Founded in 2018, Exos is a New York-based FinTech creating a leading B2B institutional finance platform by rethinking financial services from a clean slate and deploying best-in-class technology, talent, culture, data science, and quantitative strategies.The business was looking to build out its team with new AWS talent but was finding the hiring landscape challenging due to recent disruptions to the job market caused by the global pandemic.

As a state-of-the-art FinTech, Exos has particularly high standards in what it looks for in a candidate. Successful Exos applicants do not necessarily need financial service experience, but they are required to have strong technical expertise in engineering, data science and/or quantitative strategies, with a passion for developing a great company in collaboration with other highly-talented team members. The organization’s strong engineering culture and high caliber of people motivated to continually challenge themselves is what differentiates Exos from its competitors. These soft skills, combined with strong cloud-native, infrastructure as code and in-depth AWS subject-matter expertise, were crucial requirements but also proving difficult to source.

Following a recommendation from the company’s contact at AWS, Exos reached out to Jefferson Frank for specialist help in navigating its hiring challenges to recruit for its DevOps roles.

Jefferson Frank worked with Exos on pivoting its job specification to attract more suitable candidates, as Brittany Phillips, Vice President of People Solutions at Exos, explains: “Jefferson Frank was direct in saying that it was going to be challenging to find a candidate willing to work in the office five days a week. So, based on their advice and feedback, we relaxed our in-office requirement to a hybrid role of two to three days instead.

“We knew it would be hard to find the right candidate who not only had the technical ability for the job but who also had the collaboration skills required to build relationships and learn from others in and out of the office while working remotely. The team at Jefferson Frank did a great job in casting a wide net in our search and presenting only those who met or exceeded our high standards.”

Jefferson Frank subsequently filled Exos’ DevOps position with an exceptional candidate who sped through the technical skills test prior to meeting a few of their future colleagues to ensure there was a great fit for both the candidate and the team. Exos really appreciated the professionalism, efficiency and expediency Jefferson Frank demonstrated throughout the recruitment process.

By working with Jefferson Frank, Exos was not only able to hire a great DevOps Engineer, but it was also able to make an additional opportunistic hire for another role that was not yet open. “The second candidate couldn’t have come at a better moment, as our business is rapidly expanding,” Brittany says. “Being able to hire top-notch talent quickly and efficiently through our partnership with Jefferson Frank is enabling us to exceed our business objectives.”

Jefferson Frank was flexible and collaborative throughout. Not only do we effectively screen candidates, but we also work with our clients to adjust to their evolving needs. Brittany explains: “Whenever I passed on an applicant, they always took my feedback on board and adapted accordingly without getting offended.”

She continues: “I particularly liked engaging with my dedicated Jefferson Frank recruiter at least once or often twice weekly in candidate round-up discussions. This was super helpful and made my life much easier. They also did an excellent job collaborating with me on forming an offer and communicating directly with the candidate for more information. This significantly freed up my time for other tasks.”

Discussing the quality of the service delivered overall, Brittany concludes: “It’s been great working with Jefferson Frank. It’s definitely been a team effort from day one and it’s good to know we have a solid partnership in place for other roles we need to fill in the future.”

Trimble is an industrial technology company that equips its customers with hardware, software, and services to support the agriculture, construction, geospatial, and transportation sectors.

The business was looking to recruit a new Senior Manager of Cloud Platform Operations to lead its team of Site Reliability Engineers. However, Trimble was facing several recruitment challenges. Firstly, it was struggling to find candidates with the right blend of AWS cloud infrastructure knowledge and managerial experience. Secondly, sourcing professionals whose skill sets aligned with the company’s budget was proving difficult.

Jeff Andersen, Director Platform Engagement – Cloud Platform, Trimble, explains: “Candidates were demanding wages out of step with their technical attributes and experience.”

AWS made an introduction between Jefferson Frank and Trimble.

