Tips to hire great people

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At JetThoughts, we don’t typically fire our employees, as we always strive to find the right people who share our beliefs and values and stick to long-term cooperation.

We are a small remote team and, compared to mid-sized or big companies where people could meet you one day and don’t recognize the day after, JetThoughts is a place where everyone knows everyone else.

When hiring, we are looking for people who are comfortable to work and communicate with, so it’s not only about the skills, but personality.

For us, it becomes crucially important to know the person we are going to work with, as communication is everything in remote teams. So the new employee should be a good fit and understand the workflow, culture, and of course values.

**Trust **It is the most important thing for us. We trust the person who decided to work with us, and we expect him not to lie, slack, or take sweet time to get the job done. We are trying to do everything so that our team members would not be interested in doing any of the above… at all.

**Transparency **We are transparent and openminded. The best example of it is our pay structure scheme. Our team members determine the knowledge level of newcomers during the technical interview and based on that the salary level is defined.

**Self-management **We assume that a person will be able to adapt to asynchronous processes and autonomously deal with the tasks as well as communicate with others and effectively interact within the remote environment.

**Fulfillment ** We maintain an inclusive environment where we can thrive professionally and personally. We maintain a sustainable pace of productivity and full lives outside of work. We maximize our ability to take on any project by creating a diverse team that can bring their experience and perspectives together to solve problems. We are proud of the work we are doing, and believe that it is meaningful, worth existing, and improves society and human well-being.

**Efficiency ** Every gear in the company turns more efficiently when the work is focused yet fast, practical yet economical, flexible yet simple. JetThoughts is about being able to do more with less. When everyone works together in balance, the time flows as smoothly as any of our luxury watches. We believe in hard work and putting in the extra effort to get things done. We believe in operational excellence, and realize that there is always room for improvement in everything we do. This means that our work is never done.

**Passion ** We love what we do. It never works — it’s always fun and new challenges are met with enthusiasm.

Passion will drive us to pour our hearts and souls into every new venture, every day because this is what we love to do. We will celebrate our successes, and inspire others with our excellence and our tenacious attitude.

**Choose great people **As we mentioned before, in JetThoughts, we have a fully transparent system when it comes to paying structure scheme, and there are some rules we follow when someone new joins our team.

Besides the technical interview, we are trying to understand the person, the way he thinks, the attitude and values he promotes and compare all of it to what we are into as a team.

We want our employees to have 3 character features that make a difference:

  • Genuine appreciation for the feedback

  • Willingness to understand the person’s perspective

  • Interest in addressing the issues proactively

When it comes to coding skills, we follow a simple 360 review practice, since the team is relatively small, we can gather team members to talk with the newbie and every team member could share his own thoughts on the technical level and general fit of a person they are planning to accept into the team.

Based on such criteria, the role, and salary will be defined. The technical review is being conducted once a year and if passed successfully — predefines the better salary rate and promotion.

If you are the founder and you want your company to be prosperous — do your best to avoid employment termination. Be concise in your job descriptions, look for people with high motivation, pay attention to adaptation, constant feedback, and mentoring. The person who has come to a new place should see clear objectives and understand how they relate to the company goals. Regularly discuss progress and processes, no matter how good your team is.

Paul Keen is an Open Source Contributor and a Chief Technology Officer at JetThoughts . Follow him on LinkedIn or GitHub .

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