We visited Inna at her office and asked her about what the past 3 months at Passionfroot have been like. Learn more about Inna’s experience at her new job and the recruitment process with Xena.

1. How is your experience so far at Passionfroot?

It was an intense start, I need to get used to a new country and a new job simultaneously. I had a lot of concerns about my productivity and I discussed this with my colleagues and team leader but turned out everything was okay and no one expected me to be super productive at my new job during the first 2 weeks. Besides this, it was so smooth. I felt like I have worked here for a long time, I think this job was a great match for me because of the people and the product we are working on. I feel pretty good about it and time has went by flying, 3 months and I feel like I just joined.

This role is quite new for me, I used to work as frontend developer and did not have backend experience but I was looking for a role in which I could do as much as I can. I like seeing the bigger picture!

2. What is something new you’ve learned?

I have learned a lot from the technical perspective. Besides being a new role for me, especially working at a start up has been an experience that has taught me to be more flexible than I used to be. Before I used to work a big corporation and I knew exactly what I needed to do. I had strict rules and tasks but here we need to be flexible, agile and react to the user requests. I have definitely become much more flexible as a person. 

3. What is your favourite part about the new job?

I love the feeling of doing something today and seeing it produced the next day. We deliver value super fast and seeing the users using it the next day is very exciting. I am able to create something and see it in action so quickly – this is the most exciting part. I love delivering value to the users.

I was looking for this type of job for some time, I wanted to feel like I was making an impact and now I can see it and feel the impact I am having.

4. How was your experience with Xena and the recruitment process?

A recruiter initially connected with me on LinkedIn after I updated my profile. I loved every step of the process, I felt like the recruiter was there for me and helped me prepare for all my interviews and found suitable roles for me.

I really liked this personalised approach that Xena had, someone actually cared about the job search process. It did not feel random but the recruiter was able to find something suitable for me personally which I really liked.

It was quite a comfortable process and there were some problems along the way with paperwork like visas and during this situation I received support from the Xena team and we were able to find a solution. I was very disoriented and I really appreciated how the team helped me, it was priceless for me. Something that stuck with me in terms of advice was to get to know the company before going to the interview.

I would definitely recommend Xena and felt taken cared of. The most important thing Xena treats people as individuals and Xena is trying to satisfy your needs and help you find a long-lasting job.

Sometimes women are not taken seriously in engineering roles and it is important to have representation in the market. Having Xena as an ally to protect my interests and look out for me was a great thing to have. I felt I was treated equally to any other candidates and this was amazing.

When I was started interviewing with Passionfroot, it felt like a perfect match from the start and I was hired within a week. It was quite fast and felt perfect, I feel like you know when you find the right company for you.