Q&A With Swift Navigation Employees

Highly motivated

i look forward to it

Love it at Swift! Very psyched to be working here.

I met with about 8 different people at various levels from those who would be my peers to one of the founders. I heard back within a week.

I interacted with the team I would be joining, senior mgmt for key areas I would be interacting with, the founders, and CEO. I was contacted within 24 hrs of my interview regarding whether they would like to move forward with an offer or not.

varies per position

Depends on the team. Most have a mix of coding and design questions along with a session to evaluate cultural fit.

It has some unique aspects - I've never been asked to do a presentation as part of the interview process, but I liked it. There were also a lot MORE interviews then i've done in the past, but it gave me a great overview of the company and culture. It was well scheduled and handled well, so I felt like the interview was worth my time.

Straightforward and about as lightweight as you can make the process. The interview is not designed to be tricky but rather to establish that a person has the basic skills for the job, thinks clearly, and is a cultural fit with the company and team.

Typically, on a yearly basis but can happen more often based upon merit and company results.

1x / yr

Paid 2x per month

Competitive

the best

Highly motivated, effective and efficient.

Market salaries.

Solid. They pay fair and at market rates for startups but don't expect astronomical salaries that you hear about at Facebook/Apple/LinkedIn/etc.

varies

what do you know about GPS.

Gym membership, in-house band, beer on tap, etc...

7 beers on tap and no doors

Definite high energy vibe as we get to run the gamut from silicon to cloud software! Always an interesting problem to solve that makes our customer's and our lives better.

inspirational, success driven. 8-10 hrs a day

Extremely

Pretty challenged as we are developing some completely new GPS technology and doing things never done before. It's exciting to be working on cutting edge products.

success in the market as #1

I think the culture is great already, but will improve even more once we move into a larger HQ building in SF as the current space is getting a little tight with all the hiring we have been doing.

good person skilled employee. great communicator,

Our CEO is very well liked. He's approachable and takes time for all employees. He's a lawyer and has solid business acumen. He is also great with customers, partners and business development.

not sure... but i hope to work into one

Yes, quite a few of Swift's team members work remotely. Both here in the SF Bay Area and in other countries around the world.

Swift asks a fairly standard set of behavioral questions during the on-site interview. These are questions like "tell me about I time when you had a problem at work, how did you handle it?" -- we're looking for answer that align well with the companies core values. On the technical side, this can vary widely depending on the engineering role. However, there's at least one session that will focus on coding chops, and several sessions that focus more on theory, or design based thinking. Candidates that excel in these sessions are those that show a good breadth of knowledge and those that can apply a rigorous methodology (that is, something minimally complete, not necessary rooted in an academic approach) to solving the problems.

Not for most positions, we only drug test and do background checks for roles in the field involving driving our vehicles or installing field equipment.

Our WFH policy is great! Every Thursday is "WFH Thursday" and most team members elect to work at home, though some come in to the office if that's their preference (they might have small children at home or prefer the high speed Internet at the office). Some of Swift employees WFH more often if they have a long commute or have made other arrangements with their manager. The company is very supportive of work/life balance.

It depends on the role, but in general it seems like the company wants people that care, are considerate, yet have a strong drive to get things done and move the company forward. Sometimes we're looking for a specific skill-set and that's to get us moving quickly on a particular front. However, all "ideal" candidates will also have the following: (1) a strong command of the fundamentals in their field; (2) willingness and desire to take ownership of problems; and (3) tenacity to get things done.

High and excited.

There really wasn't a particularly difficult question. I found them to be balanced.

Bright

Working with talented people and obtaining results quickly

Improving

the public transit system