Ex-Googlers Hiring Engineers at TellApart

Burlingame, Calif.-based startup TellApart will hire up to 20 employees in the next year after raising $13 million in new financing.

Founded in 2009 by two ex-Googlers, the company helps online retailers target visitors to their sites who haven't purchased anything, but who might be persuaded to with the right advertising.

Of the planned 20 hires, about a third will be technologists, said Mark Ayzenshtat, co-founder and chief technology officer. Because TellApart's success relies on its ability to predict who will actually make a purchase, the company will be hiring people with expertise in operational machine learning. The company crunches a lot of data, so engineers with distributed systems and Hadoop experience are also in demand.

The company is also hiring business development and sales and marketing employees to help it acquire new clients.

Because of the company's Google roots, it hires engineers who are autonomous, take ownership of projects, and can succeed with little coaching or guidance, Ayzenshtat said.

TellApart offers competitive cash compensation and generous equity rewards, Ayzenshtat said.

Unlike the Google interview process that Ayzenshtat himself endured, TellApart doesn't ask abstract brainteasers to test engineering candidates' mettle. Instead, it asks questions meant to see how easily intimidated and adaptable candidates are.

For instance, an interviewer might ask how one would go about building Google's search engine. The best candidates will take a crack at it, Ayzenshtat said. Sub-par candidates will betray their lack of imagination by noting that they don't have experience in search. That's a warning sign, Ayzenshtat said, because startup engineers will have to tackle a lot of problems they're not experienced in.

"People know what they're good at and they expect to be asked about that, but if you throw so meting at them from left field, they often are put off," he said.

Candidates who make it through the interview process, though, can expect some nifty perks. Ayzenshtat and co-founder Josh McFarland -- who worked on Google's AdWords together -- took the entire 21-person company on a vacation to Hawaii after they met their quarterly goals last year.