What originally started as Tyba, an Airbnb for the startup jobs market which is still successfully running has given birth to something quite special, source{d}. Originally conceived to find the Tyba team better developers, source{d} quickly evolved into a business in its own right that allows companies to find the right developers for them, based on logic and most importantly code. We spoke to Eiso, the CEO of sourced to find out more and what’s in the works.
How did source{d} begin?
source{d} was originally conceived by our VP of Engineering. He was looking for a better way to find developers using objective criteria, a way to remove opinions from the mix and make developer selection based on tangibles.
Every time he would look at a developer’s code, he would see things that almost immediately told him if they were right for his team or not. His challenge was how to do that at scale, maintaining objectivity and applying the methodology across a massive code base.
And challenged solved, how does it work?
Through our unique algorithms, source{d} analyses over 740 million code contributions from open source projects across more than 5 million developers. Our software developers use this information to identify, qualify and present developers across diverse technology backgrounds to our client companies.
What information do you specifically look for?
We look at a developer’s skill level, the expertise in programming languages, frameworks, libraries and overall technical aptitude through information obtained from 14.4 million open-source projects. This allows us to quickly determine the ability and quality of a developer through our set of algorithms that consider numerous factors such as who they have worked with, on what projects, their individual contributions and engage them directly with a matching opportunity.
What would you say is your major difference from a traditional recruitment agency?
Perhaps the easier way to ask this is how are we similar. We are similar to recruitment agencies in the fact that the service we offer is recruiting for technical professionals. How we go about that is something that doesn’t really exist in the marketplace today.
How are you disrupting the market?
Most firms today (even the recent startups) are simply not approaching this from the perspective of the developer. They don’t have the core technology competencies, and in most cases, the people conducting a search are not able to hold a deeper technical discussion with a developer.
Other companies, such as Hired.com, approach this as a two-sided marketplace solution. In that scenario, you are still only seeing what someone thinks about themselves and not a deeper analysis of what they have actually done.
Our differences to both of these approaches are vast. They begin with us using extensive machine learning and an algorithmic approach to analysing over a petabyte of code. It ends with our belief that the best people to talk about software engineers are software engineers themselves.
That is why we have our own software engineers identifying, interviewing and qualifying technology talent. When an engineer is able to discuss the opportunity with another engineer, it changes the scenario completely. This becomes a very fluid dialogue, not just ticking technologies off a checklist.
What are some of the key learnings from interacting with so many developers?
Some of our learnings have been:
- Mismatching their skills with an opportunity is simply unacceptable: We continue to refine the way we look at a developer’s repositories to be absolutely sure that what we were analysing and interpreting was truly relevant.
- A deep importance placed on the company’s goals and overall technology challenges rather than only their specific role: They want the big picture and to feel aligned with the strategic and technological direction of the company regardless of their specific role within the organisation.
- Continuous learning: The most important aspect of a new opportunity is the learning possibilities it provides.
- Strong desire to work remotely: This however counterbalanced by a high number of people willing to relocate for the right opportunity.
We will be releasing a few detailed data science reports over the next weeks taking different points of view of developer’s code, interests and abilities. Right now the first report is in its final stages. The results are looking very compelling and provide a lot of new insights. You will have to stay tuned a little bit longer, however.
Will do! Are there other tech companies competing for the space?
There are a number of companies competing for the space. Some are more advanced than others, but I think we all realise the problems that exist. Hired.com who approaches this as a two-sided marketplace started out as Developer Auction.
They were previously very technology focused but have diversified across marketing and sales. Our approach is distinctly different and how we determine a match is done much more in the forefront, not after a connection is made.