Last updated: June 30, 2020
(Scroll down to see the transcript from the session)


Join us for our next AMA with Ryan Chartrand, CEO of X-Team, and get insight on how to display your value remotely. Whether you're currently looking for a job or working the remote job of your dreams, standing apart from the crowd or being more visible online can be challenging.

X-Team provides high-performing, on-demand teams of developers for leading brands. As CEO of X-Team, Ryan leads the vision, strategic roadmap, and culture that attracts thousands of developers who want to join X-Team each day and be part of the most energizing community of developers. Ryan has built and managed remote teams from around the world for more than a decade across a variety of industries. He also previously lived and worked location-independent across 20 different countries for many years.

Here's your chance to ask questions like:

Be sure to save the date and come prepared with your questions. If you can't make the AMA, we'll be transcribing the session into a blog post.

Connect with Ryan:
Twitter: twitter.com/glassesgeek
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/ryanchartrand/
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Justine Shu
Welcome to today’s AMA with Ryan Chartrand, CEO at X-Team! 🎉

Ryan, I know you’re busy, so thank you for being here and taking the time to connect with the itjobsfromhome.com community.

Let’s get started!

Question 1
Hey Ryan! Thanks for doing this. Question for you -- do you use interview assessment software when making engineering hires? Like a qualified or interviewing.io.

Ryan Chartrand
Thanks for the great question 🙂

There are many different approaches you can take when it comes to hiring developers today. We've been around since long before a lot of these awesome new tools/sites/platforms popped up on the scene, so we've been developing our own tools/etc. over the last 13 years.

That said, we have become less and less interested over that decade on tools like the one you shared, as what we've found is that algorithm tests and abstract coding challenges have very few times helped us validate the skill strength of a candidate. We instead focus heavily on diving into their knowledge and their thought processes and then working with them side by side on a paid project, as most of the time the issue isn't that we didn't assess their coding skills, but that their remote working comms and reliability are their primary weakness -- and also the one thing you can't ever test for without actually working with them 🙂

That said, I think those tools are super useful for small hiring teams that need to push a lot of applicants through to more easily assess them, especially if they haven't fully developed their own processes yet. But the end goal should always be to eventually find your own process that delivers the best results for the teams you're building, not trying to adhere to what a third party thinks is best 😉

Follow-up
That is good to hear about not using code challenges any longer.  I’ve always felt it didn’t really show anything about the developer other than they are good at code challenges.  How does the paid project work if the applicant is still working at a fulltime job? Or do you just leave that up to the applicant?

Ryan Chartrand
Glad you agree! And being good at code challenges is worth...well, nothing on a real project 🙂

So another thing we learned about a good vetting process is that it should be tailored to the candidate and above all be respectful. If someone comes to us with 20 years of experience, a code challenge is an insult 🙂

As is a paid project, assuming they've built enough confidence with us to where we trust in them and will happily bring them onboard for 3 months to start and go from there with a mutual understanding that we want it to work so long as they validate their comms and reliability.

So we'll treat each candidate differently based on the confidence they're able to build which is generally a mix of experience and how well they can showcase their depth of knowledge as a dev and remote team member.

Question 2
Is Java dying? Why there are less and less Java positions opened?

Java has certainly seen a decline, which I can say from my CS days in college of endless headaches with it, I'm happy to see 😜

In all seriousness, some of the legends of our industry are seeing the effects of JS start to make their impact -- PHP, Java, etc. are all getting hit hard. But you also have resurgences like Python thanks to the rise in DevOps needs. So I wouldn't count any technology out of the game, but I would certainly be spending my extra quarantine time these days learning as much as JavaScript as I can, as the industry for the last 5+ years has been full-steam ahead in that direction and only getting more consistent.

Follow-up
What technology do you recommend learning to have the best options for working remotely in software development.  I am a native iOS developer with 10 years of experience, but finding it hard to find remote positions with that skill.

