. “Give a damn”

6. End-user obsession

Rome wasn’t built in one day. We understand that to have the kind of team we want to be on, and the team that can best engineer solutions, we need to keep a focus on diversity in recruiting and sustaining a thriving environment where everyone can learn and grow. This year we’ve made big strides in feedback, performance reviews, and education that are helping change our culture for the better.

Our hiring process

Our new system does a much better job of testing for the traits we’d need people to show on a day-to-day basis in the role. We’ve done our best to compress big project behaviors and simulate them in a short amount of time. It’s also made our decision-making process much faster, because of our observable behavior approach.

We hire on multiple platforms, but our main sources of applications are our careers section and Linkedin. Once we receive an application and schedule interviews (<4 days), the next stages are-  

Stage 1: Interviews begin with an overview of the company and a further screen to evaluate skills and position knowledge

Stage 2: Technical interview (1-1.5 hrs) which consists of a live practice and theory on real-world problems the candidate would encounter, problem resolutions, approaches, and information gathering, ending with feedback and summary of the assessment.

Stage 3: Interview on agile processes (1hr)

Stage 4: Conversation with founder & CEO (1.5hr)

⭐ Receive offer

Stage 5: Team introduction, orientation, and project overview

Our assessment process is set to target several goals in evaluating the candidate and Spark Equation match. Here's what we look for during our interview process:

1. The level of technical, and practical knowledge

2. The level of aptitude for learning and problem solving

3. Cultural fit

• Values
• Principles
• Goals

4. What projects have you worked on in the past and what projects you would like to work on in the future

If you have any questions about the interview process, skill assessment, or would like to learn more about what projects we work on, shoot us an email or chat with us online.

Solving client challenges is a team sport. Join us.

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