New year, new task? X companies that are hiring

Execs offer advice for getting tech jobs in fast-growing companies

Senior Editor, Computerworld |

Even in this today'southward economy, there are rapidly expanding companies that have set up large hiring targets.

Companies are looking to attract peak candidates by, amid other things, putting advertisements on buses and combing social networks like LinkedIn to search for people with tech expertise and problem-solving skills.

Executives at these firms say they are looking for people who are selfless and willing to work collaboratively. They will examine a potential employee'southward piece of work history every bit well as examination his or her skills and assess smarts.

Virtually all of these companies want to rent employees with passion, who are willing to contribute ideas and energy. The hiring execs could find bear witness of passion might in a career accomplishment or fifty-fifty a hobby.

For the second time in every bit many months, Computerworld is highlighting ten selected firms that are looking to hire tech workers.

Acquity Grouping

Acquity Group, which builds websites and other Internet enabled applications, has hired 190 people so far this year and expects to add some other 10 employees before the year ends. It currently has 475 employees, and plans to hire many more adjacent year.

"We try to hire people who enjoy working with one another," said Jim Newman, executive vice president of operations. Some office connections take turned into friendships and "several marriages," he said.

Acquity clients include General Motors, AT&T, Motorola, Discover Financial, American Medical Association, and Sears.

Chicago-based Acquity seeks back-end and front-end developers, including Java developers who know CSS and HTML, as well as business analysts, application and data architects, visual designers, user experience specialists, and project managers.

The company has a campus recruitment program and about 25% of its hires this year volition be contempo college graduates, with the balance experienced hires, said Newman.

Most xx% are hired though employee referrals, said Newman.

The recruiting process is rigorous, said Newman. It includes an initial screening with a recruiter where skills are assessed with a technical exam. In that location'due south a phone interview with a developer, followed by face-to-face interviews with teams of 2 people. One team volition focus on technical requirements, and some other on functional needs.

Acquity assesses the written advice capabilities of candidates with an essay question.

The work environment is "open and collaborative" with few offices and a casual wearing apparel code, said Newman.

The company may hire as many as 300 employees side by side year, said Newman.

Acquity'southward career page is hither.

Ideeli

Ideeli had an IT staff of 12 a year ago. The Cyberspace flash sale retailer at present has more than than 60 IT employees, and is searching for more.

"My business concern partners accept an clamorous demand for new features and functionality that nosotros cannot deliver fast plenty for them," said Eduardo Frias, the senior vice president of engineering science at the New York Urban center-based visitor.

Ideeli uses an open up source technology stack, Ruby-red on Rails, on tiptop of MySQL. The visitor is seeking people who can assistance information technology develop everything from user interface features to back-end scalability.

The visitor is seeking project, plan and product managers, developers, testers, system engineers, system administrators, awarding support personnel, and data science and data services experts.

Ideeli is only interested in height performers, said CTO Mark Uhrmacher. "The right folks make an extraordinary difference in a small period of time," he said.

Its vetting procedure includes asking software development candidates to solve problems "that people actually run into," said Uhrmacher.

Attitude matters at Ideeli, whose workers must be comfortable in a quickly changing, fast-paced environment of team players.

"Having a company full of incredibly capable jerks is not interesting to any of u.s.," said Uhrmacher.

Ideeli has a lot of activities for employees, including parties, sports leagues, and 30% discounts on merchandise.

The retailer also encourages creativity through its and then-called "debt free Friday" (a takeoff on technical debt) program, which offers engineers the time to piece of work on something they may accept a personal involvement in, such as a new dashboard or improving an algorithm. "Information technology'southward one of those things where they experience they tin contribute from the lesser up to the company," said Frias.

Ideeli'south career folio is hither.

Ticketmaster

Ticketmaster is a product of mergers and acquisitions -- and its technology mix reflects that.

The online ticket retailer has engineers with expertise in everything from VAX Assembly Linguistic communication to Coffee, Perl, PHP and Python. It has system administrators, database administrators, an architecture group, engineering staff and other IT roles.

CTO Joe Manna said Ticketmaster is emphasizing innovation, and is building a computing platform to make its ticketing processes more social, interactive and capable of adding value. It is also doing a lot with its data to glean new insights.

"The fan for usa a existent centerpoint of our strategy, so we love it when people come in and bring their own ideas to the table," said Manna.

Ticketmaster'south global engineering organisation ranges from 600 to 700 people, not including consultants and other variable labor, said Manna.

The company currently has 100 tech openings across the U.S., a combination of filling vacancies and expanding to build out new platforms. Information technology expects to accept a staff of around 800 IT employees next year.

It is trying to standardize on the Coffee, PHP and Perl environments. "In tech right at present, the contest is pretty fierce for hiring people," said Manna.

The company has a dedicated recruiting staff. In-person interviews include meetings with people from the production and project management teams, and in engineering and operations.

"We effort to give each candidate exposure to the broader group -- it's non just engineering science interviewing engineers," said Manna.

The applicant most likely to get attention of Ticketmaster recruiters has stiff technology base, can demonstrate passion, and volition ask expert questions, said Manna.

Best perk: Employees oft become skilful seats for shows and access to clubs.

Ticketmaster'southward career page is here.

Tendril

Tendril, a smart grid technology developer in Boulder, Colo., is seeking people proficient in Java and Blood-red on Rails evolution, and can also create firmware software.

Tendril faces the typical recruiting problems of smaller firms in competing against the the big tech companies and in its instance with companies located in popular due east and west coast locations.

Tendril has put assistance-wanted advertisements on buses in the Bedrock area and has even "shrink-wrapped" a light-runway train with a "hiring pinnacle software engineers" advertisement to draw attention to the company.

