Hiring · 3 min read
The hiring process
The exact stages from first contact to offer, what each one is for, and how long it takes.
How we hire covers what we look for and why we run it the way we do. This page is the mechanics: the stages, in order, so you always know where you are and what comes next. There are no hidden rounds and no surprise panels. If a stage below doesn't apply to a particular role, we say so up front rather than adding it just because.
The stages
1. You apply, or we reach out. Either a short application (tell us what you've built and why this role) or a direct message if we came to you. No cover-letter ritual. A link to real work, a repo, a project, a thing you shipped, is worth more than a polished CV.
2. Intro conversation. Thirty to forty-five minutes with someone you'd actually work with, not a recruiter reading a script. We talk about what you've made, how you think, and what you want next. It's mutual: you should be sizing us up just as hard, and hard questions are a good sign, not a red flag.
3. 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, on your own time, usually a few focused hours. You keep the money regardless of the outcome. It's the fairest signal we know: you see what the work is really like, and we see how you think when it's real rather than performed.
4. Team conversations. A couple of focused conversations with people you'd work alongside, going deep on how you approach problems, how you work with others, and how you'd fit the way we operate. This is also where you get to interrogate the reality of the job: the good, the annoying, and the still-unfinished.
5. Decision and offer. We make up our minds quickly and tell you either way. If it's yes, the offer comes with the math: pay at Flagon is a published formula, the same for everyone, so the number isn't a negotiation and there's nothing to haggle.
How long it takes
We aim to move fast, because a slow process is disrespectful of your time and loses good people to companies that got their act together. The target is a couple of weeks from first conversation to decision, faster when we can. If something on our end is going to take longer, we tell you, rather than going quiet.
You'll never be ghosted
At every stage, you get a real answer in a reasonable time. A no comes with a reason and comes soon. If you're ever left wondering where things stand, that's a bug in our process, and you're welcome to poke us about it.
How to prepare
Honestly, not much. Bring examples of real work and be ready to talk about the reasoning behind them, not just the result. Come with questions that matter to you, about the work, the money, how decisions get made, whatever you actually need to know to decide. The whole handbook is fair game, and reading a little of it beforehand tells you more about us than any pitch we could give on a call.
The one thing that helps most: be yourself. We're trying to figure out whether this is a good fit in both directions, and a version of you that's performing for the room makes that harder for everyone.