Our recruitment philosophy: we're much more interested in how you think than how many programming languages you know. Of course, we love it if you're already using Ruby on Rails and open source tools like Apache and Tomcat. But if you're a bright, analytical thinker, we can teach you what you need to know.
Why are we so fast in our recruitment process? We're growing fast. Cyrus is based in New York City, in SoHo, and has an office in downtown Boston. You may be able to choose which office you work in. (Some of our people work in both.)
If you're unfamiliar with Agile development, don't let it bother you. For a quick intro, go to our Process page, click on "Agile." You'll land on "What exactly is Agile Programming?" Also read the two Q&As after that.
I look forward to talking with you.
First thing impressed me about Cyrus, gave me the sense they really value developers: as soon as I sent in my resume, they responded right away. I mean, looking for a job is stressful, right? Many places I guess don't have the time or the people, because they take forever to get back to you.
I was also impressed by the woman who called me, Debbie. Very nice, upfront, easy to talk to. After she interviewed me, on the phone, she got back to me fast about doing a coding test. I thought, wow, I haven't done that much coding in Java. I just graduated. I told her that, and she said it was okay, they're more interested in how I think rather than my programming prowess, which I can always learn.
So I did the test. Took me the whole day. I decided to put it aside and review it the next morning. Then I emailed it back to her.
Three days went by and then they asked me to come in for an interview.
Right away I liked these people. They're loose, friendly, smart. Into the latest technologies: Java, of course; Ruby. Their methodology is Agile/Extreme Programming, which I didn't know much about but sounded really efficient and fun – something I'd like to learn.
Well, they liked me, too, because after I talked to three people, individually, they asked would I like to come back and do a trial workday.
I said sure.
On my trial workday, I didn't know what to expect. What if they ask me to code something in a language I don't know? But everybody was really nice! It was like I was already working there.
I was a little worried about the paired programming thing. I mean, I like talking about everything, but I really don't like somebody watching me while I'm coding. They paired me with a guy, older than me, out there but not in your face. And funny. I was on the keyboard, he was the navigator. It was easy with him. Do you know, the code we wrote was deployed to the client at the end of the day! Pretty cool. Friend of mine working at a very large company made his first commit after six months.
End of the day, they offered me the job. Talk about lean. I said yes. It was everything I wanted: smaller company; flat organization; very few meetings; learn, learn, learn.