Company Culture at SmartDev - How we build our team?
At SmartDev, the company behind GoJobee, we practice what we preach. We use our own recruitment tool every day to find and hire the developers, designers, and specialists who build the product you use.
This isn't just convenient dogfooding—it's essential. Every time we experience friction in our own hiring process, we know exactly what to fix. Every feature we wish existed gets added to the roadmap. Our product is better because we're our own most demanding users.
But beyond the product, we've built something we're equally proud of: a company culture that attracts and retains exceptional people.
Our Three Pillars
Our culture is built on three fundamental principles that guide everything from hiring decisions to daily work.
1. Radical Transparency
Everyone at SmartDev knows where we're going and why. This isn't corporate lip service—it's operational reality:
Financial transparency: Team members see our revenue, runway, and growth metrics. They understand the business context for decisions.
Strategic transparency: Our roadmap is visible to everyone. People know what we're building and what's being deprioritized.
Decision transparency: When leadership makes decisions, we explain the reasoning. "Because I said so" doesn't fly here.
Salary transparency: Within the company, we're open about compensation bands. No mysterious pay gaps or surprise inequities.
This level of openness requires trust—and it builds more trust. When people understand the full picture, they make better decisions and feel genuine ownership over outcomes.
2. True Autonomy
We hire smart people to tell us what to do, not the other way around.
This means:
No micromanagement: We set clear goals and outcomes, then step back. How people achieve those outcomes is up to them.
Flexible working: Work when you're most productive. Some team members are early birds; others do their best work at midnight. We care about results, not hours logged.
Decision authority: People closest to problems make decisions about those problems. You don't need three levels of approval to try something new.
Failure tolerance: Autonomy without the freedom to fail isn't real autonomy. We expect experiments, and we expect some of them not to work.
But autonomy isn't abandonment. We provide:
- Clear context and objectives
- Resources needed to succeed
- Regular feedback and support
- A safety net when things go wrong
3. Continuous Mastery
We're obsessed with getting better. Not just as a company, but as individuals.
Learning budget: Every team member has a dedicated budget for courses, conferences, books, and tools.
Learning time: 10% of work time can be dedicated to learning and experimentation, no justification required.
Internal knowledge sharing: Weekly tech talks, design reviews, and cross-functional learning sessions.
Career growth: Clear paths for advancement, but also support for unconventional career moves within the company.
We believe that people who are growing are people who stick around. Stagnation kills motivation faster than anything else.
How We Actually Hire
Our Process
We've designed our hiring process to be respectful of candidates' time while giving us genuine insight into how they work.
Step 1: Application review (Same day or next day)
We respect your time. If you apply, you'll hear back quickly—usually within 24 hours. Our own tool makes this possible; automated acknowledgments go out immediately, and we review applications daily.
Step 2: Initial conversation (30 minutes)
This isn't an interrogation. It's a two-way conversation to see if there's mutual interest. We talk about:
- What you're looking for in your next role
- What excites you about SmartDev
- Basic fit for the position
- Your questions about us
Step 3: Take-home challenge (2-4 hours)
For technical roles, we provide a realistic challenge that resembles actual work. We're not testing algorithmic tricks you'll never use—we're seeing how you approach real problems.
For non-technical roles, this might be a case study, portfolio review, or relevant practical exercise.
Step 4: Technical deep-dive (60 minutes)
We review your challenge together. This isn't about grilling you—it's a collaborative discussion about your approach, trade-offs you considered, and how you'd extend the solution.
Step 5: Team fit (45 minutes)
You'll meet several people you'd work with. They'll assess fit; you'll assess whether these are people you want as colleagues.
Step 6: Decision and offer (Within 48 hours)
We don't keep people waiting. Once we've completed interviews, we make decisions fast.
Feedback, Always
Whether we hire you or not, you'll get meaningful feedback. This isn't generic "we went with other candidates" boilerplate—it's specific, actionable insights about your strengths and areas for development.
Why? Because we've all been on the other side of this. Radio silence after interviews is disrespectful, and vague rejections are useless. We treat candidates the way we'd want to be treated.
What We Look For
Beyond skills and experience (which obviously matter), we look for:
Curiosity: People who ask "why" and "what if." People who learn for the joy of learning.
Ownership: People who see problems and fix them, rather than waiting for permission or passing the buck.
Empathy: People who understand that code, design, and products serve humans. People who can see things from others' perspectives.
Communication: People who can explain complex things simply. People who write clearly and listen actively.
Resilience: People who bounce back from setbacks. People who see failure as data, not disaster.
The Work Itself
What we're building
GoJobee is a modern applicant tracking system designed for growing companies. We're solving real problems that we've experienced firsthand:
- Recruiters drowning in disorganized spreadsheets
- Candidates ghosted by companies with broken processes
- Hiring teams without the tools to collaborate effectively
- Growing companies lacking visibility into their hiring performance
The technical environment
- Modern stack: React, TypeScript, Node.js, PostgreSQL
- Quality obsessed: Comprehensive testing, code review on every change
- DevOps freedom: Deploy multiple times per day
- Minimal meetings: We protect focus time aggressively
The culture in practice
- Remote-first: Work from anywhere (though we offer optional co-working space in Warsaw)
- Async communication: Most discussion happens in writing
- Deep work respected: No expectation of instant Slack responses
- Life happens: Flexible time off, no guilt about appointments or family needs
Join Us
We're always looking for exceptional people who share our values. Even if we're not actively hiring for your exact role, we want to hear from you.
Check our careers page, or just reach out directly. We read every message, and we respond to every application.
Building something meaningful is more fun with great people. Maybe you're one of them.
Interested in joining the team? Visit our careers page or reach out directly. We'd love to hear from you.