Jefferson Frank then assembled a dedicated delivery team and worked with Trimble to refine the job specification and how they would pitch it to prospective candidates. Jeff comments: “From the offset, Jefferson Frank understood our mission and the markets we serve, so that helped us to hit the ground running.”

The entire recruitment process lasted just six weeks, with Jefferson Frank supplying 12 candidates for the role, with four going through to interview and one applicant receiving a job offer. Reflecting on the experience, Jeff says: “We needed a candidate we could trust, with the technical abilities and culture-fit we were looking for, all within budget, and Jefferson Frank found us someone who ticked every box.”

The new Senior Manager arrived ‘tooled’ and organized, having already done substantial research on Trimble, partly due to Jefferson Frank thoroughly preparing him earlier in the recruitment process—enabling him to make an immediate impact.

Jeff explains: “In just a few weeks, he implemented task management processes, engaged with key stakeholders, and developed an understanding of how our operation model works. It made onboarding much smoother for me.”

Summarizing the service Jefferson Frank provided, Jeff concludes: “The care and attention to detail throughout were exceptionally high, and I appreciated that.”

5×5 Technologies is a Florida-based start-up that helps organizations manage, protect, and monetize their physical assets by using cutting-edge 3D spatial computing, machine learning (ML), and artificial intelligence (AI).

The business had been looking to recruit a number of key senior AWS professionals that not only possessed the technical expertise to jump straight in and get the work done, but that would also be the best cultural fit for its start-up environment.

5×5 Technologies was first introduced to the team at Jefferson Frank by its AWS partner representative.

The organization took advantage of Jefferson Frank’s exclusive Activate Offer, which helps Activate members build their teams at a heavily discounted rate. As a start-up, 5×5 Technologies has a strict budget and needs to find the right people at an affordable but competitive market rate, so the Activate offer was integral to its recruitment strategy from a budgetary perspective.

To date, our Strategic Alliance team has filled six permanent roles, including Physical Science Team Lead, Principal Data Scientist, Lead DevOps Architect, CAD/Graphics Engineer, Cloud/DevOps Engineer, and Angular UI Developer.

The approach taken by the Strategic Alliance team at Jefferson Frank has been both collaborative and consultative, as Anne Zink, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of 5×5 Technologies, explains: “Jefferson Frank ensures we are competitive and offer salaries comparable with not just other start-ups but with larger companies too – like your Facebooks and Apples – that are also competing for the same highly skilled resources.

“This kind of support is super valuable to us, as we don’t always have the intel on the market rates and work perks we should be offering to attract the best talent. The service from Jefferson Frank has been excellent in that regard, and we look forward to working with the team on future job openings.”

The AWS professionals placed by Jefferson Frank are now in the process of building out 5×5 Technologies’ innovative platform, encompassing everything from web architecture for its cloud-based offering, to AI and ML, as well as pioneering new work in the robotic sensors space.

eVolve MEP is a US-based business with offices in Atlanta and Denver that helps mechanical, electrical, and plumbing industries harness the power of SaaS platform-based products.

After evaluating the company’s product strategy and deciding to use AWS as the platform and infrastructure provider, eVolve MEP identified the need for several new Developer and Engineer roles within its internal team.

With AWS professionals being more open to remote work due to the pandemic, eVolve MEP could widen its candidate search across the whole of North America and knew they would need help to find and attract top candidates.

The team asked their AWS sales representative to recommend an AWS recruiter and they were subsequently introduced to Jefferson Frank to kick-start the hiring process.

Jefferson Frank worked with eVolve MEP to craft a fast and efficient recruitment process. Our recruiters advised on the best approach to take with interviews and technical tests, ensuring each stage was thorough and candidates were engaged.

After eVolve MEP shared its job specifications with our consultants, we supplied a sample of resumes. Based on their initial feedback, we refined the specifications and set about finding candidates that matched the criteria for each role. We delivered a quick turnaround on this, and in some cases, we had qualified candidates ready to start the interview process in just a few days.

