Meet Mustafa, the first engineering hire at Method Financial

First, what’s your favorite thing about living in Austin? And please weigh in on the best BBQ in town!

There’s a lot to like about Austin, it’s hard to single out one favorite thing. Overall, I’d have to go with the people. Since my time here, I’ve found that there’s a strong sense of positivity, ambition, and liveliness in the community and I highly appreciate that. Although, when talking about Austin, it’s hard not to mention the fantastic live music and food scene!

A hot debate in the office is around who has the best BBQ place in Austin. Until recently, my favorite Austin BBQ place was Terry Black’s, but I’ll have to give credit to Jose here for introducing me to Interstellar – some of the best BBQ I’ve had!

What drew you to apply for a role at Method?

I initially found out about Method from Jose. I was thoroughly impressed to learn about the team’s engineering efforts and what the team had accomplished in such a short period of time. Their pace of execution – not only in engineering, but across all company functions – was impressive. As someone with a passion for building software, I found this exciting. Overall, I felt confident in the engineering leadership at Method and could see myself fitting in well with the company’s culture.

What was the hiring process like, and how was it different from other experiences you’ve had?

The hiring process was straight-forward. I started off by connecting with Mit, who gave me a thorough overview of the company, role, and mission. I then had a chance to work with Method’s API through a take-home assessment. It was insightful to actually see what the co-founders had built in such a short time.

I then met with Jose over an informal interview where we got to know each other, our communication styles, and so on. This conversation gave me a better sense of the team’s culture and values. It was great to connect with Jose and pick his brain about Method’s growth goals. This was different from other recruiting experiences I’ve had.

Lastly, we had the formal in-person interview. Part of it was technically-focused and the other part was truly getting to know each other to better gauge if we could all work well together. This made the difference because I felt like I was able to show my technical skill-set but also who I am as a person/colleague. I really got to know Jose, Mit, and Marco through the process and left feeling excited and confident about joining Method!

The Austin office is the hub for the Method Engineering team, including home to Jose and Marco, co-founders. What is a day in the office like for you and the team?‍

While we started off with a remote-first approach to engineering, we naturally found ourselves gravitating more to being in-person at the office – there is more energy, more fun dynamics, and makes the engineering process significantly more efficient. We each have our unique technical strengths, and a huge advantage of coming into the office is being able to learn from each other’s experiences first-hand. Some days we focus on extended planning discussions – ranging from product to infrastructure – while other days we’re heads-down focused on execution. We’re also big fans of coffee here so we enjoy plenty of short coffee breaks throughout the day. And since Method is quickly growing the engineering team, we often have our on-site interviews at the Austin office as well!

What advice would you give to fellow engineers thinking about applying one of Method’s open roles?

If you are an engineer passionate about building software, have a history of working on large-scale projects, and appreciate working across various parts of the technical stack, then I would highly recommend applying to Method!

The engineering team at Method is small so you would have the opportunity to play a significant role in shaping the culture here and setting examples for future engineers. Our engineers have the unique opportunity to interface directly with our clients as well, driving integral conversations about the future of our products.

If you want to learn more about any of the roles or about the engineering culture in general, visit: careers.methodfi.com