Case study · Recruitment
Hiring that does not live in an inbox
An HR technology company saw growing businesses hiring through email threads and spreadsheets. This is how we built an applicant tracking product with pipelines each company can shape, careers pages, interview scheduling and the data protection that candidate data requires.
Project overview
A configurable SaaS product with an integration layer.
- Industry
- Recruitment
- Client
- Confidential
- Solution
- Applicant tracking SaaS
- Platform
- React and Node.js on AWS
- Timeline
- 26–32 weeks
- Team
- 7 people
- Tenancy
- Multi-tenant, configurable per company
- Integration
- Calendars, job boards and HR systems
- Compliance
- Consent and retention rules
Expected business outcomes
What the client set out to achieve
Customers measure a hiring product by speed and by how few candidates are forgotten.
-
30–45%
Shorter time to hire
Applications, feedback and scheduling happen in one place.
Target range reported by customers; depends on their own approval steps
-
100%
Of candidates given a reply
Every applicant receives an outcome, automatically if not personally.
By design, once stage messages are switched on
-
2–4 weeks
From a customer signing up to hiring through the product
Templates and imports get a company started quickly.
Target for a company with up to 500 staff
Business challenges
Where the client started
Hiring worked, slowly, and nobody could see it.
Applications
CVs arriving by email to whoever posted the job.
Feedback
Interview notes in private documents and chat messages.
Scheduling
Days lost finding a time for four people.
Candidates
Applicants who never heard back.
Data
Old CVs kept for years, with no record of consent.
Proposed solution
What the product covers
One pipeline per role, shaped by the company that uses it.
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Configurable pipelines
Stages, scorecards and approvals defined per company and per role.
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Careers pages
A branded careers site and application forms for each customer.
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Interview scheduling
Available times offered to candidates from interviewers' calendars.
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Collaboration
Scorecards and feedback collected before anyone sees the others' views.
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Integrations
Job boards, calendars and HR systems through one integration layer.
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Data protection
Consent, retention periods and deletion handled automatically.
Project requirements
What the client asked us for
The request was a product simple enough for a company with no recruiter and flexible enough for one with ten. Configuration, not customisation, was the answer.
Integrations were planned as a layer of their own, because every customer arrives with a different calendar, job board and HR system.
What the project had to deliver
- 01Pipelines each company can shape
- 02No candidate left without a reply
- 03Scheduling without the emails
- 04Candidate data handled lawfully
Key challenges & considerations
What made it harder, and what we did
-
Every company hiring in a different way
What we did
Stages, scorecards and approvals were stored as configuration, so every company shaped its own process.
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Data protection law on candidate data
What we did
Consent was captured at application, retention periods were set per company, and expired records were deleted automatically.
-
Third-party job boards with unreliable interfaces
What we did
Job board connections were isolated behind an integration layer, with retries and alerts when a board failed.
-
Interviewers who will not learn a new tool
What we did
Interviewers could leave feedback from an email link, without learning the product.
What we watched for
- Configure, never customise
- Build integrations as their own layer
- Make feedback quick for interviewers
- Design data protection in
Development process
Configurable from the first release
Design partners hired through each release and told us what was missing.
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Discovery
Hiring processes mapped across ten companies of different sizes.
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Platform and pipelines
Tenancy, roles and the configurable pipeline.
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Careers pages and applications
Branded pages and forms.
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Scheduling and feedback
Calendar integration and scorecards.
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Integrations and compliance
Job boards, HR systems, consent and retention.
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Launch
Design partners first, then open sign-up with billing.
Technology stack
Configuration stored as data
One codebase, with each customer's process held as configuration.
Front end
- React
- TypeScript
- Design system
Back end
- Node.js
- PostgreSQL
- AWS
Integrations
- Calendar APIs
- Job board connectors
- Webhooks and public API
Platform
- Stripe billing
- Automated tests
- CI/CD
- Monitoring
Quality assurance & deployment
Tested as a product many customers share
A SaaS product is one codebase serving every customer, so a defect reaches all of them at once. Tenant isolation, billing and upgrades were tested as deliberately as the features.
- Automated unit and API tests, run on every change
- Tenant isolation tests: one customer can never see another's data
- Billing, plan and permission scenarios tested end to end
- Code review by a second engineer before anything was merged
- Load tests at the expected number of tenants and users
Deployment
- 01Integrations and complianceJob boards, HR systems, consent and retention.
- 02LaunchDesign partners first, then open sign-up with billing.
- 03Releases without downtimeUpdates shipped behind feature flags, with database changes that can be rolled back.
- 04Monitoring and warrantyUptime, errors and usage per tenant monitored from day one, and six months of free bug fixing.
Final deliverables
A hiring process everyone can see
Hiring managers see every candidate for a role and where each one stands, interviews are booked without a chain of emails, and every applicant hears back.
The client has a product that fits a company of twenty and a company of five hundred without a line of custom code for either.
- Pipelines configured per company
- Careers pages under each brand
- Interviews booked from calendars
- Consent and retention automated
Handed over to the client
- 01Production SaaS platformMulti-tenant, deployed and monitored
- 02Source codeIn a repository the client can access
- 03Billing and admin consolePlans, tenants and permissions
- 04Test suite and pipelineIncluding tenant isolation tests
- 05Six-month warrantyFree bug fixing after delivery
Success metrics
How success is measured
| Measure | Outcome | How it is measured |
|---|---|---|
| Shorter time to hire | 30–45% | Target range reported by customers; depends on their own approval steps |
| Of candidates given a reply | 100% | By design, once stage messages are switched on |
| From a customer signing up to hiring through the product | 2–4 weeks | Target for a company with up to 500 staff |
Verified reviews
What clients say about our SaaS development work
Verified reviews from our clients on the same kind of work, published on Clutch.
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Web Development
Custom Web Development for a Software Solutions Company
We can rely on them to handle almost any task with confidence, as they consistently deliver good results.
Casper Hougaard Jensen
CEO & Co-Founder, Iterator IT Jul 2021 – Sep 2022
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Web Development
Web & Mobile App Development for a Software Development Company
They efficiently organized tasks and deliverables while promptly addressing questions.
Damien Retzinger
Founder, Graycore Jun 2021 – Feb 2023
-
Web Development
Website Development for a Software Engineering Company
They have a broad understanding of different technologies.
Eugene Bosikov CEO, Ezibeline LLC Mar 2022 – Ongoing Verified review on Clutch (Eugene Bosikov, opens in a new tab)
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