Meeting Title: Brainforge Recruiting Strategy Sync Date: 2026-03-02 Meeting participants: Zoran Selinger, Kaela Gallagher


WEBVTT

1 00:01:02.870 00:01:04.310 Kaela Gallagher: Hey Zoran, good morning.

2 00:01:04.319 00:01:05.119 Zoran Selinger: Hello.

3 00:01:05.840 00:01:06.320 Kaela Gallagher: Hi!

4 00:01:06.320 00:01:09.060 Zoran Selinger: It’s just see… Hmm, excellent.

5 00:01:09.370 00:01:11.890 Zoran Selinger: raise the volume a little bit so I can hear you.

6 00:01:13.160 00:01:15.430 Kaela Gallagher: Oh, sorry, can you say that one more time?

7 00:01:15.700 00:01:17.610 Zoran Selinger: Can you hear me?

8 00:01:17.610 00:01:31.529 Kaela Gallagher: Yes. I was just increasing the volume so I can hear you. Oh, okay, perfect. Awesome. Well, thanks so much for taking some time for me. I mean, I only have 20 minutes, actually.

9 00:01:31.840 00:01:32.240 Kaela Gallagher: Okay.

10 00:01:32.240 00:01:34.510 Zoran Selinger: Oh, yeah, just… But, you know…

11 00:01:34.510 00:01:39.280 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, we can make it quick. I’ve been,

12 00:01:39.460 00:01:51.170 Kaela Gallagher: I started last week, so I’m gonna be focused on everything, like, recruiting, and then also some, like, people efforts and, things revolving around culture.

13 00:01:51.170 00:02:06.469 Kaela Gallagher: Right now, my first couple weeks are gonna be super, super focused on recruiting. There’s some gaps we need to fill on the team. Obviously, you’ve identified that on yours as well. So, that’ll be my biggest focus kicking off, and, I guess…

14 00:02:06.710 00:02:26.250 Kaela Gallagher: the number one priority, since we only have a little bit of time, is I want to understand what is most important to you as you’re going to be, like, hiring for this position, and kind of, like, what you’re looking for in candidates. I’m curious, have you been a part of the interview processes before?

15 00:02:26.250 00:02:35.230 Zoran Selinger: No, no. I have very little experience with… with recruiting in general, I’ve done… a couple of…

16 00:02:35.340 00:02:39.040 Zoran Selinger: Interviews in my career only,

17 00:02:39.680 00:02:52.920 Zoran Selinger: Okay. Very early on, it was about, you know, campaign managers, so that’s not applicable, here at all, and some, some for, like, web development stuff.

18 00:02:53.020 00:02:57.879 Zoran Selinger: Which is, again, not applicable here. So, zero, zero.

19 00:02:58.360 00:03:07.969 Kaela Gallagher: I guess, just to start off, for me to have an understanding, what does your team do? Like, in general, the team that this person would be a part of? What do you guys do?

20 00:03:08.820 00:03:15.090 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, so… So we… so, let… let… let’s…

21 00:03:15.690 00:03:24.230 Zoran Selinger: figure out the deliverable, basically, of this team. So this would be a team we make sure that Dip.

22 00:03:24.350 00:03:26.790 Zoran Selinger: Raw, unfiltered data.

23 00:03:27.110 00:03:29.640 Zoran Selinger: Comes into a data warehouse.

24 00:03:30.100 00:03:35.070 Zoran Selinger: Perfectly, right? So, there’s technical stuff around that.

25 00:03:37.460 00:03:42.269 Zoran Selinger: So… There is… that’s data work.

26 00:03:42.600 00:03:45.809 Zoran Selinger: That’s networking. That’s…

27 00:03:46.210 00:03:59.189 Zoran Selinger: figuring out, like, the routing, CDNs as well, there’s quite a few moving pieces, but it’s, it’s mostly, it’s mostly,

28 00:04:00.330 00:04:07.470 Zoran Selinger: It’s mostly technical work with a good understanding of marketing tools.

29 00:04:07.740 00:04:10.750 Zoran Selinger: Because we are,

30 00:04:10.800 00:04:29.269 Zoran Selinger: we are… basically, the result of our work will… also enables, and kind of enhances things like Google Analytics, things like Segment, Mixpanel, like product web analytics tools, product analytics tools.