Ryan Chartrand
I'm a bit surprised to hear you're having trouble finding iOS work remotely, but it is COVID days so everything is unpredictable at the moment. I would hang on to native iOS, I see a strong future for it still and demand as well. It isn't in-demand as something like JavaScript, but iOS is higher paying, more fun (personally), and certainly in-demand and has passed the test of time against things like React Native, Electron, Ionic, etc. that have tried to kill off native dev. You're in a good lane if you're enjoying it!


Question 3
Thank you for being here! I've been working as a developer for two years and since I started this journey I’ve been wanting to work on X-team. For an aspiring developer what skills do you consider most that someone part of your team needs to have. I’m a JavaScript developer and have learned node, react, vue, express, Koa, graphql as tech skills, I’m always eager to keep learning but my concern is what would a correct path would be to join the team.

Ryan Chartrand
It's so awesome to hear you've wanted to join X-Team for so long, I hope that happens one day 🙂

Before we even talk tech skills, the most important skill to us is the one that's hardest to test for -- communication and reliability as a remote dev. They're also the ones that decide if a project will succeed or fail; they decide if a dev stays on a project for 1 month or 10 years. True story!

So above all, I'd be focused on learning how to work within a remote team -- how to communicate actively, how to set and reset expectations constantly, how to proactively ask async questions, how to be the best communicator on a Zoom call -- the list goes on, this is where you can be a standout.

As for tech skills, Node + React are still the bread and butter of the industry so that's great to hear you've been learning them! GraphQL is also great to have. The next area I'd focus on is DevOps -- things like AWS (Lambda, Dynamo, etc.) are HUGE bonuses these days and even requirements now.

The key though with tech skills is to show you can learn and adapt.

Follow up
Thanks Ryan I appreciate the time to answer. Ive been working remote already, but I don’t even know if I’m developing this skill. Is there any theory I could rely on? Book blog or something. I know this is somehow a soft skill. Also I noticed your first screening relies in technical skills, therefore my question on the path to take as a developer to become part of the team.

Ryan Chartrand
The first screening is a mix of technical skills and English, which are the two easiest to screen for and also generally the 2 most important to the teams we're building. But the soft skill is what actually gets you the job once you already have those two.

Question 4

Thanks for the AMA, when interviewing are there specific hard skills you look for? Are there specific soft skills you look for?

Ryan Chartrand
For hard skills, whether it's us or any other company, always take the requirements listed on the job posting seriously. No one is looking for less than what's been posted. Oftentimes there are another 10 requirements you only find out about as you get deeper into the hiring process. So anytime you don't fit the hard skills listed, don't waste your time applying 😉

For the soft skills, these are the most hidden of them all as they're hard for companies to express. Most companies will list that they want someone who is a "fast learner" or is "passionate". While these are generic things, try to dig deeper into them. Try to find out what their culture is from their website. Explore the Twitter feeds of their employees. Once you have an idea of who they are, it's no different than if you were writing to someone on a dating app -- you want to appeal to who they are and show how you relate to them.

The other key with soft skills is simply how you present yourself from the first touchpoint they have with you (your LinkedIn, your CV, your e-mails to them, etc.), through to the final interviews (Zoom calls, the backgrounds you choose to have the call from, the audio quality you show up, your WiFi speed, whether you make them laugh). It's again all too similar to dating 🙂

It's on you to make an epic impression, don't expect that they'll know everything that's great about you -- only you know until you make it a point to express it in touchpoint you have with them.

Hope this wasn't too vague, happy to do any followup questions for ya!

Question 5
How important for you are software designing skills? Do you use techniques like Event Storming?

Ryan Chartrand
Awesome question! Software design skills are awesome to have as any developer and regardless of the role. For us, we're all about the thought process, it's what we care most about when vetting developers -- not whether you can solve Knight's Tour in 10 minutes 😛

And software design skills show that you have a well-developed thought process when going into any project.

