How Makers is helping Tray to hire junior engineers

About Tray

Tray.io was started by three friends: Rich, Ali, and Dom. They had questions based on their own work issues: How do we get all of our cloud stack data to work together? How can anyone connect their stack without tech help? Can we make a configuration easy enough for any non-engineer to figure out in any company around the world?

Tray.io believes that any organization can and should automate. With the Tray Platform, citizen automators throughout organizations can easily automate complex processes through a powerful, flexible platform, and can connect their entire cloud stack thanks to APIs.

Tray has hired multiple Makers for different teams over the years. We spoke to Engineering Manager Mike Massari and Talent Acquisition Specialist Chimdi Ike to learn more.

Why Makers?

“We have a thorough interview process, which most Makers graduates just pass with flying colours,” says Engineering Manager Mike Massari.

“Several of the engineers in my team, Connectivity, come for boot camps and from Makers itself.

I was always very impressed by the Makers graduates that join the team and by how quickly they can jump on day-to-day tasks and get up to speed with the team.

I’m assuming that is because of the very practical preparation that you guys give your engineers.”

Outstanding soft skills

“Our interview process includes one technical test and one face-to-face technical interview,” says Engineering Manager Mike Massari.

We noticed that many Makers graduate excel not only in the coding skills and pass the technical interview brilliantly, but also have an excellent way of communicating the process that gets them to solve the challenges of the test, which is exactly what we’re looking for.”

“This type of communication, drive and motivation is especially what we look for in junior candidates.”

“Obviously, we don’t expect junior engineers to know everything. It’s a process of discovery and having the engineers take us through what their mental process is and what their problem-solving process is. It’s very helpful for us to judge whether or not the candidate will fit in well within the Tray culture and within the Tray engineering team.”

Problem-solving skills

“We don’t expect our technical interview to be just questions and answers. We like to see the candidate to articulate the process, even if they don’t have all the answers right away. In our job, most of the time, any given person doesn’t have all the answers to a problem and it’s all about discovery,” says Engineering Manager Mike Massari.

“The exceptional engineers set themselves aside from the good engineers by the way they solve problems and communicate with a colleague, discovering the answers they don’t have. I think this is true in every job, but especially in a job that moves so quickly like technology. What is a good answer or a perfect answer today may be a not good enough answer in a month.”

Makers makes it easy to hire – we deliver high quality shortlists and turn around hires in weeks, not months

Our high-quality talent pool is largely due to our rigorous selection process for our training course. Before people even start our training, Makers is filtering for independent self-starters who are proactive, open-minded and emotionally intelligent.

More specifically, before someone trains at Makers they are assessed according to:

How quickly they learn (Code)
Their ability to exchange ideas with others (Communication)
Their self-belief (Confidence)
Their technical skill (Competence)

Learn More: Request a Call

If you’re an employer looking to hire quality software talent, we’d love to talk to you to find out what you’re looking for. We’ll email you first to get in touch and arrange the best time to chat.

Case Study: Tray