client testimonials
Kristaps Rikans
Regional Managing Director, Ubiquiti
"We want to form our developers, and that requires a hunger to learn and improve. The developers from SALT embody these traits."
In late 2019 the technology company Ubiquiti Inc, a global manufacturer of wireless data communication products, opened their new R&D office in Stockholm, Sweden. With a plan to grow the team rapidly, their need for skilled software engineers was immediate.
Kristaps Rikans, Regional Managing Director at Ubiquiti in Europe, was introduced to SALT and saw potential in partnering up.
“The technologies SALT uses in their career programme fits our tech stack well, and I saw an opportunity to hire skilled developers at a high pace in order to scale the new team.”
Kristaps invited a handful of developers from SALT to complete a code test to benchmark their technical skills with other recruitments. He was impressed with the results and decided to take on three of them. Since then Ubiquiti’s Stockholm branch has grown considerably and has become an established R&D-unit within the company.
“We’ve hired a substantial number of developers from SALT since the initial three and I’m happy to say that the performance of the team in Stockholm is on par with the best performing R&D-units in our company.”
One thing Kristaps appreciates with SALT is that drive and motivation are main criteria for being accepted into the programme and dedication and perseverance are required to graduate.
“At Ubiquiti we prefer to hire individuals with a specific mindset. Seniority sometimes comes with less flexibility. We want to form our developers, and that requires a hunger to learn and improve. The developers from SALT embody these traits.”
Ubiquiti's success as a company can be attributed to several factors. One of them is their laser-like focus on building meaningful features for their products at a rapid pace.
“We expect our engineers to build things that add real value and at speed. This also applies to new developers joining our company. Our on-boarding is quick and as a new developer we expect you to deliver more or less right away. Our pace has never been an issue for our SALT hires who are trained in finding solutions through cooperation in teams.”
The ambitions for the R&D-office in Stockholm are big and Kristaps and his team are constantly on the lookout for talent, both juniors and seniors.
“We keep growing and we plan to continue our strategic partnership with SALT as long as the engineers live up to our expectations.”
https://ui.comPeter Bergenwald
Engineering director, Klarna
"They did better than developers with similar training"
Met onze sterke naamsbekendheid heeft Klarna geen moeite om nieuwe developers aan te trekken. De uitdaging ligt hem er in om de competenties van de kandidaten te beoordelen. Klarna's engineering director Peter Bergenwald heeft SALT een kans gegeven zich te bewijzen. Een keuze waar hij erg blij mee is.
Dankzij de positie van Klarna als een van de bekendste Zweedse bedrijven is het voor een junior developer een goede opstap in de tech-wereld. Deze grote aantallen aanmeldingen leggen echter ook een groot beslag op het selectieproces.
"Het kost ons heel veel tijd en energie om de mensen te vinden die we echt graag willen hebben. Vaak is het lastig beoordelen of een kandidaat potentie heeft als er weinig werkervaring is. SALT werd voor ons een partner die hierbij kan helpen."
Bovenal was met name de strenge selectieprocedure bij SALT interessant, waarbij slechts zo’n 30 kandidaten werden geselecteerd uit 1.000 aanmeldingen.Ongeveer halverwege de opleiding onderwierp Klarna de SALT developers aan hun eigen screening process, wat tot verrassend goede resultaten leidde.
"Ze presteerden beter dan andere developers met een vergelijkbare achtergrond Ik waardeer het ook dat er gemiddeld via SALT meer vrouwelijke kandidaten kwamen dan we normaal zouden zien. Aangezien wij een bedrijf zijn dat diversiteit nastreeft in zowel geslacht als achtergrond en nationaliteit zagen wij een match."
Op dit moment werken er 8 developers van SALT bij Klarna. Sommige zijn wat meer senior met een universitaire Masters diploma op zak, en anderen hebben meer werkervaring. "Alle developers blinken uit in motivatie en drive. Dat is dan ook een minimale vereiste om deel te nemen aan een opleiding van SALT."
https://klarna.seJonas Cedenwing
CTO, Telness
"Our Salt developers have gotten started impressively fast and are performing above expectations."
When Telness came in contact with SALT, the development team consisted of only a handful of developers. Jonas Cedenwing, CTO at Telness, wanted to lay the foundation for his future development team by hiring developers in-house.
"By collaborating with SALT, we were able to quickly meet developers who have gone through their solid selection process and whose expertise has been verified in the very technologies we work with."
A large part of Telness' success lies in their strong customer focus and close collaboration between sales, customer service and the development team. Feedback from customers is quickly transformed into new features.
“It is important that the developers have an understanding of the business and the problems that we are trying to solve with the help of code. We are looking for unpretentious individuals who thrive in a changing environment where self-leadership and cooperation are required both within the team and with other parts of the organization. We have found that through SALT”.
Since April 2020, Charlotte Curran and Alexander Erni, two developers who have completed SALT's Full Stack JavaScript career program, have been working in a small team of six people. Jonas had a clear plan for the onboarding so that the developers would get a good sense of Telness' development environment and start working independently in a smooth way.
“I have to say that both have started impressively fast and are performing above expectations. We have an appreciated and efficient onboarding process that has made them start running their own projects at an early stage and deliver value to the entire organization.”
The plan for Telness is to continue to grow and develop its offering through a completely new business line. In future, the company's technical platform will be sold to telecommunications companies through a SaaS solution.
https://telness.se