These specific skills aren't required to join X-Team or most software teams out there, but I would absolutely make a point to highlight them AND explain why those skills add value to the teams you've joined (even better if you can link us to a blog post showing how you've used them on a project!). One of the main points I wanted to make today was about 'how to be a standout' and you've listed one of them perfectly 😉

Question 6
What do you think it's the most important part of the mindset required for succeeding in remote work?

Ryan Chartrand
A thoughtful question that deserves a thoughtful response 🙂

Our tagline is "Keep Moving Forward" but it's less of a tagline and more of a way of life we embrace. It's a way of life that was born out of working on remote teams for more than a decade. It represents the mindset you're referring to that is so key to success -- if you can't bring a forward moving energy to a remote team, you will struggle. This is why most successful remote workers up until this point have been very independent people, as independent workers tend to already have this energy baked into them; they're the kinds of people who finished the group project on their own 😛

This forward-moving energy can be found in many ways on a remote team, I'll give you an example: proactive async questions. Rather than ask someone a question on Slack like "What should I do about this customer's question?", remember that you won't get to have a conversation about it until that person comes online and you will likely be offline by then, so anticipate the conversation 🙂

 "What should I do about this customer's question? Here are 3 responses I've considered, which of the 3 do you think is best?" Keep things moving forward, always. Remote teams have no time for long pauses that take days to resolve. Be proactive, drive things forward, seek progress every day, not 🐌 .

We often refer to forward-moving people as people who don't need someone to hold their hand -- no babysitting required 😉

They are never found waiting to be told what to do. When you work across 50+ countries and timezones as we do, you can't wait until people come online to be told what to do. You have to do what matters most with the time you are online -- add value.

And that's the beauty of remote teams -- all that matters at the end of the day is the value you add. Not the office politics or drama, not who is standing at the water cooler, not who has been away from their seat too long. Just: how much value is this person adding each day? The people who stick around on remote teams are always the ones who are clearly showing the value they add and whose forward energy is obvious. It's a beautiful way of looking at life in general -- to ask ourselves every day if we're adding value not only to our work but our marriages, our children, our communities. Once you embrace this forward-moving mindset, your whole life changes and you find yourself constantly growing and feeling fulfilled 🙂

I could talk all day on this one! 😄

Question 7
What backgrounds do you look for in account managers?

Ryan Chartrand
Definitely people with a lot of ambition and forward-moving energy, people who love process and can handle a lot of communication. Certainly, experience in industries that need software development helps, and having previous clients they can tap into is a big key for any organization hiring salespeople. Our account managers tend to work every stage of the funnel as our model is a bit unique in that it's very easy for our account managers to sell to our clients thanks to the incredible developer recruitment engine we've built to help them sell with ease, meaning they get to spend more time building relationships and so proven experience around relationship-building in creative ways (we try to innovate in this area a lot) is also a big plus 🙂

Question  8
why do most of the remote companies don't even bother to send you an email whether you fit into the role or not? And what can be done to get a response on your application? Is location a hurdle in remote opportunity?

Ryan Chartrand
Thanks for this question, worth addressing!

I'll never forget when I applied to CNET coming out of college. I was so hyped. I wrote the best cover letter I thought the world had ever seen. I poured my passion and my soul into it all. And then...no response. Not even a confirmation e-mail.

It set me on a path of frustration toward the recruitment industry. To me, it was broken and needed to be fixed. It still does.

The reality, however, is that recruitment teams are often small and they get bombarded with thousands of applicants, especially a remote company where they accept applications from countries all around the world. The problem just gets amplified. There's simply not enough time in the day to give CV feedback to every person who applies. There are ways to make the experience more personal (we make videos that every applicant receives explaining how our process works so it's more personal), but don't assume companies are actively trying to ghost you -- they are overwhelmed and someone is breathing down their neck saying "Where's my top candidate? I want them now!" The standouts always get the most attention and the key for you is making yourself a standout.