We are constantly on the lookout for teammates who share our values. For us, hiring people means enriching the team with new perspectives and empowering it to turn another little piece of its vision into reality.
We are also mindful that, with each hire we make, we are responsible for providing the new teammate with an environment that actively contributes to their personal and professional success, as well as for creating a cohesive and functional team where people complement and augment each other.
We take these responsibilities very seriously, and we have structured our hiring process to help us in this endeavor.
In an ideal world, we would just hire anyone who applies at Nebulab and use the first few months of work together to understand whether they're actually a good fit, but this is obviously impractical for a lot of reasons. A well-structured hiring process is the next best way to predict, with reasonable accuracy, whether someone will succeed at their job.
Our hiring process consists of six steps, and it has been designed with a couple of guiding principles in mind.
First of all, we want the process to be realistic and accurate—no whiteboard interviews or algorithms to implement. Every question we ask and every trait we evaluate are factors that we've seen directly lead people to success at Nebulab. When applying here, we want you to be able to just bring your authentic best self to the interviews and the tests.
Secondly, we want the process to be light. We're constantly looking for ways to shave a few minutes off a step or make it asynchronous. We know that applying at a company can be stressful and time-consuming, and we want to make things as easy as possible and be respectful of the time candidates are dedicating to us.
These factors need to be kept in balance: make the process too light, and you'll risk making the wrong hire; make it too accurate, and you'll ask people for too much of their time. We are constantly iterating on our process to make the experience as pleasant as possible for everyone involved, by asking candidates for feedback and re-evaluating best practices.
Step 1: Application
Hi! If you want to work at Nebulab, you can apply through our Careers page.
The application form is short, but you should still complete it thoroughly. In addition to your contact info, we'll ask you to include your portfolio (GitHub, BitBucket, GitLab, Dribbble or anything else you might have) and a cover letter.
The cover letter should be short, authentic and relevant—just tell us what excites you about the company and why you think you might be a good fit! At this stage, we're mostly evaluating your communication, enthusiasm and experience.
Someone from our team will go through your application and reach out to let you know if you've made it to the second step, the initial screen.
Step 2: Initial screen
This is a 15-minute video call where we get to know each other and understand if there's a mutual interest in working together. We mostly avoid formalities, we talk about a bit of everything and see how we feel about each other.
The person greeting you in this phase is your "hiring manager", and they'll be with you throughout the process.
We'll ask you about your professional experience and what made you apply at Nebulab, and you'll also get the chance to ask any questions you might have about the company and the work we do. We will also ask about your salary expectations in order to understand whether they're in line with what we can offer according to our Compensation policy.
Some advice to succeed in this first step:
Come on time. This is extremely important for us: simply being on time will give you an advantage over many candidates.
Come equipped. Make sure you have a good Internet connection, a good headset and a good webcam. Also, find a quiet place to call from!
Come prepared. Make sure to have some questions about Nebulab, and that you can talk about your professional experience and aspirations.
Be yourself. Try to think, behave and talk as you would do in a real-world environment. This stage helps us understand whether Nebulab is right for you, and we can't do that if you pretend to be someone else!
Relax. We're all humans and we've all been in your shoes before, so we know how stressful interviews can be. If you're nervous, tell your interviewer and they'll do their best to make you more comfortable.
A few days after the call, you'll get an email from your hiring manager telling you whether you've made it to the next step, the team interview.
Step 3: Team interview
If you’ve made it this far, congratulations — you’re getting closer to joining the team!
The team interview is a 60-minute video call with two Nebulab teammates who could become your future collaborators.
This conversation is designed to go in depth on how you work, think, and collaborate. We’ll discuss topics that are central to your role, exploring both your technical or creative expertise and how you apply it in real-world situations. We’ll talk about how you approach problem-solving, feedback, teamwork, and decision-making — the things that truly shape how we work together every day.
This step also helps us understand whether our values and ways of working align. We want to see how you express your skills, communicate ideas, and contribute to a team environment that values autonomy, empathy, and excellence.
After the interview, your interviewers will share their feedback with your hiring manager. If we all feel that there’s a strong mutual fit, you’ll move on to the next step: the hands-on assessment.
Step 4: Hands-on assessment
If you have reached this stage, it means we think Nebulab might be the right company for you. At this point, we want to get an idea of your technical skills. The test will be administered in different ways depending on the position you're interviewing for: for technical positions, for example, we often create a dedicated GitHub repository or schedule a pair-programming session with someone from the team.
You will not be asked to do any live coding or solve absurd challenges: nobody here solves critical business problems without asking questions and doing research. Instead, we just want to make sure that your technical skills are coherent with our general expectations for your role. For engineers, the take-home test consists of two or three projects of increasing complexity.
Within two/three days, your hiring manager will review your submission, and they might ask some follow-up questions, e.g. to better understand the rationale behind your choices.
Once they have all the context they need, your hiring manager will let you know if you've made it to the fifth step, the pre-offer interview.
Step 5: Partner interview
This stage consists of a ~30 minutes interview with a Nebulab partner, for final approval on your hire. The partner will review your entire application package thoroughly, so that they can prepare some follow-up questions for you.
There's no fixed structure for this call: it mostly depends on what questions the partner still has for you and what final doubts they want to clear up. You might be asked technical questions, or to go into the details of your professional experience, but you will not have to solve any technical problems.
You will also get the chance to ask any last-minute questions about Nebulab, if you have them!
If you passed, congrats! This was the last real step of the process. A couple of days after the interview we will extend an offer.
Step 6: Offer
Congratulations, you made it! Thanks for the time you spent with us so far.
At this point, we'll send over a formal offer which you can sign electronically. Feel free to ask your hiring manager any questions about the offer, and they'll either answer directly or put you in touch with someone from Finance who can handle all your doubts.
Once we agree on a start date and you sign the offer, we'll begin the onboarding process.
Welcome to Nebulab!
Joining as an apprentice
Sometimes, we talk to promising candidates who are not ready for a professional work environment yet. When this happens, and we have enough bandwidth, we may offer the candidate a full-time, paid position in the form of an apprenticeship program. This will eventually turn into a permanent full-time position if the candidate successfully graduates from the program.