"We place such a loftier importance on the culture fit," said Dawn Curlee, VP of human majuscule. Tendril is looking for candidates "that can tell us past experiences that demonstrate teamwork and selflessness and lack of ego and passion," she added.

In that location are about 65 employees in Tendril's engineering system. The company employs 190 overall, upwards from 92 employees at the start of the year.

The company is hiring about 10 people a month today, about half of which are technical workers.

Tendril assesses a candidate's problem solving skills by, for instance, request him or her to depict the requirements of an elevator.

Chris Blackness, the VP of engineering at the firm, looks for evidence of problem solving skills in a candidate'south answers to that question. He listens for clarifying questions that seek data on the blazon of elevator, the building, as well as the applicant's problem solving along the way. The intent is to discover "how comprehensively they are going to think about the problem," he said.

Tendril also conducts technical testing to see if an applicant tin can employ the latest features from the newest version of the JDK.

All-time reason for working for this working at this company: "Our technology is 1 that nosotros believe is going to aid save the planet or make the planet a better place, and every single employee here feels passion effectually that mission," said Curlee.

Tendril's career page is here.

Tango

Palo Alto, Calif., based Tango makes tools that allow people to communicate via video on virtally any device. Its product is just over a twelvemonth old and it has been calculation users at a rapid step -- more than than 27 one thousand thousand and then far.

About a million registered users are added every two weeks. It expects to have over 100 million registered users in 2012.

The visitor, which launched in 2009 in stealth fashion with two people, has 85 employees today with openings for about xviii more than. The firm expects to have as many every bit 200 employees in a year.

Tango is seeking workers that have the right fundamentals in information science, are quick studies and can adapt to new technologies, said Jean-Philippe Emelie Marcos, VP of finance and concern operations.

The company does extensive testing and uses coding exercises as part of its hiring process.

It wants candidates who are motivated to work in an environs that releases lawmaking every 2 weeks, said Marcos. Tango's fast release schedule helps it keep up with the arrival of new mobile products.

Tango believes its competitors include giants similar Google, Microsoft, Apple tree, and Facebook, among others, which prompts an aggressive corporate mentality.

"We got to be the best and the smartest in club to win," said Marcos. That attitude helps facilitate a culture where employees don't hesitate to raise bug and communicate.

"Everybody tries to brand the product ameliorate," he said.

Tango's career page is here.

Mission Critical Wireless

Mission Critical Wireless provides managed services for wireless deployments, helping companies worldwide build architectures and implement wireless technoligies. The Lincolnshire, Sick., business firm was founded in 2004 and has 100 employees with plans to hire about a dozen more, said CEO Dan Croft.

The company seeks people with technical skill sets in communications and messaging.

"We similar people who have been in the real world, who accept been operating within an It organization and have specific direct responsibilities for implementation and ongoing maintenance of various IT solutions," said Croft.

The wireless market is changing quickly, and Croft says he is seeking people who are passionate about the technology and are set up to learn new things like the emerging "mobile device management platform" that enables companies to gain varying levels of control over disparate devices, including popular iPhone and Android devices.

The company's hiring process includes an in-house designed essay-fashion question designed to test technical knowledge.

"We want to meet their logic and reasoning with how they go about problem solving," said Croft.

Mission Critical's career page is hither.

Coupa Software

Coupa Software, which builds on-demand purchasing and expense management systems, currently has only under 100 employees and plans to potentially double that over the adjacent yr, said CEO Rob Bernshteyn.

The company is seeking workers who understand the value of a dollar and the importance of finding good deals, because "that's the culture with which we approach our customers," said Bernshteyn.

San Mateo, Calif.-based Coupa is seeking Ruby-red on Rails developers with an entrepreneurial attitude and are interested in developing new modules and capabilities.

The business firm besides needs mobile software developers for both iPhone and Android devices, as well every bit platform developers who know how to scale.

Its hiring efforts include sponsoring a Ruby on Track meet-upwards at its role.

The firm requires some candidates to complete quizzes designed to test his or her ability to frame a problem. That quiz may be along the lines of the well-known problem of how many golf balls tin can someone fit into a motorcoach.

Of those people who go far to interviews, one in vii is hired, said Bernshteyn.

Coupa's career page is here.

Medidata Solutions

New York-based Medidata Solutions, which makes Software-as-a-Service products for drug, medical device and other clinical trials, has hired 148 employees this year, mostly in the U.S. Medidata currently has some 775 employees globally, and expects to increase its workforce by as much every bit 10% in the near future.

As with all hiring companies, Medidata is interested in finding people with passion. The company seeks bear witness of passion in a candidate'southward non-work activities, according to Arden Schneider, senior vice president of man resources.

Such activities tin can show "passion in anything that they are doing ... [and] shows a dedication, intellectual curiosity, and discipline," said Schneider.

The visitor is searching for organization administrators, network engineers, deject engineers, performance engineers, and multiple levels of software engineers as well equally software quality assurance analysts.

Its engineering platform includes Ruby on Rails, C#, SQL, MySQL and NoSQL, Unix and Linux, CSS and Amazon Web Services.

In attracting employees, Elliot Weinstein, director of Hour operations, the company's mission is a depict. "Quite bluntly, our work saves lives," he said.

If you can code finer and elegantly, you tin "take weeks off a clinical trial," said Weinstein.

Medidata's career folio is here.

Corbis

Corbis, a Seattle-based digital imaging company owned by Neb Gates, is adding some 70 positions, arrangement engineers, front end-finish Web developers, and experts in systems infrastructure.