31 00:04:29.450 00:04:31.720 Zoran Selinger: CRMs, stuff like that.

32 00:04:34.550 00:04:37.639 Zoran Selinger: CDPs, of course, as well, so…

33 00:04:37.640 00:04:38.570 Kaela Gallagher: Okay.

34 00:04:38.570 00:04:39.490 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, it’s…

35 00:04:39.820 00:04:41.480 Kaela Gallagher: your client-facing now.

36 00:04:41.480 00:04:53.750 Zoran Selinger: This is a new… this is a very, very new lane of services, right? So we… we started doing something that’s really different from what’s out there.

37 00:04:53.960 00:04:54.650 Kaela Gallagher: Hmm.

38 00:04:55.060 00:04:56.890 Zoran Selinger: So you’re Yeah.

39 00:04:57.110 00:04:59.479 Kaela Gallagher: You’re working directly with clients?

40 00:04:59.480 00:05:00.710 Zoran Selinger: Right now, yes, yes.

41 00:05:00.710 00:05:03.960 Kaela Gallagher: Okay, okay. And what is your position

42 00:05:04.740 00:05:08.650 Kaela Gallagher: in, like, with Brainforge in general, you’re an engineer?

43 00:05:09.240 00:05:15.229 Zoran Selinger: No, no, so they… yeah, so I’m… I’m a Martic.

44 00:05:15.570 00:05:28.940 Zoran Selinger: guy. So, I’m gonna… I’m gonna… I’m a CSO for a couple of clients. Do you know what CSO is? Did they… did you familiarize yourself with those roles?

45 00:05:29.330 00:05:32.419 Kaela Gallagher: Yes, please? Yes, a little bit, yes.

46 00:05:32.420 00:05:51.000 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, so I’m a… I’m a main contact for… for clients, but I’m also… when it comes to this lane of services called edge layer tracking, I’m also the main engineer, because basically that’s a lane of services I introduced to Brainforge.

47 00:05:51.240 00:05:56.649 Zoran Selinger: So, right now, I’m…

48 00:05:56.770 00:06:06.880 Zoran Selinger: a person who… who is all… who’s doing CSO work for a couple of clients, but I’m also main engineer on

49 00:06:07.090 00:06:09.000 Zoran Selinger: things like edge layer.

50 00:06:09.220 00:06:13.220 Zoran Selinger: I have… I mean… I’m…

51 00:06:13.720 00:06:17.969 Zoran Selinger: Especially for web tracking, so Google Tag Manager, stuff like that.

52 00:06:18.110 00:06:22.379 Zoran Selinger: Making sure, you know, campaign tracking and all those things are fine.

53 00:06:23.140 00:06:25.959 Kaela Gallagher: Okay, okay. So what…

54 00:06:26.390 00:06:38.520 Kaela Gallagher: problem would this role solve? Or what gap on your team would this role solve? Because this is also, from the job posting that Utam sent me, it’s also labeled as a CSO, right?

55 00:06:38.640 00:06:41.139 Zoran Selinger: Yes, because,

56 00:06:41.590 00:06:57.489 Zoran Selinger: basically what the guys want me to do. So this… right now, I’m a CSO on the biggest client on Eden. Not the only, because it’s such a big client that we have lanes, so I’m a CSO of Martech.

57 00:06:57.910 00:07:06.590 Zoran Selinger: Everything tracking for them, and reporting, basically, is… is… I’m a CSO on that.

58 00:07:06.770 00:07:23.849 Zoran Selinger: They take a lot of my time, okay? They essentially, they treat me as, as one of their own, and we… I’m in meetings with them daily, and we work together daily.

59 00:07:23.910 00:07:30.549 Zoran Selinger: Okay? However, what guys want me to do is eventually

60 00:07:30.910 00:07:41.649 Zoran Selinger: To have a whole team just focusing on this edge layer type of services, okay? So, in the short term, I need a replacement for

61 00:07:42.000 00:07:46.910 Zoran Selinger: my CSO work that is not strictly edge layer.

62 00:07:48.470 00:07:53.739 Zoran Selinger: Right? So these… these things that I do for Eden, That might be…

63 00:07:53.910 00:08:10.729 Zoran Selinger: you know, a problem, because they specifically want me to work on that, at least that’s… they were… when I joined, they were really wanting me to be essentially full-time with them.

