We caught up with Crunch – an award-winning online financial services firm for the self-employed and small business owners, about what they look for when they're recruiting new team members. They are currently hiring some new members to join their team.
What do you look for when interviewing someone for your team?
Crunch is built on our five core Values: Supportive, Knowledgeable, Simplicity, Respectful & Integrity; and these traits are the key things we’re on the lookout for when we’re searching for new talent to join our team!
At Crunch, we recognise that for as good as we are alone, we’re better when we support each other. That’s why everyone in the Crunch family supports one another, pulling together to create an experience for our clients and our teammates that’s open and promotes personal development.
We have an unquenchable thirst for knowledge, and we recognise the achievements and efforts of those around us.
Accountancy can be complicated, and that’s the reason we all do what we do best - to make accountancy less painful! We’re always looking to simplify things, streamline them and make them accessible to everyone.
Successful relationships, whether personal or professional, are built on a foundation of respect. Respect for each other and our backgrounds; respect for our opinions and our differences. We show compassion, care and empathy to all those around us.
Ethics and integrity are a measure of our kindness and humanity - particularly when no one else is looking. As a team, we’re unafraid of speaking up if we see or feel something that doesn’t sit right.
We keep people at the core of everything we do, and we’re inspired by the drive to push boundaries and achieve full potential - be this in our team members and their own careers; or supporting our clients with their new ventures as freelancers, contractors, and small business owners.
What opportunities are there for career progression at Crunch?
Lots! Where we can, we always look to open opportunities and promote within our current team first - many amazing people have progressed into senior and management positions, along with taking their careers in completely new directions during their time at Crunch.
A great example of this is Helena, our Head of Transformation and Product, who started off in our Client Services Team 11 years ago - and through masses of hard work and dedication is now a key part of our Leadership Team!
Graham Vinten, Lead ScrumMaster
What is your position, and how would you describe a typical working day?
As Lead ScrumMaster, the first priority is always the Stand-up meetings with the teams that I serve. Getting people together to talk about their progress with the work at hand whilst I listen out for challenges the individuals face and look for any opportunity to help their day be as productive as possible. Later on, I'll meet up with the other ScrumMasters and we'll discuss any crossover points between the teams and any common challenges the teams face and work towards smoothing those out. There are also regular team meetings such as Refining, Reviews and Retrospectives to prepare for and facilitate, it's all about trying to make sure everyone is happy and have what they need to do the best job they can.
What experience do you need for the role?
Experience in dealing with diverse teams of people is key. With such a variety of personalities, working styles and drivers, it's vital you can relate to, and communicate with, other people at all levels. An understanding of Agile Software Development principles and working with the Scrum framework in practice is also vital. Previous experience in other areas of Software Development as a Programmer, QA or Business Analyst can be a bonus to help understand the colleagues you are working with.
What is the most rewarding part of your job?
Helping people achieve great things. Seeing first hand what can be achieved when the team is aligned and successfully pulling together towards a common goal, and especially seeing the pride on the team's faces when they realise "We were the ones who made that happen!
Conor O'Driscoll, Product Design Lead
What is your position, and how would you describe a typical working day?
One of the great things about being a product designer at Crunch is that there’s not really a typical working day.
Some days I’ll be designing new features and refining our design system, other days I’ll be running user testing workshops to make sure we’re building the right things. The next day, I might be working with the development team to ensure that we’re nailing the details, or maybe I’ll even be diving into the code and making some changes to the app myself.
At Crunch, our designers are really trusted to shepherd a project all the way from ideation through to production (with help and feedback from lots of other people, of course), so there’s tonnes of variety in our work.
What experience do you need for the role?
I really think it’s less about the experience and more about skills.
Can you care passionately about the user and advocate for them at every turn? Can you think through a problem from every angle? Can you design responsive, accessible, joyful experiences for the web?
If you’ve developed those skills through formal education or prior experience as a designer, great - but you can develop those skills in a thousand other ways too.
What is the most rewarding part of your job?
I don’t think anything can top getting great feedback from our users. Releasing a feature and hearing about how much time it’s going to save someone. Showing something in user testing and seeing how that little detail you spent hours on has made bookkeeping just that tiny bit more enjoyable for someone. That’s why we got into this work in the first place, right?
Michael Horne, Lead Site Reliability Engineer
What is your position, and how would you describe a typical working day?
Lead Site Reliability Engineer - I'm not sure I could consider any day as `typical` - I work with a large development team and a wide range of infrastructure and tools on a daily basis, providing support and knowledge sharing to further drive our DevOps culture and enable developers to be self-sufficient, there is a portion of reactive work when we see abnormalities in our infrastructure and a portion of explorative work with new tools and technologies - every day brings new excitement and challenges.
What experience do you need for the role?
The ability to work in a fast-paced world of cloud infrastructure, utilising modern technologies like Kubernetes and Istio, the drive to be constantly improving resilience and efficiency in every aspect of the infrastructure that you care for and a passion for knowledge.
What is the most rewarding part of your job?
Uptime, we love uptime. Delivering that project that you've been invested in and to see it finally provide the benefits you had envisioned. If we stay online, our clients are happy :)
If you want to work at Crunch, you can find out about their current career opportunities via our Jobs site.
You may also like...
-
Talking Talent with UnitedUs
We're talking talent with UnitedUs, who are looking for exceptional new candidates to join their creative team in Brighton.
-
Talking Talent With Tilt
We sat down with award-winning creative agency Tilt to get a behind-the-scenes look at their company and to find out what they look for when recruiting.
-
Talent Talent with Bright
We're talking talent with some of the Bright team, a web software development company based in Brighton, to find out more about their business.
-
Talking Talent with ISMS.online
We caught up with some of the team at ISMS.online, to find out about their current vacancies, and what they're looking for in a new team member.
-
Talking Talent with Brilliant Noise
We sat down with Brilliant Noise to find out about what they look for when recruiting for a new team member.
-
Talking Talent with Tillo
Last year, as part of our Talent Talk series, we caught up with Brighton-based Tillo to find out more about life at their company and what they look for in new team members.
-
Talking Talent with 15gifts
We caught up with the team at 15gifts, who have a number of exciting new job opportunities, to find out what they're looking for in a new team member and what they love about their job.
-
Talking Talent with Cogapp
This week we're talking talent with Cogapp, who are looking for a new Senior Web Developer to join their friendly team in Brighton.
-
Talking Talent with Naurt
We talk talent with Naurt, who are on the lookout for an Artificial Intelligence Developer to assist in unlocking the next level of innovation.
-
Talking Talent with DabApps
As part of our Talent Talk series, we caught up with Brighton-based DabApps to find out more about life at their company and what they look for in new team members.
