Hey ? , I’m Erin and I’m a Solutions Architect at fjorge. 

As a disclaimer, this is my personal story of my application process at fjorge. There is no one way to get hired, especially as a Solutions Architect where we come from a variety of experience backgrounds.

My job search started early fall 2019, as I was beginning my senior year of college. I majored in Human-Computer Interaction in the Engineering School at my university. I was applying to a wide range of roles from UX Researcher to Designer to Front-End Developer. I was in search of a role that would enable me to combine my design research experience and technical skillset. 

During the fall, I applied to be a UX Designer at fjorge. I did an initial screening phone call with the head of the UX team, Biz Cook. During this call I was given the floor to talk about my experience and what I was looking for in a job. Through this call, we were able to identify that the UX Design role at fjorge may not be the best fit for me, but that I could be a good fit at fjorge in another seat. I remained in contact with Biz to hear about new openings and opportunities. 

In February, Biz informed me about the opening of a Solutions Architect position and recommended I apply. To be honest, I had never heard of this job title before. After some research, I got extremely excited about the role and quickly got to work on my application. 

Shortly after submitting my resume, I was set up for another phone screening interview with the lead Solutions Architect. My 15 minute interview turned into a 45 minute interview as we started to get into my resume and interests. The interviewer offered me the option to cut off after 15 minutes to set up another call, but I felt comfortable continuing. 

After this interview, which I kind of viewed as my first screening and second interview in one, I had two more interviews with a Project Manager and another Solutions Architect. The questions were always behavioral, rather than technical. Interviewers were looking for my answers to align with the core values of fjorge: accountability, positivity, purposeful, curiosity, and chipotle. 

After completing the interviews, fjorge asked for contact information for references to confirm my past work experience on my resume. About a week later, I heard back! 

Of course, by this point it was March 2020 and, as you can imagine, COVID threw things for a loop. fjorge kept me updated every week about a potential start date and in May I joined the team! (Our hiring process has a MUCH quicker turnaround time now, but in my case, it was in the beginning of the global pandemic that made everyone uncertain of next steps.)