This document outlines the hiring process at Axelerant specific to Drupal Engineers. It is intended to help you determine if Axelerant is the right fit for you and set you up for success in the hiring process. This is a guide to be better prepared by understanding our expectations and what we look for. If you have any questions, please reach out to the recruitment team.
About Axelerant and the Drupal team
Axelerant is a digital service agency focusing on open-source software solutions, especially Drupal. We are committed to the Drupal community (and the open-source community in general) to be responsible citizens by forming a symbiotic relationship. Our core values of enthusiasm, kindness, and openness are aligned with this commitment, and this is something we look for in every team member at Axelerant.
As a Drupal engineer at Axelerant, you would use Drupal and other technologies to build complex solutions for our customers. Given the scale and complexity of our solutions, it is likely that you won’t be building them alone. This means that it is essential that you can contribute to the system as a team and put the team’s needs first (our KPI’s are also designed to be team-first). While we are distributed, and we respect your needs for flexibility, we also expect you to be accountable for tasks assigned to you. You should be proactive and communicate the status of your tasks elaborately. This is just one of the examples of how we put our team’s needs over our own.
We expect you to follow standardized practices in building Drupal websites, writing code, and delivering quality on the technical side. We collaborate heavily with the community here. Our own processes are built on top of what the community already uses, and such tools are shared openly (look at our Github account). We expect you to use them and also help improve them.
All of these expectations are tempered with support for your needs. Our efforts provide you with a stable and psychologically safe environment where you can thrive and fulfill your career aspirations. This means we provide you with training, mentoring, peer support, life and performance coaching, and the ability to find resources for your own development needs. Look at our benefits page for more information.
If you have any questions about working at Axelerant, feel free to talk to our recruitment team.
The Process
Typically, the hiring process for a Drupal engineer takes up to a few weeks. It depends on the availability of interview slots and how quickly you can complete the interview test. We often see the entire process take about a month, but in an expedited process, all of these steps could be completed even within a week.
We evaluate your profile and application at every step of the way. Either of us may find that we are not a fit and abandon the process. We also describe how we evaluate your application at each stage of the process below.
Applying
The process begins when you apply for a position, typically from our careers page. On applying, your profile is created in our ATS (applicant tracking system) and is tracked there throughout the process. Depending on the position, you might receive some questionnaires and an interview test. Depending on your responses, we move to the next step.
How we evaluate
We check for general fitment as per the job description. Depending on the level you apply, we check the quality of your written responses to our questionnaire and the content of your resume. For example, if you apply for L3 or higher positions, we want to see some experience working in large teams and leading small teams. Similarly, such positions also require above-average writing skills. Common errors such as consistently poor spelling, lack of capitalization, and other common grammatical errors may lead to rejection. We are not looking for 100% accuracy, which is not the only factor we consider anyway. Still, glaring errors reduce your chances of moving ahead, especially those easily avoided by a spell check or a tool like Grammarly.
We also check your resume for the kind of work you have done. We don’t depend on the titles but look at the work you have done in the past. Rich and specific detail would help us in making a better decision and finding alignment.
Another area we consider is your online presence. We look at your Drupal.org profile to see your participation in the community along with other places like LinkedIn. We understand that you may not have had the opportunity to contribute to Drupal, and hence you won’t be rejected for not having a profile. That said, we highly value community engagement, and having an online presence can work in your favor.
Finally, we also value certifications, especially those provided by Acquia. If you hold any certifications (even if expired), be sure to list them.
Culture Conversation
Depending on the position you are applying for, you may have a culture conversation before or after the coding test. This conversation is to find alignment between us in our values and basic check on fitment by gauging the candidates’ interest for the role, communication skills, clarifying various points about their application/resume, and answer any questions they have regarding the process/company.
How we evaluate
We are not necessarily looking for culture fitment when hiring, but we look at ways in which you add value to Axelerant. We want to know more about how well you align with our core values and what perspectives you bring to the table. Here, we also check how clearly you can communicate using English (our language of communication across the teams) and how relevant your experience is to Axelerant.
Coding Sample Review
Learn more at Code Sample for Drupal Positions at Axelerant.
Coding Test when Relevant
The coding test is designed to be similar to typical day-to-day tasks at Axelerant. We have taken care to keep the tasks relatable to actual requirements we see while keeping them short enough so that you can finish the test in a reasonable time. More details about the test, the tasks, and what we look for in your code submission are documented at length in the repository you would receive.
Peer Interview
After the culture conversation and coding test, you may move to the peer interview stage. Since this is a lengthy conversation and online calls can be tiring, we have split this into two rounds.
Round 1: Background and code walkthrough
The first round covers your background and the challenges you have faced in your career. We are sure you might face unique challenges every day, but we would like to hear about those challenges which demonstrate your skills and capabilities for the level you are applying. For example, at L1, we expect you to share challenges related to learning new technologies and meeting deadlines. At L3 or L4, we would be more interested in complex challenges such as integrations and challenges in the team. This typically lasts 20-30 minutes.
This is followed by a code walkthrough where we ask you to share your screen and walk us through the code you have submitted. We are not looking for a line-by-line walkthrough. We are more interested in how you thought about the requirements and how you approached the problem and eventually wrote the code to implement each requirement. We also check if the code you wrote is readable and at some basics, such as following Drupal coding styles. This typically takes 20 minutes.
Finally, we look forward to answering any questions you might have regarding Axelerant, the job role, the hiring process, or anything else. In fact, we value meaningful questions and discussions from you.
Round 2: In-depth Interview
If we decide to move forward, we invite you to round 2, where we have an in-depth conversation about technology. The list of topics will be shared with you well before the interview, and we expect that this would help you prepare in advance. It would be best if you weren’t surprised by the questions in the interview. The list of topics apply to all levels, but the kind of questions we ask depend on the level for which you are applying. For example, we expect applicants at L3 or L4 level to be more familiar with topics such as CI/CD, automation, and high availability.
How we evaluate
In these rounds, we look at your past experiences and challenges and how relevant that is to what you’re going to do here. For the code walkthrough section, we evaluate how clearly you can explain the code and why you wrote the code the way you did. As mentioned before, we also check if you are using Drupal’s coding style and other programming standard practices.
We also check for your technical expertise based on the tasks we do day-to-day. We don’t look for 100% coverage here with the full understanding that nobody can know everything. We look for certain baseline skills depending on the role, and anything on top of that is a good-to-have bonus. For this reason, we may talk about many topics and ask a lot of in-depth questions, but we don’t expect you to answer every question.
Offer
If everything checks out, we set up a conversation with you to discuss the offer and the next steps. Depending on your performance in the interviews, we may adjust the role to have a higher chance of success.
Know the team
Akhil is a recruiting operations specialist and the SPOC throughout the hiring process for candidates and the business. They will meet the candidates initially before or after the test for preliminary screening to find alignment or fitment between them and our requirements. Learn more about them, LinkedIn profile.
Hussain is the director of PHP/Drupal services at Axelerant. He is accountable for the team’s growth at Axelerant and knows hiring is an important channel. You will likely be meeting with Hussain during your peer interview rounds. To find out more about him, read his README, his drupal.org profile, or his LinkedIn profile.
Kunal is a Drupal Engineer at Axelerant. Apart from working on challenging projects, he spends much time improving the recruitment practices, and you will likely meet him during the interview. To find more about him, read his Drupal.org profile or his LinkedIn profile.
Getting Help
I hope this document helps you understand Axelerant better and set you up for a successful interview experience with us. We appreciate any feedback you might have about this document and our hiring process. For this or any questions you may have about working with us, please reach out to the recruitment team.