Branch hired 10 engineers on Curated—and kept them all.
Industry: Finance
Company size: 51-200
Branch is on a mission to deliver world-class financial services to the mobile generation. Since it launched in 2015, its team has revolutionized banking in Kenya, Tanzania, and Nigeria, with plans to continue expanding in other regions. Its growing team, led by founder Matt Flannery, has distributed more than 15 million loans across Africa, totaling over $35 million to date.
Their challenge
Branch is a growing and global company with roughly 200 employees worldwide. But when its team joined Wellfound, they had a very particular problem to solve: The San Francisco office—one of now six around the world—had a team of 10, and they needed to scale quickly.
At that point, they were focused on generalist engineers and were looking for tools with high-quality candidates, and even higher response rates. Today, their San Francisco team is 40 and counting, and Wellfound continues to be one of the sourcing products Branch relies on. The proof: 10+ of the engineers they’ve hired came from Wellfound's Curated service. They brought on the first in 2016, and every one still works there today.
“Recently, we’ve also started looking for managers and got more specific between backend and full-stack...The quality of the candidates are stronger on Curated. We can find more qualified people quicker on Curated than the other tools we were using.” —Julie Costello, Operations Manager
Hiring senior engineers with Curated
Lately, Branch's team has been focused on hiring engineers and engineering managers. They've had strong success finding them on Curated.
“We're looking for our teammates to continue to grow and be leaders on teams,” says Costello. “We're also explicitly trying to hire engineering managers—they need 10 years experience or more. We've been able to do both with Curated hires, which is nice.”
When it comes to sourcing and engaging those candidates, Branch’s team used Wellfound and competitor sites, alike. But with competitor sites, Branch’s recruiters say the job-seekers they find often lack the skills or experience needed to succeed at Branch. Recruiters might turn up lists of financial analysts, for example, rather than technical talent interested in building financial tools.
When they turned to Curated for the same type of sourcing, though, they were able to find a more focused type of candidate: engineers, product managers, and more who have the skills and experience needed to succeed in the financial industry.
“What I like about Curated is how refined the candidates are. We have a lot of great, qualified candidates, and the response rate on Curated is really good.“ —Gabriel Aranda, Recruiter
Branch’s Curated success metrics
Curated user since: 2016
Number of Curated candidates hired: 12
Key roles hired: Machine Learning Engineer, Software Engineer, Designer