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 it alone. This means that it is very important that you are able to 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 in an elaborate manner. This is just one of the examples of how we put our team’s needs over our own.

On the technical side, we expect you to follow standardized practices in building Drupal websites, writing code, and delivering quality. 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. All of our efforts are in providing 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 are able to complete the interview test if applicable. 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. You might receive some questionnaires and someone might reach out to you to schedule a conversation.

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 are applying 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 and this is not the only factor we consider anyway. Still, glaring errors reduce your chances of moving ahead, especially those that are 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 kind of 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

The first conversation we would have is what we call a “Culture Conversation”. This 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 answering any questions they have regarding the process/company.

How we evaluate

We are not necessarily looking for culture fitment when hiring but we do 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.

After the culture conversation, 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.

Peer Interview Round 1: Background and Common Technical concepts

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 would 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 discussion on common technical concepts. We usually talk about common Drupal site-building or development but it may change depending on your background. We expect this to take about 15-20 minutes of your time.

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.

Interim: Coding Test

After the first round, we want to know more about your technical skills and invite you to submit an existing code sample or take our coding test. You can read more about our requirements for an existing code sample here. If you don’t have an existing code sample that satisfies these conditions, we are happy to send you a quick coding test (we don’t believe in live coding exercises during the interview). We would send this test over GitHub and assign it directly to your profile.

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.

How we evaluate

As you work on various issues in the code repository, we could respond to those issues or your pull requests directly. When required, we would expect your responses at reasonable times on the issues and pull requests (typically within a week or two).

Peer Interview 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. We don’t want you to be surprised by the questions in the interview. The 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. There is also a chance we might use your code sample for a discussion if necessary.

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 are able to 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 a lot of 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 so that there is a higher chance of success.

Know the team

Kanika is a recruiting operations specialist and the SPOC throughout the hiring process for candidates and the business. She will meet the candidates initially before or after the test for preliminary screening to find alignment or fitment between them and our requirements. To find out more about her, read her 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 for this. It is very likely that you will 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 the challenging projects, he spends a lot of time improving the recruitment practices and it is likely you will meet him during the interview. To find more about him, read his Drupal.org profile, or his LinkedIn profile.

Gaurav is a Drupal Engineer at Axelerant focusing on contributions. He is a member of the Technology COE at Axelerant who leads our various community initiatives and is himself a prolific contributor on drupal.org. To read more about him, see 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.