East Agile's Most Valuable Asset
East Agile's Most Valuable Asset

“The most valuable assets of a 20th-century company were its production equipment,” said management guru Peter Drucker in 1999. “The most valuable asset of  a 21st-century institution, whether business or non-business, will be its knowledge workers and their productivity.” East Agile thinks the exact same way. To East Agile, human capital is the most important asset of an organization - more than technology, intellectual and physical property. Therefore, we are really careful in recruiting and investing in our people. In this article, we will walk you through our recruitment approach and how it’s like to work at East Agile. 

 

How We Recruit Talents

It is East Agile’s business goal to acquire candidates with a background in process oriented development who simultaneously take away some learnings from meeting with us - regardless of the outcome of the recruitment process. We do not use abstract questions like Google or Facebook. Our approach is lean and practical which is designed to quickly separate candidates.  Our interview questions include the following: 

  • Written (GMAT) and verbal test in English to gauge IQ, EQ and technical knowledge. Research shows that an IQ assessment doesn't predict job success nearly as accurately when used alone. It should be combined with assessments of the cognitive and social abilities that comprise someone's emotional intelligence. An EI evaluation offers a strong indication of how well an applicant may fit into our organization.
  • A data structure using a test driven development (TDD) approach. TDD approach is strictly applied on every project at East Agile. Our engineers are required to write tests to check if the code is working before writing any functional code. Initially all tests fail because the method is not implemented, but you then refactor the code until the tests pass. The purpose of this test is to see if candidates can adapt to our work environment, as a lot of developers can be lazy about writing tests. We also see if people can adapt quickly, during an interview, to a process they might not be used to. (Read more: What is Test Coverage and why do I need it?)
  • A square root calculation. There are many approaches to this problem, we use this to differentiate candidates who get stuck in the mathematical theory behind the problem, from those that articulate their problems and their approach to the person pair programming with them, and iterate through the question together to find a practical solution. Through the test, we want to understand how the candidate approaches a problem, as well as their ability to collaborate with others.

These tests ensure that we can get the smartest people with good attitudes and creative approaches to technical problems. And we couldn't be more proud that we have the top engineers in our house. 

Work With Us

Researchers agree that the best way to hire and keep top talent is to create a company culture where the best employees want to work, a culture in which people are treated with respect and consideration at all times. We understand that if employees are uncomfortable within their work environment, their motivation, satisfaction and performance levels will be low. Therefore, we always put a great deal of  effort to create the best working environment we can.

  • Effective communication between employers and employees: East Agile aims to build a good and trustworthy relationship with employers. We listen to every issue and concern that matters to our employees. Our employees can express their opinions directly to CEO through Email or Slack and we very much value these opinions and contributions as they make sure that we’re all on the same page concerning East Agile’s mission. 

  • Training and development programs: When a new member joins, the Executive Director will pick a senior with relevant platform knowledge to help that new member during their training. The senior is expected to guide our newest members to read relevant resources for their training and assignment, and ask them to follow our Agile process strictly. New members will have a mentor to supervise/guide/evaluate them in their daily work, or help them if there is any problem. The mentor will spend time every couple weeks to talk to members to listen to their feedback/issue if any. The main purpose of this role is helping junior members to have someone close to them, so that they can reach when they need help. We believe good relations among employees lead to higher levels of satisfaction and productivity. 

  • Rewards and recognition for high performance: We recognize that monetary rewards are good but not the only way to reward effort. Our managers show verbal recognition at times to those who have outstanding performance. We always acknowledge that our engineers work hard to complete their tasks within the given deadlines and meet our or our client’s strict standards. And rewarding such efforts encourages employees to do more in the future.

Hoang Tran - a former developer at EA - now working in Singapore at Grab as a manager, said that “2 years working at EA helped me grow as much as 10 years working in another company…”. This, we consider one of our greatest achievements!

 

If you are considering to be our team player, or our partner, please do not hesitate to contact us and we’ll get back immediately! 

 

 

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