First things first
We're a 35-person team, and while we're growing, we’re not in hyper-growth mode. That means we take our time to find the right people rather than just filling seats.
We have a People Team, focused on making sure that both current team members and future ones feel valued and respected throughout their time here as well as in their hiring process. We’re not perfect. Emails get lost, calendars get messy, and sometimes, we take a bit longer to reply than we’d like. But even when things get hectic, we do our best to stay human throughout the process.
Flexible, but consistent
We are still a startup, so you can expect some level (decent amount 😅) of flexibility when it comes to our hiring, whether it be about stage orders or exact take-home task expectations, but generally speaking, you can find similar stages across all of our roles, let it be a product engineer, design, marketing, or finance roles.
Job descriptions
If you wandered to our career page, you might have realized that we don't have very specialized job description that you 'must have X amount of years of experience using Y tool', but rather focused on high level requirements and the rest can be learned. We'd like to get to know you and see what you can bring to the table, what kind of problems excite you, and see if there is a match now or check back in the future when something opens up.
Let's take Kristóf's case. He joined our App team in 2023, and when early 2024 we got our hands on an Apple Vision Pro, he wanted to bring Craft to life on it. Was it in our plan to do that before? Nope. Did he do it? Heck yes. And guess what? It even opened up a lot of special doors for us. 🤫
Of course, it doesn't mean there will always be time for every personal dream but we like to make it happen if we find a match with our product goals too.
Applications: What Happens Next?
Some roles get a ton of applications. Take the Product Designer role, where we received 200+ applicants in just 3 days. And we have exactly one recruiter (hi 👋) reviewing them, amongst other roles' applicants.
This means, unfortunately, we can’t send a personalized response to everyone. If you get a generic rejection email, we promise it’s not personal, you might just be up against a huge applicant pool.
Interviews ahead 🎉
Made it past the application stage? Awesome! Here’s what to expect next.
Meet your recruiter
First intro call, where we just want to understand who you are, what excites you, and what you're looking for or what it is that you are definitely not. Here's a tip for every step of the way: be as honest as possible. If we are not the right match, that's not good for either side. Is lunch time your gym time? Do you want to have at least one meeting free day? Are you a night owl who prefers working a shifted schedule? What does it mean? Maybe some of these are a show stopper for us, but still, get it all out on the table and see if we fit on all front.
Culture interview
I must rewind time here a bit. Our values received a bit of a face-lift last year because the values we had before had been with us for quite sometime and the team has changed a lot since. We sat down with every member of Craft, to talk about what they like and value at working here, what resonates with them the most, and how does that embody in our day to day work life. From these conversations we distilled the values to make sure what we represent at Craft also resonates with everyone here. You can see the result of this exciting work here.
So how this stage will go down? We'll ask a lot of questions to better understand how you like to work, what do you value, we'll also dig deeper in your past and many times, there’s no single right answer (except, maybe, whether pineapple belongs on pizza, that’s a heated debate).
Take-home task
We like to keep it real, so you'll likely receive a task or a problem we solved already and we are curious how you would approach it. Usually the investment needed varies between 4-8 hours.
Side note: I have seen the same take-home task being solved in 4 hours and failed in 20. More time ≠ better results.
We’re not testing how long you can grind but we’re testing how you think. You’ll get a detailed overview of the task, and the best part? You set your own deadline. That way, you can see the effort the task requires and match it up with your personal life and commitments.
Technical interview
In the first half of this stage, you'll talk about your take-home solution, but generally, this means your solution was good enough, and you passed (Yay!), but we'll try to understand your thought process more, expand on your ideas, and dig deeper in your practical knowledge.
In the second half of the interview, we will focus on your previous experience, and we likely will ask you to talk about one of your project based on a couple of pointers.
Hiring manager interview
If you haven't had the chance to meet your future manager till this point, we will organize a check-point to make sure you also get the chance to see if the chemistry is there with your future line manager. We like to think of this as more of a two-way check-in than an exam. Sure, they'll ask you some questions about how you work, but just as importantly, this is your chance to ask them about anything that's still on your mind. What’s their approach to feedback? How do they see this role evolving? What’s their least favorite part of working at Craft? (Yes, you can ask that!)
Offer
We made it! (Double yay!)
Now, you've come to full-circle, and meet with your recruiter once again, where you'll go over the details of your offer and also take some time to walk you through our equity package, and any questions that might pop into your head. At this point, the decision is in your hands, but just know that we’re already super excited to have you on board. We’re doing our best to play it cool until we (hopefully 🤞) hear a big yes from you!
When the stars are not aligned
We use every step as a decision point, which means if you are invited to a next stage you passed the previous one, but if not, you'll receive a letter of rejection. We will highlight some areas as the reason for our decision, but as these ones are always complex decisions you won't receive a drop down list of why's.
Just like when you want to go travel, and your friend's idea of a trip is hiking in the High Tatras in winter time, and yours is sipping freshly squeezed mango juice in Malaysia to avoid the cold weather. You wouldn't think anyone is in the wrong, right? It simply means you are not the right fit for each other for this specific trip.
A 'No' is always a delicate topic, so we will tackle it in our next article in more detail.
Stay tuned!
