The hiring process
My intend here is to explain my personal view of the hiring process (which I was submitted) of Brazilian ThoughtWorks. In fact the ThoughtWorks hiring process is already explained, see a brief view of it:
“Hiring is our signature process, so as you might expect, we’ve thought hard about how we access your suitability for a career with us. We believe we’ve created a process that is fun, that shows you what being a ThoughtWorker is all about and challenges your abilities. Many hiring processes consist of a couple of interviews and perhaps a chance to meet your new boss. We reject that. We want to find out what work environment suits you, what you value and how you do your job, so we don’t just sit and ask you questions. We get you to show us what you can do.”
The steps (Dev role)
The TW talent scout sent me a message telling me about the open positions at TW (Porto Alegre) and then I answer her asking how to apply, she informed everything I need to do. Then I’ve applied to dev position (03/20/2011) and the First Step: a informal phone interview, that first interview it’s very easy and weightless 🙂 just to know you a little bit. The Informal Phone Interview is designed to help tw get to know each other beyond CVs and web pages.
Second Step was the code submission: they will send you two problems, you must choose only one, to solve. On this part they are trying to access a number of things, these include the design aspect of your solution, but mostly we are looking for good coding practices and your object-oriented programming skills. Good tip here is: use your primary programming language (I do love and want to learn ruby but Java was my main tool that moment).
Then if you have passed on this phase you will be on Third Step: the tech phone interview that consists of one ThoughtWorker interviewing you more technically, in my case Rodrigo Wolschick (A.K.A. Patrola) did the interview and despite his nickname he was fine with me.
So after that you will be on Fourth Step: Office Interview (here the real fun will start), they ask me to schedule two days to be at office. At the office you will pass through several interviews (culture values, programming pairing…) and logical assessments, I can tell you it’s very tiring BUT IT’S SURPRISINGLY FUN. After this long process I started to work at June 21.
PS: I should write this before I’ve posted ThoughtWorks POA.
Ohh, one last note we’re hiring, so if you are interested :
Leandro Moreira 
I was talking to a guy the other day and he mentioned that he didn’t apply for TW because we were not hiring Sr QA Consultants. That is a fallacy, totally not true. We have open positions for all levels of professionals 🙂