Hiring

We are constantly on the lookout for teammates who share our values. For us, hiring people means enriching the team with new perspectives and empowering it to turn another little piece of its vision into reality.

We are also mindful that, with each hire we make, we are responsible for providing the new teammate with an environment that actively contributes to their personal and professional success, as well as for creating a cohesive and functional team where people complement and augment each other.

We take these responsibilities very seriously, and we have structured our hiring process to help us in this endeavor.

Hiring process

In an ideal world, we would just hire anyone who applies at Nebulab and use the first few months of work together to understand whether they're actually a good fit, but this is obviously impractical for a lot of reasons. A well-structured hiring process is the next best way to predict, with reasonable accuracy, whether someone will succeed at their job.

Our hiring process consists of six steps, and it has been designed with a couple of guiding principles in mind.

First of all, we want the process to be realistic and accurate—no whiteboard interviews or algorithms to implement. Every question we ask and every trait we evaluate are factors that we've seen directly lead people to success at Nebulab. When applying here, we want you to be able to just bring your authentic best self to the interviews and the tests.

Secondly, we want the process to be light. We're constantly looking for ways to shave a few minutes off a step or make it asynchronous. We know that applying at a company can be stressful and time-consuming, and we want to make things as easy as possible and be respectful of the time candidates are dedicating to us.

These factors need to be kept in balance: make the process too light, and you'll risk making the wrong hire; make it too accurate, and you'll ask people for too much of their time. We are constantly iterating on our process to make make the experience as pleasant as possible for everyone involved, by asking candidates for feedback and re-evaluating best practices.

Step 1: Application

Hi! If you want to work at Nebulab, you can apply through our Careers page.

The application form is short, but you should still complete it thoroughly. In addition to your contact info, we'll ask you to include your portfolio (GitHub, BitBucket, GitLab, Dribbble or anything else you might have) and a cover letter.

The cover letter should be short, authentic and relevant—just tell us what excites you about the company and why you think you might be a good fit! At this stage, we're mostly evaluating your communication, enthusiasm and experience.

Someone from our team will go through your application and reach out to let you know if you've made it to the second step, the initial screen.

Step 2: Initial screen

This is a 15-minute video call where we get to know each other and understand if there's mutual interest in working together. We mostly avoid formalities, we talk about a bit of everything and see how we feel about each other.

We'll ask you about your professional experience and what made you apply at Nebulab, and you'll also get the chance to ask any questions you might have about the company and the work we do. We will also ask about your salary expectations in order to understand whether they're in line with what we can offer for your seniority and location.

Some advice to succeed in this first step:

• Come on time. This is extremely important for us: simply being on time will give you an advantage over many candidates.
• Come equipped. Make sure you have a good Internet connection, a good headset and a good webcam. Also, find a quiet place to call from!
• Come prepared. Make sure to have some questions about Nebulab, and that you can talk about your professional experience and aspirations.
• Be yourself. Try to think, behave and talk as you would do in a real-world environment. This stage helps us understand whether Nebulab is right for you, and we can't do that if you pretend to be someone else!
• Relax. We're all humans and we've all been in your shoes before, so we know how stressful interviews can be. If you're nervous, tell your interviewer and they'll do their best to make you more comfortable.

A couple of days after call, you'll get an email from your interviewer telling you whether you've made to the next step, the aptitude test.

Step 3: Aptitude test

The aptitude test is a way for us to get to know you better and to understand how you think, act and communicate in a professional setting. The test is mainly focused on your soft skills, but there are some basic technical questions as well. The test will be sent to you via HackerRank.

The fundamental requirement in answering the test is sincerity: write in accordance with your values and the way you work, not what you think we would like to hear from you. The purpose of the test is to understand whether you're a good cultural and technical fit, so it is in everyone's interest that the answers reflect the way you really work and handle problems.

Don't hesitate to ask clarifications on questions or technical issues in case anything is not clear to you, and don't be afraid to hit a wrong note: in the past, some of the most striking answers were completely out of tune, perhaps mentioning aspects outside of the work context, but they allowed us to perfectly understand the person on the other end of the screen.

Two or three days after completing the aptitude test, your interviewer will let you know if you've made it to the fourth step, the technical test.

Step 4: Technical test

If you have reached this stage, it means we think Nebulab might be the right company for you. At this point, we want to get an idea of your technical skills. This test is also administered via HackerRank.

You will not be asked to do any live coding or solve absurd challenges: nobody here solves critical business problems without asking questions, looking up documentation or copy-pasting from StackOverflow every now and then. Instead, we just want to make sure that your technical skills are coherent with our general expectations for your role.

For engineers, the technical test consists of two or three projects of increasing complexity. These might be bugfixes, enhancements or brand new features. Your work will be scored automatically by HackerRank for correctness, but it will also be reviewed by your hiring manager, who will typically ask you some follow-up questions to better understand the rationale behind your choices.

Note that we use the same test for all seniority levels—this means that, unless you're applying as a senior/principal engineer, we don't really expect you to solve all the challenges in the test. Not solving all the challenges will not disqualify you, but it might result in your profile being classified under a lower seniority level.

Two or three days after completing the aptitude test, your interviewer will let you know if you've made it to the fifth step, the pre-offer interview.

Step 5: Pre-offer interview

This stage consists of a second, longer (~30 minutes) interview with your original hiring manager plus another one, who didn't follow your hiring process. The second hiring manager will review your entire application package thoroughly, so that they can prepare some follow-up questions for you.

There's no fixed structure for this call: it mostly depends on what questions the hiring managers still have for you and what final doubts they want to clear up. You might be asked technical questions, or to go into the details of your professional experience, but you will not have to solve any technical problems.

You will also get the chance to ask any last-minute questions about Nebulab, if you have them!

Congrats: this was the last real step of the process! A couple of days after the interview, your original hiring manager will notify you and let you know if you'll be getting an offer!

Step 6: Offer

Congratulations, you made it! Thanks for the time you spent with us so far.

At this point, we'll send over a formal offer which you can sign electronically. Feel free to ask your hiring manger any questions about the offer, and they'll either answer directly or put you in touch with someone from Finance who can handle all your doubts.

Once we agree on a start date and you sign the offer, we'll begin the onboarding process.

Welcome to Nebulab!