Work here
You will be deployed into somebody else’s team and expected to push back on their plan. That is the job, stated plainly, because it suits some very good engineers and genuinely does not suit others.
Closer to the business than most engineering jobs get.
You are placed with a client, usually alone, sometimes with one or two others. You sit in their standup, read their support tickets, and talk to whoever owns the problem. You are not given a ticket queue and asked to burn it down.
The expectation that surprises people is that you are supposed to disagree. If the brief describes a solution that will not work, saying so is the job rather than a risk to your position. Engineers who have spent years being told to just build what was asked find this uncomfortable for about a fortnight.
The other expectation is that you stay with it. What you build is what you support. That is a strong incentive to build it in a way you will not resent in six months, which is most of the point.
Four exercises, and a reason either way.
The same exercises we publish on the client-facing role pages. You can read exactly what you will be asked before you apply, which seems like the least we can do.
Send one email
To careers@zekiexperts.com, with something you built and two sentences about what was hard about it. No cover letter, and we do not care about the formatting of your CV.
A short call
Thirty minutes on what you have worked on and what you want next. Also your chance to ask what the client work actually looks like, which you should.
Four exercises from real work
Specific to your role and listed publicly on the role pages. Run by somebody who does that job. We watch the method more than the answer.
A conversation with Umer, then a decision
Within a week of the exercises, with a reason attached whichever way it goes. Silence is not an answer we give.
Ten roles, and each page says what we test.
These pages were written for clients, which makes them unusually useful if you are applying: they say precisely what we look for and what a weak answer sounds like.
This suits some people and not others.
Good fit
- You would rather own one outcome than touch twenty tickets.
- You are comfortable telling a client their plan is wrong, politely.
- You want to see whether what you built actually worked.
- You like working directly with the people who use the software.
Poor fit
- You want a specification handed to you and left alone.
- Client contact is the part of the job you are trying to avoid.
- You would rather specialise narrowly than own something end to end.
- A US morning overlap is not something you can commit to.
Before you send the email.
It is client work, and we will not pretend otherwise. What is different is that you are expected to argue with the brief rather than execute it silently, and you stay with what you built instead of handing it to a support desk.
For most roles, no. What is not negotiable is a real overlap with the US morning, because the whole model depends on being reachable by the person who owns the problem.
A short call, four exercises from real work spread over a few days, and a conversation with Umer. We aim to give a decision within a week of the exercises, and we tell you either way with a reason.
No. The exercises are scoped to a few hours in total and they are paid if they run longer than that. Asking for unpaid weekends is a way of selecting for people with nothing else going on.
You get told which exercise and why. You are welcome to come back in six months, and people have.
One email, and something you built.
Send it to careers@zekiexperts.com with two sentences about what was hard about it. We reply to everyone, including no.