Our Hiring Process

Our culture is important to us, so we’re careful to make sure that the fit is right on both sides. We want to learn about who you really are. We promise if you bring your real self, we’ll do the same.

Our recruitment process often starts with a short video, so we can virtually "meet" you for the first time. This is followed by a set of assessments to augment the process of learning how you'd best fit. If you're a developer, you'll then complete a straightforward technical assessment, followed by a chat with one of our senior technical team to learn more about what you know, and how you make decisions. The last step is an in-person interview. We undertake a lot of overseas hiring and are an Accredited Employer with Immigration New Zealand. We are periodically in Europe and Asia to conduct final in-person interviews.

Life at Propellerhead

We believe you are most effective when given the room to move – when there are as few organisational layers as possible.

We take great pride in what we do and provide structure and discipline around our modes of delivery. We know our modes are challenging for some clients but we also know most are looking for a different way of getting good value outcomes for their businesses sooner. We are less interested in your last title but we do value new ideas, diversity of skills, aptitude, attitude and a willingness to play nicely.

Our typical client engagements are large-scale, but often start small. We concentrate on the right combination of methodology, architecture, technology, and operating model.

We believe software’s ‘natural state’ is live, in front of real users, and used for the purpose it is intended. The earlier we can deliver working software the sooner we are creating value. We are passionate advocates for open-source software, open data, and open ideas.

How We Work

Propellerhead has moved away from traditional company hierarchy, and practices a flat organisational structure that takes its influence from Holacracy. Instead of being accountable to managers, we’re accountable to our roles and responsibilities. We made this change in order to empower smart people.

Work is organised around cross-functional, self-managing teams, each including roles needed to contribute to successful delivery of value. The most effective development team size for us is 5 people (4 developers and 1 quality analyst). Product teams (1 product owner and 1 service owner), then work with our development teams. Our Optimisation teams (site reliability engineers and technical support analysts) work on maintaining and optimising client systems.

We adopt our structure for its leanness and flexibility: teams are internally self-organising, and this allows them to focus on managing their work rather than people.

Open Positions