Achieving excellence with people: recruiting in engineering and product development

What makes a company great? It’s a mix of clear purpose, a stellar product, and, of course, a great team to pull it all together. In a short time, Voi has transformed from a brand-new e-scooter company to one of Europe’s hottest startups. We were founded with the vision to create cities for living by harnessing the power of micro-mobility to replace short car trips, lessening traffic gridlock and reducing carbon emissions.

As we continue to expand into new markets and increase our fleet sizes, Voi offers enormous development opportunities, giving ambitious, curious engineers the opportunity to be involved in shaping both Voi’s future and our society in a positive way. In 2021, we’ll hire at least 70 new engineers and product developers to create the innovations that will help to realise our vision of cities for living.

What’s it like to work on the engineering and product teams at Voi, where people are at the forefront of research and development? How do we set people up for success? Read on, and we’ll give you the scoop!

Give employees the opportunity to learn and grow professionally in a trusting environment 

At Voi, we believe challenging work is motivating. We encourage our employees to try new things to solve challenges and stretch their skills and capabilities.

“One year at Voi is like five years at another company,” says Andy Huber, an engineering manager. “The market is growing incredibly fast, and it is very exciting and varied. During the past year, we have matured as a company, and we now have structures and processes in place in a completely different way. We are not a small startup anymore.”

As part of the Voi team, you can expect a fast-moving environment focused on technological innovations. Daring to try new things, fail, and change directions is a big part of the culture.

Enable employees to make a direct impact and showcase their talents 

Our engineers directly influence how the product will look in the future and have a lot of freedom to pursue what interests them. Every week looks different.

Jesper Roth is the scrum master in the core experience team, which focuses on Voi’s main app. Together with his team, he is responsible for the entire user experience, from how riders find a scooter through to ending their trip.

“What I do benefits the user immediately,” says Roth. “I can see exactly how users interact with what I have created daily. At Voi, you get the opportunity to contribute and get involved in things you think are important. You are given freedom to run your own initiatives. If you are driven and like challenges, this is the right workplace.”

Lorian Leong is a senior product manager based in Stockholm, with a background in business administration, and media and communication studies. She joined Voi two months ago to work on the rider experience team. As a part of her role, Leong works with other divisions in the organisation to offer a user experience perspective.

“I was recently in Gothenburg and spent time with our hardware team, which took the time to talk about their work, such as engines and shock absorption, things I didn’t know anything about, but it’s fascinating stuff!” Leong says. “I joined for precisely this reason: working with talented people. I’m excited to join a very skilled team working to build sustainable, quality products for users and cities.”

“I entered the world of product because I was interested in and curious about the adoption of technology in everyday life,” she continues. “The most exciting thing about product management is continuous learning — how you learn, what you learn, the different ways of seeing problems, and understanding the challenges people experience and the methods they employ to solve those problems.”

Foster a diverse, inclusive workplace

Voi is composed of people from more than 60 different nationalities. Our culture is based on acceptance and a high degree of willingness to help each other. Having a great deal of trust in our employees plays an important part, Roth explains.

“We believe that people are fantastically capable and therefore we give our trust immediately, which you then have to live up to,” he says. “That is a strong contributing factor to our success. Things happen quickly, and you do not have to go through several committees to get your idea through.”

“Diversity is good for product development, be it gender or other forms,” says Leong. “When we only have one type of person creating products, we may fail to account for the wider range of experiences of people in society. This can result in poor design experiences, such as sensors not recognising different skin tones or safety features that don’t work for all genders. In parallel to building diverse teams, we also nurture the existing team cultures to ensure we have positive experiences for new hires, creating the right environment for diverse teams.”

Interested in working for Voi? Have a look at our open positions.