Creating a progressive workplace
Over the past few years of interviewing and hiring software engineering candidates in Monterrey, Mexico, I’ve come to see first-hand how the culture of a place is visible through how candidates interview.
One of the reasons we have a team in Monterrey is because of the dedication and appreciation for work, the self-starter mentality, and a hunger to grow and be better that is characteristic of the industrial Mexican north.
“El norte” has historically been a place were people built a living through industry and looked down on government support and handouts which people associated with the government bureaucracy of Mexico City. It was also a city founded by families fleeing the Spanish inquisition and its persecution of Sephardic Jews. Thus there is a measure of self-reliance, of independence and even of toughness about the place.
Yet this essay will not be about all the great parts, but rather about the challenges and how we can surmount them.
So I will share key attributes we look for in candidates, why these are so hard to find, and what makes us unique among firms. Here is the list of what we look for:
Values driven over mercenarial (money-driven)
We care about your values. We want to do work in line with our beliefs and we invite people who also have a mission driven rather than a mercenary attitude. If you view work merely as a way to earn the highest paycheck, other firms will gladly have you.
We are different on this. We reject the belief that greed leads to the common good. Instead we think about empathy, about impact and about needs over wanton consumption. We are especially invested in development and encourage the like minded to apply.
As a thriving small business, frugality matters. We plan on making a good living but we do the work we do because it is noble above all. This means that we will not work with certain sectors and companies that we judge are not good global citizens. So we look for new team members who bring good judgment and a desire to build an ethical business.
Broad over narrow
Love literature, history, art, philosophy, politics and film, mathematics, etc? Great! We do too. And we seek to create a relevant and engaging environment of diverse and interesting people. This means combining the humanities and an artistic sensibility with design and the sciences.
At Telos Labs we believe in a holistic way of work, that means you can expect to collect requirements with clients, estimate them, propose architectures and create robust automated specs. You will know about usability and design as well. So people need to be broad and flexible, not limited and narrowly specialized.
A broad understanding of the world and society leads to better decisions on how to structure our work and who to work with. The narrowly specialized can do specific things but lack agility and judgment and will struggle picking up the cross-functional processes we run every day.
Egalitarian over hierarchical
We ban the formal Spanish tenses. We relate to other people like other people, whether that is that janitor of our workplace or the king of France. This is not only the right thing to do, it also leads to better clarity of mind and better work products. That is because hierarchy is the farce that uses a veil of pretense to hide unexplored assumptions and prevent dissent. When ideas and quality are evaluated on their merit, we all become smarter.
This is one where many people struggle. Politeness and propriety are a big focus of a hierarchical society such as Mexico. However, I know of no real benefit of such a crutch when it comes to producing good ideas and creativity. Examine the literature. The relationship is quite the opposite. Ideas, like the soul, yearn for freedom.
Compelling candidates are opinionated, and willing to fight for what is right and what is better. Yet they are also coachable and open to considering different viewpoints to better understand a situation.
Candidates often fail to make their own interest and concerns clear during interviews. They don’t ask questions, they hesitate around issues of salary or logistics — preferring to seem accommodating to “the boss” and the company. Don’t let those cultural crutches intimidate you. We value fairness and maintain financial transparency with all team members and structured salary levels according to experience in our company.
Live the Bard’s language
Don’t just speak English. Master it. National languages are outdated. What counts is who you can communicate with and at what level. English is the lingua franca of the world. Mexicans should be particularly flexible to learn English not only for commercial reasons, but because of the oddly contingent nature of our use of Spanish. A people forged out of the colonial time has the luxury of emotional independence from the colonist’s language. So it is rather defeatist that English is not more strongly encouraged. The way to think about it is not with a view of the foreigners tongue, but rather as the way to communicate with the world.
At Telos we are especially sensitive to this because we expect everyone on the team to present their ideas to clients in English. We frequently collaborate with other technical teams and we must be at the forefront of the field and this too occurs in English.
Speak great English? That trumps a college degree and anything else. We will train you on technology, but we cannot teach the language. That’s harder.
Brave and tough
Classical virtues are not out of fashion — at least in our team. Being brave means suppressing one’s own fears and anxiety and daring to do bold and difficult things that will bring a benefit. This is not a trait that is cultivated much by social institutions. But we treasure it. We take volunteers to implement difficult features and we like to see team members step up to the challenge.
Yet beyond bouts of courage, any sustained operation requires something else. Endurance and the ability to cope with frustration as we struggle. This is where toughness comes in. It means retaining inspiration and not being consumed by the negative. Positive experiences only outweigh the negative in a playground, and often not even there. What matters is being able to seize learning in failure and keeping one’s sense of purpose in the world.
