Eric Normant is the VP of engineering for Plastiq, a bill-pay service for savvy consumers and businesses seeking an edge. We sat down with Eric to hear about what it’s like to work with Commit.
Can you tell me a bit about Plastiq?
At Plastiq, our mission is to empower growing small businesses to take control of their finances and preserve cash on hand by enabling them to pay virtually any business expense with a credit card. We provide them with new tools, insights and options to make more informed, intelligent decisions to maximize every opportunity.
What are some of the typical challenges you face when hiring engineers?
At Plastiq, hiring top talent is one of our highest priorities. From an investment perspective, it’s extremely important to find the right talent with the right skill set. It takes significant time and energy from multiple employees to source, interview and select the best engineers. Commit is a great channel to have because they do all of this themselves, which gives time back to our people to focus on engineering.
What support were you looking for when you came to Commit?
We are always looking for the right partner to support our efforts to become the company we strive to be. The support Commit has provided aligns with our expectations and expansion efforts. Widening our reach for amazing talent beyond our current locations, in San Francisco and Boston, and identifying great talent in other areas are a few ways they have been there for us.
What has it been like working with Commit?
The Commit intake process is really rigorous. Instead of us spending most of a day interviewing a candidate through a standard approach, we’re comfortable getting to know an engineer from Commit for about an hour, to make sure we feel they’re the right fit. Then we kick off a pilot project with the intention that it could lead to a full-time employment opportunity.
Commit’s mission and purpose to connect remote-first engineers to Silicon Valley startups resonated with us. The passion and energy that Commit has demonstrated and the authenticity behind their business model is very meaningful to all of us.
Plastiq helps businesses pay virtually all of their expenses using existing credit cards even when cards are not accepted.
How have the Commit engineers performed?
We’ve brought on four engineers from Commit and all four have been strong. We have an extremely high bar for the engineers we hire, and all of the Commit engineers have met that bar.
What has it been like working remotely with the Commit engineers?
It’s been seamless working with the Commit engineers, because Plastiq already has a friendly remote culture. Our team members are generally located on both coasts, San Francisco and Boston. And now, with the help of Commit, we have a new hub in Canada as well.
What would you say to other startups considering working with Commit?
I would encourage other startups to learn about Commit’s mission and purpose as well as the value they can bring to a company in need of great talent. If that’s meaningful to them, as it is for us, then it’s definitely worth having a conversation with them.
Eric Normant is the Vice President of Engineering at Plastiq. The Bay Area fintech startup partnered with Commit to open a remote engineering hub to help grow and scale. Commit Engineering Partners Sim Brar and Mihai Listov joined Plastiq in 2020.