How we vet engineers before they join your team

The short answer: every engineer we place passes four stages, and a senior engineer runs each one, not a recruiter. A communication screen, a practical task in your stack, a technical interview (with system design for senior roles), and references from previous managers. You see the scorecard, and you interview the shortlist before anyone starts.

Here is what each stage is for, what tends to separate good candidates from great ones, and how to run your own final interview.

Why a senior engineer runs every stage

A recruiter can check that a CV says "React, five years". Only an engineer can tell whether those five years were spent building things or copying them. Putting a senior engineer in every stage takes more time per candidate. We think it is worth it.

"What sets LoudlyDev apart is their ability to consistently deliver high-calibre technical talent who integrate with our teams."
Muhammad Khaubib, Enterprise Program Manager, Asia, Keyrus

Stage 1: the communication screen

In remote work, communication problems are often more expensive than code problems: an engineer who goes quiet when they are stuck can cost you days. So the first conversation is about how a candidate works, not what they know. It answers questions like these:

• Can they explain a past project clearly to someone who wasn't there?
• Do they ask questions when something is unclear, or guess?
• Can they write a short, useful update about work in progress?

Engineers working for international clients write all day: pull request descriptions, ticket comments, messages to people in other time zones. Written English matters as much as spoken.

Stage 2: a practical task in your stack

The task is practical, not a puzzle. Reversing a linked list on a whiteboard says little about whether someone can add a feature to a real codebase, so candidates do a task in the stack they will work in: the kind of change they would actually make for you.

The question that matters is less "does it work" and more "would I merge this":

• Is the change small and focused, or does it touch everything?
• Are there tests, and do they test the right thing?
• Is the code readable by the next person?
• Did they explain their trade-offs?

Each of our hire pages lists what we vet for in that stack, for example React developers, Python developers and DevOps engineers.

Stage 3: the technical interview

A conversation with a senior engineer about the task and about past work. We want to hear how a candidate thinks: why they chose one approach over another, what they would do differently with more time, and how they debug something they have never seen before.

For senior and lead roles this includes system design: how they would structure a feature or a service, where it might break under load, and what they would measure. Senior engineers are hired for judgment, and this is where it shows.

Stage 4: references from previous managers

We speak to people who have managed the candidate, not only colleagues. The useful questions are specific: what did this person own, how did they handle a deadline that slipped, would you hire them again?

What you see, and what you decide

You get a shortlist of two or three candidates vetted for your stack, each with interview notes and a scorecard. You interview them yourself and you pick. For fast-start roles, one of our senior engineers can start on your backlog within days while this runs, so the matching never holds up the work.

After someone starts, a week of overlap covers the handover, and you get a Loud Report every Friday with what shipped and what is blocked. If the first two weeks aren't working for you, you don't pay for them.

How to run your own final interview

You know your product and team better than we do. In your interview, skip the trivia and ask about real work:

1. Walk me through something you shipped that you are proud of. Listen for what they owned, not what the team did.
2. Tell me about a bug that took you a long time to find. Good engineers enjoy this question.
3. Here is a real ticket from our backlog. How would you approach it? You will learn more in ten minutes than from an hour of theory.
4. What would you want to know in your first week? Strong candidates ask about users, deployment and how decisions get made.

Questions to ask any vendor about vetting

1. Who runs each stage: an engineer or a recruiter?
2. Is the practical task in my stack, or a generic test?
3. Can I see the scorecard and interview notes?
4. Do I interview the final candidates myself?
5. What happens if the person isn't working out after two weeks?

If the answers are vague, the vetting probably is too. When you are ready, the hire builder shows the price and start date for any role, and our comparison of staff augmentation and outsourcing helps you decide how to work with us.