Building something that is allowed to say no.
The product refuses to answer when it cannot prove something. That is harder to build than it sounds and harder still to hold to, and it is most of what working here is about.
There are none open at the moment.
That is the whole of it. When a role opens it appears here with its responsibilities, its requirements and the process attached, so nobody has to guess at any of them.
Five practices, all of them visible on this site.
Each of these can be checked against something published rather than taken on trust. A careers page describing a culture nobody can verify is the same category of claim as a product page describing a feature nobody can.
Nothing ships that cannot be checked
Every behavioural rule on this site is enforced by something that fails a build rather than by a convention somebody remembers. If you find yourself writing a rule into a document, the question is what would catch it breaking.
The gaps get published
The coverage matrix lists what does not work beside what does, the status page reports gates that are not met, and the about page says which sections are missing and why. Writing that down is part of the work, not a communications exercise afterwards.
Refusing is a correct answer
The product is built to abstain when it cannot prove something. That is easier to build than to live with, and it means holding a position under pressure to produce a number — which is as much a property of how the team works as of the system.
Somebody reviews everything that matters
The product will not post a journal entry without an accountant approving it. The same applies to the work: a release passes a gate somebody defined, and a gate failure is a stop rather than a discussion.
Decisions are written down where the code is
Not in a wiki that goes stale — in the file the decision governs, next to the thing it explains. Somebody arriving in eighteen months should be able to read why, not just what.
Four stages, published before you apply.
Finding out the shape of a hiring process one stage at a time costs the candidate every time and costs us nothing, which is a bad trade to inflict on somebody doing you the favour of applying.
- Within five working days
We read it, and we reply either way
Including when the answer is no. A silent rejection saves the reader nothing and costs the applicant the ability to plan.
- 45 minutes
A conversation about what you have built
Not a quiz. Bring something you worked on and expect to be asked what you would do differently — the interesting part of any system is the decision that turned out wrong.
- One day, at a time you choose
A piece of real work, paid
Scoped to a day, on something we would actually ship, at a rate agreed before you start. An unpaid take-home is a company asking a stranger to work for free, and this one does not.
- Within three working days
A decision, with the reason
Whatever the outcome, you get told what the reasoning was. That is what makes the previous three stages worth somebody's time even when the answer is no.
The package is not published yet
This is not a way of avoiding the question. There is no benefits list on this page because there is not yet a settled one to publish, and a list assembled to fill the space would be a promise made to somebody about to reorganise their life around it.
Ask before you apply and you will get the current position in writing, including the parts that are still being decided. Write to contact@taxorch.com.
Tell us what you would want to work on.
There is no list to join and nothing to unsubscribe from. This reaches a person, gets a reply, and is the reason a role that opens later might be one that suits you.
A question costs nothing and gets a real answer.
Five routes, each with the address it reaches and how long a reply takes, published before you write anything.