64 00:08:11.610 00:08:12.220 Kaela Gallagher: crime.

65 00:08:12.220 00:08:27.489 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, so they were asking specifically for me, but we will need to phase that out as much as possible, essentially, because we want to build these edge layer services. We just got our first client that is specifically

66 00:08:28.010 00:08:31.649 Zoran Selinger: became our client through the Edge Layer services.

67 00:08:32.250 00:08:34.920 Zoran Selinger: And obviously, we want to build on that.

68 00:08:35.070 00:08:49.689 Zoran Selinger: Eventually, we want to have a team, I want to have a team of just people who work on those particular clients, and those particular parts of client work, just edge layer. We just do edge layer, essentially.

69 00:08:49.690 00:08:50.990 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, okay.

70 00:08:51.960 00:08:52.540 Zoran Selinger: Yeah.

71 00:08:52.540 00:08:55.690 Kaela Gallagher: This person would come in and take…

72 00:08:56.670 00:09:05.329 Kaela Gallagher: basically, like, take the work that you’re doing that is not Edge Layer. Like, everything you’re doing that is not edge layer, this person would come in and…

73 00:09:05.330 00:09:24.909 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, so I think, it’s… it’s not gonna be everything. I think, Eden will want me to stay as a CSO. They… they want… they… like I said, they’re specifically as for me. I think, Robert, they might not be happy if I’m… if I’m not working on them at all.

74 00:09:24.990 00:09:29.490 Zoran Selinger: So, and I still want to do that work.

75 00:09:29.590 00:09:31.400 Zoran Selinger: But maybe…

76 00:09:31.910 00:09:47.170 Zoran Selinger: in… I need to be able to have free… enough free time to work on Edge, because that’s… that’s kind of the lane, that’s kind of the direction that Robert and Utam want me to move in, and I agree with that.

77 00:09:47.520 00:09:56.800 Zoran Selinger: So, and we are absolutely short-staffed for that. Right now, I’m working for a new client on Edge.

78 00:09:57.180 00:10:08.060 Zoran Selinger: That’s all me. I’m writing the code, I’m implementing… I’m implementing things in Cloudflare, I’m sending daily updates, I’m doing everything myself.

79 00:10:08.440 00:10:17.069 Zoran Selinger: Essentially. I do… I have an EP now joining, he’s doing good, he’s doing well, on.

80 00:10:17.070 00:10:17.599 Kaela Gallagher: Who is not?

81 00:10:17.600 00:10:19.239 Zoran Selinger: particular kind, brile.

82 00:10:19.840 00:10:20.820 Kaela Gallagher: Oh, yeah, okay.

83 00:10:20.970 00:10:29.250 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, he’s helping me. He’s really good. Yeah. Yeah, so he’s helping me there, he’s doing well.

84 00:10:30.910 00:10:46.909 Zoran Selinger: Okay. I could probably communicate with him a little bit more, even get… get even more help from him, but he cannot do, like, technical stuff yet, at least, right? So, I just… I have to do the work, which is fine, I like engineering work.

85 00:10:47.050 00:10:55.800 Zoran Selinger: like, being so client-facing is actually new to me, so… but I’m doing well there, so that’s fine, that’s fine.

86 00:10:55.800 00:10:59.459 Kaela Gallagher: Okay, okay. I’m curious for this position.

87 00:10:59.860 00:11:02.509 Kaela Gallagher: Are you wanting somebody to come from…

88 00:11:02.750 00:11:07.259 Kaela Gallagher: A technical background, and maybe have previous titles, like.

89 00:11:07.440 00:11:16.339 Kaela Gallagher: Being a data engineer, or do you want them to come more from, like, a analyst project management side of the house?

90 00:11:16.920 00:11:27.380 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, I, I think… In my opinion, and again, I emphasize this, I have no experience with

91 00:11:28.080 00:11:36.290 Zoran Selinger: with recruiting, and most of my career, I’ve been in very small teams, and I’ve always been a generalist… generalist myself.

92 00:11:38.960 00:11:51.860 Zoran Selinger: if we are… so, this is the question I asked of Utam and Robert what they think, and actually got no clear answers from them. So.

93 00:11:54.270 00:12:06.850 Zoran Selinger: I think… the way… the way they envisioned this to work with CSOs and EPs, we generally want engineers.

