How we hire

Hiring is the highest-leverage thing a small company does. A great hire makes everyone around them better; a bad one costs far more than the salary. We take it seriously, and we try to make the process feel like the company: plain, honest, no games. Here's how it actually works, so there are no surprises.

What we look for

We're small, so everyone we bring on has to be able to run without a lot of scaffolding. That means a few things matter more here than they might elsewhere.

• Self-directed. You can take an ambiguous problem, figure out what "done" looks like, and get there without someone standing over you. We don't hand out tickets and check your homework.
• Craft. You care about the work being genuinely good, not just closed. You sweat the parts users never see, because that's where good and fine part ways.
• Kind and direct. You can tell someone their idea has a hole in it without making them feel small, and you can hear the same about yours. Direct isn't a license to be a jerk, and kind isn't a reason to stay quiet.
• Allergic to busywork. You'd rather ship something real than perform being busy. Status meetings, vanity metrics, and polish-for-show make you itch.

None of this is about pedigree. We don't care where you went to school or how many years you've clocked. We care whether you can do the work and whether we'd want to do it with you.

The process

We keep it short and we keep it legible. You'll always know what stage you're in and what comes next. The full sequence, stage by stage, is here; the shape of it is:

• A real conversation. Not a trivia quiz. We talk about what you've built, how you think, and what you're looking for. You should be interviewing us just as hard.
• A paid work-sample. Instead of whiteboard puzzles you'll never use again, we pay you to do a small, realistic slice of the actual work. You keep the money regardless of the outcome. It's the fairest signal we know of, for both sides: you see what the work is really like, and we see how you think when it's real.
• Time with the team. A couple of focused conversations with the people you'd actually work alongside, so the fit gets checked from more than one angle, in both directions.
• A decision, quickly. We don't leave people hanging. When we've made up our minds, you'll hear from us, one way or the other.

We don't play the games. No take-it-or-leave-it exploding offers, no "we have other candidates" pressure, no artificial urgency designed to rush you into a yes. If a company has to trick you into joining, that tells you something, and we'd rather you notice.

How offers work

When we make an offer, the number isn't a mystery and it isn't a negotiation. Pay at Flagon comes out of a published formula that's the same for everyone, so the offer is simply what the compensation framework says the role is worth at your level. We'll show you the math.

That means no reward for brinkmanship and no penalty for being bad at self-promotion. If we've misjudged your level or missed something about your experience, tell us and we'll correct it. That's a fix, not a haggle. A competing offer isn't a lever here, because we price against what the role is worth, not against panic.

If you want the fuller picture of what you'd be signing up for day to day, working here lays it out.

How we say no

Most of the people we talk to, we won't hire. That's just the math, and it's not a judgment on you as a person. When the answer is no, we try to make it a clean no: a real reason, delivered with respect, and soon enough that you can get on with your life.

We won't ghost you, and we won't hide behind "we've decided to move forward with other candidates" when we can tell you something useful instead. Getting a no from us should still leave you thinking well of us. If it doesn't, we did it wrong.