How to get a job at Expensify, the software company that just went public and made 40% of employees paper millionaires

• Expensify’s IPO on November 10 made 140 employees millionaires on paper.
• The software publisher has a flat organizational structure, which means the employees are self-governing.
• Spend Adele Kennedy, employee, told Insider how candidates can navigate austerity hiring process.

As dream jobs disappear, Adele Kennedy couldn’t be happier with a title she barely knew existed until she found the list two years ago.

“It was one of the best things to ever happen to me,” Kennedy said.

It was January 2020 and Kennedy was feeling jaded in the recruiting space. Next, she found a position as a “people operations generalist” at expense management software company Expensify. The opening seemed like the perfect opportunity to continue his career in talent acquisition while expanding into other areas.

Today, Kennedy is a proud member of the 140-strong team at Expensify, which recently went public on November 10. As Insider previously reported, the IPO made 50 of the company’s 140 employees into paper millionaires – with fully vested options worth $ 1. million or more at the IPO selling price of $ 27 per share.

In addition to the growth of the business, Kennedy highlighted the attractive benefits for job seekers.

For example, every employee receives a competitive “San Francisco salary” no matter where they work, Kennedy said. This is in addition to medical leave, parental leave (for those who give birth, do not give birth, adopt or are in foster care), mental health leave and unlimited power take-off.

Expensify is perhaps the most unique, however, in that everyone is considered a generalist – free to go into any area of ​​the business they want, as long as they have the interest and time to pursue it.

“The autonomy you have to work on the things that interest you is enormous,” Kennedy told Insider. “It’s a lot of personal responsibility because I structure my own day. I pick out the things I want to work on, whether it’s this interview, or writing a design paper, or coding.”

Expensify offers positions open to job seekers at every stage of their career, from student ambassadors to interns and engineers. Kennedy walked Insider through the hiring process and explained how interested candidates can stand out.

A unique (and long) recruitment process

Expensify’s hiring process has 12 steps and candidates can be fired at any point in the process. Interestingly, they can also put the process on hold and come back to it months or even years later.

To get started, rather than requiring a resume, Expensify asks applicants four questions when they apply: Do you have an Internet website? What is your coding history? What do you want to do with your life? And how can Expensify help you do that? and How did you hear about us?

“We believe that a great engineer can come from anywhere,” Kennedy said. “We have hired a lot of people with non-traditional backgrounds, like self-taught engineers.”

The candidate will then go through a screening over the phone, receive an untimed take-out challenge, and be matched with an engineer who can answer questions and review their final product.

If the candidate successfully completes the take-out challenge, they will meet with an engineer for a second phone call. This call will last at least 45 minutes and is intended to give candidates time to ask questions about the structure of the company.

The final stage is the “on-site” day – a seven to eight hour interview (which now takes place virtually due to the pandemic).

During the day, candidates will complete two one-hour challenges. The scoring rubric of these challenges will be shared with the respondent before they start the challenges. An engineer will be present in the room for the duration of the challenge to help the candidate if he gets stuck.

However, applicants are also encouraged to use Google, Stack Overflow, and pieces of old code, Kennedy said.

“We are not asking them to solve a problem in a vacuum,” she said. “We want them to build something with as many resources as they need to do it like you would in real life.”

At the end of each challenge, the candidate will present their final results, answer employee questions, have one-on-one company culture discussions, and ask employees any questions they have in a Q&A.

The day ends with a problem of logic and a one-on-one conversation with Expensify CEO David Barrett.

Expensify’s hiring process is difficult, but Kennedy said she believes it helped Expensify find the perfect employees for the company.

“It’s not for everyone, but the people it is for have been here for over eight years,” Kennedy said, adding that half of the business had been there for over four years. “We’re well above the average two-year retention rate for people in Silicon Valley.”

Check three (but really two) boxes

Throughout Expensify’s “comprehensive” recruiting process, as Kennedy calls it, the company looks for three qualities: talent, ambition and humility.

Expensify assesses talent based on how well candidates can meet their challenges using the tools at their disposal, without the hand of another engineer.

“Talent is basically focused on what you can learn without being directly taught,” Kennedy said. “So it’s extremely important that they come in with this kind of innate ability that you can develop over time to pick things up.”

Ambition is shown through a candidate’s responses and conversations. Given its flat organizational structure, Expensify needs motivated employees to be successful.

Finally, humility relies on a candidate’s ability to get along with current employees to resolve their issues, Kennedy said. “Humility doesn’t mean, ‘you have the best solution than me. Humility is saying, ‘That’s my idea, but I also respect your values ​​and your opinions. Let’s work towards the best solution that we can find together. ‘”

Even with all of this, Kennedy told us that the philosophy of Expensify really comes down to a simple mantra.

“We only have two rules here,” she said. “Which is to make shit, and not to spoil it for everyone.”