The option to work from home, combined with flexible hours, was attractive to candidates, but more than anything, the opportunity to work on an exciting product using the latest technology and a serverless stack while doing cutting-edge work day-to-day appealed to the type of developers eVolve MEP wanted to hire.

So far, we’ve placed four candidates in React Developer, Senior React Developer, AWS Senior DevOps Engineer, and AWS Senior Backend Engineer roles. eVolve MEP also adapted one of these positions to fit the particular skill sets of a candidate the team was keen to hire. We’re now also assisting with another three Developer vacancies.

The benefits

With regards to the benefits of engaging with Jefferson Frank, Clay Freeman, VP of Products at eVolve MEP, explains: “Professionals who are generalists or possess limited experience with infrastructure setups, such as serverless, need a considerable amount of time to research and test an approach, and you often learn things too late in the process.

Pearl

Connecting the client to an unbeatable network of AWS talent.

The challenge

Pearl is a software solutions company that’s using AI technology to power the future of dental care. As a rapidly growing startup, Pearl needed experienced cloud candidates who could hit the ground running.

Pearl was struggling to find candidates with the aptitude and experience they needed with their internal recruitment efforts. The candidates that they’d managed to source so far simply didn’t have the skillsets or experience they were looking for, and many presented logistical obstacles like requiring sponsorship.

The solution

Realizing they needed support from industry experts to source the high-caliber talent they were searching for, Pearl reached out to Jefferson Frank for help.

Though candidates with substantial experience using the tools and services that Pearl employ were rare, the Jefferson Frank team was able to use their extensive technical expertise, and in-depth knowledge of the local candidate market to source a robust shortlist of qualified professionals.

Few of Pearl’s previous candidates were able to pass their technical tests, but the candidates provided by Jefferson Frank were able to competently prove their experience, furnishing Pearl with a choice they hadn’t previously had.

Just two weeks after Jefferson Frank received details of the position, Pearl had a new Front End Developer who has been able to tackle their challenges head-on and is already developing actionable solutions and making informed decisions that are improving Pearl’s products.

Jefferson Frank later found a DevOps Engineer for Pearl and is continuing to help them grow their team. Pearl has also referred Jefferson Frank to another business.

The benefits

By engaging with a specialist staffing organization with practical knowledge of the market in their area, Pearl was able to slash their time-to-hire and onboard the kind of senior candidates with the right skills that they’d previously been unable to find.

The team at Jefferson Frank communicated clearly with Pearl throughout every step of the process, offering support and accurate information that helped Pearl attract the talent they needed and better understand the market in their area.

Inkling

Technical leadership talent at lightning speed.

The challenge

Inkling creates mobile-first software solutions designed to help frontline employees access the knowledge and information they need to get the job done right. To continually develop and improve their products, Inkling employs DevOps principles, which require strong leadership from their tech team.

When a key DevOps Manager decided to leave, the impact was immediate and two-fold: Inkling’s small internal cloud team was short on resources, and the Inkling leadership team was missing a critical member.

Inkling was under pressure to find a managerial-level professional with both AWS experience and a background in DevOps. Inkling recognized that sourcing suitable candidates would be a unique challenge, especially since they needed someone who could step into the role fast.

The solution

With the urgent need to fill a high-level niche role, Inkling turned to Jefferson Frank.

Thanks to their unparalleled network, the team at Jefferson Frank quickly built a list of candidates with the right combination of technical knowledge and leadership experience. This feat was accomplished by using their extensive knowledge of AWS skill sets, coupled with an appreciation for Inkling’s company culture.

Within a single day, Inkling received a shortlist of qualified, pre-vetted candidates. Three days later, the candidates were interviewed, and soon thereafter, Inkling onboarded a new DevOps Manager.

The benefits

Because the team at Jefferson Frank possesses an in-depth understanding of AWS skills and the right relationships within the cloud market, Inkling received an impressive list of candidates with speed.

