Finding employment after graduation is usually top of mind for most coding bootcamp graduates. Our Career Services team is here to connect students with our wide network of employers who are looking to hire. Beanworks is no stranger to Lighthouse Labs, having hired (as of this interview) five graduates for their team! Read below for our full interview with Reza Sanaie, Beanworks CIO, to see what an employer is looking for when hiring bootcamp graduates.

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Can you tell us a little about Beanworks?

Here at Beanworks, we are empowering accounting teams to succeed by automating accounting workflows - making it both simple and delightful. Our goal is to be the essential tool for half of the world’s accounting teams with four or more staff.

How big is your development team and what are their experience levels?

We currently have a development team of 16 people. This team includes developers, product managers, and designers ranging in experience levels from junior to intermediate to senior level.

What technologies or languages/stack does your development team use?

We use PHP, ReactJs, Postgres, Java, C#.NET

What types of roles have you hired Lighthouse Labs graduates for?

We have hired Lighthouse Labs graduates at both the junior and intermediate levels for software development. Of the five graduates that we hired, four are still part of the Beanworks team.

What issues did you face with integrating them into your team?

No issues at all! All of the Lighthouse Labs graduates integrated very well with the Beanworks team. They got up and running pretty much right from the start.

How do bootcamp students compare to a developer on your team from a more traditional background?

Bootcamp grads tend to have more practical, relevant skills. They are also more likely to be familiar with the kind of work environment that they’ll be entering into.

What specific qualities do you look for when hiring new developers?

New developers must be hungry to learn on the job. They also need to have a proven track record of learning and applying new technologies while attending bootcamp (and even before then). For our team, we look for someone who is comfortable working in a collaborative environment and can communicate issues effectively and has a keen attention to detail. Basically, they need to have done more than just the bare minimum in their Lighthouse projects and homework!

What are the pros and cons of hiring a bootcamp grad? What appealed to you about hiring a bootcamp grad?

Seeing the systems that bootcamp grads are able to build from scratch, within such a short period of time, with their teammates is what appealed to me the most.

How did you get involved with hiring a Lighthouse grad? How did the Career Services team assist with hiring your grad?

I was referred to Lighthouse Labs by Charlyne Fothergill, Director of Career Services, who encouraged me to attend one of the Demo Day events. Career Services helped me in hiring grads by organizing demo day events, speed dating interviews, and following up with our team with resumes of recent bootcamp graduates.

What surprised you about hiring a bootcamp grad?

I was surprised by how quickly they ramp up between graduation and starting their first developer role. In fact, the first hire we had three years ago is now our team lead!