Jefferson Frank’s absolute dedication to AWS enabled the team to know immediately what types of candidates to look for, where to find them, and how to size up a candidate’s skills quickly, all of which cut down the overall time-to-hire.

Inkling cited the Jefferson Frank team’s professionalism, speed of delivery, candidate quality, and diligence throughout the process as their most impressive merits.

GuidePoint Security

Qualified contract resource to get the job done fast.

The challenge

An elite team of certified cybersecurity experts, GuidePoint Security delivers business-critical security solutions for big-name customers on a daily basis; when a job comes in, they often need extra resource quickly to be able to successfully execute their projects.

When a GuidePoint Security customer—one of the largest accountancy firms in the world—began work building out their next-generation cloud platform, the firm needed talented AWS professionals to help them deliver.

Faced with a tight turnaround, GuidePoint Security knew that its internal teams would be unable to source the candidates needed in time.

The solution

GuidePoint Security turned to Jefferson Frank to source these candidates fast. The company needed multiple AWS DevOps Architects and Engineers, and had a very specific candidate profile in mind—they needed DevOps skills and cloud computing experience, but even more importantly than that, they required candidates who were a great culture fit, had a positive attitude and were hungry to learn.

Jefferson Frank was able to source candidates with the skills, high-level enterprise experience, and the incredible drive that GuidePoint Security needed to deliver results for their client.

In the 18 months that they’ve been working with GuidePoint Security, Jefferson Frank has delivered four permanent and nine contract AWS professionals.

The benefits

According to Practice Director Jonathan Villa, it’s a customer-centric attitude that sets Jefferson Frank head and shoulders above other recruitment firms.

“Jefferson Frank is all about attention to detail,” Jonathan says. “There’s no comparing them to other firms that we have worked with; everyone at Jefferson Frank is focused on the value they can add to our company. They’re not just about selling a body.”

“The time-to-hire and the quality of the candidates you get with Jefferson Frank is simply unbeatable.”

Mission Cloud

“We’ve been very impressed by the quality of the candidates Jefferson Frank has provided.”

“Mission Cloud Services is an AWS Premier Consulting Partner and Managed Cloud Services Provider. We specialize in using our extensive knowledge of AWS to help businesses architect, migrate, manage, and optimize their cloud environments. We pride ourselves on our comprehensive expertise and outstanding service, so we only hire the best AWS talent.

“Since partnering with Jefferson Frank in May 2020, they’ve successfully delivered full-time and contract resources across multiple departments, including Managed Cloud Services, Professional Services, Platform Software Development, Operations, Sales, and Accounting here at Mission.

“Jefferson Frank makes sure our interview process and hiring procedures are seamless. They ensure we don’t waste time on candidates who aren’t absolutely committed and passionate about joining our business. This elevated our hiring efforts enormously—they manage expectations throughout, and as a result, every single candidate to date that we have presented a job offer to has been eager to accept.

“With our hiring managers spending less time on the recruitment process, we have been able to focus more on driving business initiatives and elevating our partner status in the AWS Partner Network. We’ve been very impressed by the quality of the candidates Jefferson Frank has provided and their expertise in the cloud space. We look forward to continuing our partnership and welcoming the fantastic cloud talent that Jefferson Frank will deliver in the future.”

Karoline Saffi
SVP, People & Culture
Mission Cloud Services

Unravel

“I look forward to growing my team with help from Jefferson Frank in the future.”

“Jefferson Frank took the time to understand my company and the requirements I was looking for in a recruit.

“They found great candidates, and I hired the best talent out there for the role.

“I was especially impressed by how they prepared the candidate for my offer letter and positioned us as the right employer for their next career move.

“I look forward to growing my team with help from Jefferson Frank in the future.”

Matt Sangar
Sr. Manager, Technical Account Management
Unravel Data

K4Connect

“High-caliber professionals delivered exceptionally quickly.”

Pariveda