94 00:12:07.250 00:12:10.819 Zoran Selinger: who can talk to clients. That’s generally.

95 00:12:11.290 00:12:12.000 Kaela Gallagher: Yes.

96 00:12:12.000 00:12:13.120 Zoran Selinger: Which is rare.

97 00:12:13.780 00:12:14.190 Kaela Gallagher: Right.

98 00:12:14.190 00:12:18.719 Zoran Selinger: When you have, like, really good engineers,

99 00:12:19.530 00:12:29.029 Zoran Selinger: But we want to have client-facing engineers as much as possible, okay? I know this is rare, this is hard to find.

100 00:12:29.200 00:12:37.199 Zoran Selinger: Generally speaking, I would love for a person that could work with me to be

101 00:12:37.460 00:12:42.179 Zoran Selinger: very similar to myself, have a specialty in one of

102 00:12:42.450 00:12:51.439 Zoran Selinger: It can be either data, or it can be tracking. It can be, like, a… you can imagine, like, solution architect of some kind, right?

103 00:12:51.650 00:12:57.790 Zoran Selinger: People can figure stuff out, as long as they are somewhat technical, right?

104 00:12:57.980 00:13:07.099 Zoran Selinger: they can figure stuff out, they can learn fast, that… that is fine. I’m not… I’m not particularly married to any… any technical role, okay? That’s.

105 00:13:07.100 00:13:07.860 Kaela Gallagher: fine.

106 00:13:07.860 00:13:13.499 Zoran Selinger: If you’re in any one of those that are touching… that are touching data, tracking, whatever.

107 00:13:13.710 00:13:30.899 Zoran Selinger: You’re good with, you know, product analytics tools, you’re good with web analytics tools, whatever. BI tools, reporting, all fine. This is all fine, right? What’s rare is to find a person that will understand and communicate with clients well.

108 00:13:31.530 00:13:51.399 Zoran Selinger: That’s hard to find, and that’s what we are after. In terms of, like, those technical shops, as long as they are… I would call them… I’d like them to be really good at one thing technical, because that shows me that they can be technical in other things as well.

109 00:13:51.550 00:13:55.290 Zoran Selinger: So I’m not concerned about what that particular thing is.

110 00:13:55.520 00:13:56.040 Zoran Selinger: Right?

111 00:13:56.040 00:13:56.880 Kaela Gallagher: Okay.

112 00:13:57.480 00:13:58.350 Kaela Gallagher: So…

113 00:13:59.810 00:14:07.519 Kaela Gallagher: I… so, okay, right now we have 5 positions that are posted and are bringing in candidates for us.

114 00:14:07.520 00:14:08.940 Zoran Selinger: Can you give me a link?

115 00:14:09.560 00:14:12.939 Kaela Gallagher: Yes, I can send you our career page, because I have the.

116 00:14:12.940 00:14:15.989 Zoran Selinger: Oh, that’s our… It’s on our website, okay.

117 00:14:16.310 00:14:18.940 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, I have a feeling that…

118 00:14:19.160 00:14:26.240 Kaela Gallagher: The candidates that we’re receiving through here, could be… Of interest to you?

119 00:14:26.400 00:14:35.090 Kaela Gallagher: I don’t know that, like, we need to create a separate position,

120 00:14:35.870 00:14:49.189 Kaela Gallagher: because, like, we… we have these posted, we’re doing work to, like, advertise these, and we’re getting a lot of applicants. Like, we got, like, 20 applications over the weekend. So I’m wondering if, like, we have people.

121 00:14:49.190 00:14:49.910 Zoran Selinger: I’m…

122 00:14:49.910 00:14:52.869 Kaela Gallagher: In the process, already, that could be of interest.

123 00:14:53.080 00:14:58.130 Zoran Selinger: Listen, any data engineer can do EP or CSO work.

124 00:14:58.260 00:14:58.740 Zoran Selinger: Any…

125 00:14:58.740 00:14:59.140 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah.

126 00:14:59.140 00:15:07.090 Zoran Selinger: Linux engineer can do EP or CSO work. It’s… I mean, in terms of, like, they have technical chops.

127 00:15:07.260 00:15:10.450 Zoran Selinger: Digital Product Analyst has technical chops enough.

128 00:15:10.650 00:15:19.370 Zoran Selinger: to… to… Do the client-facing, work, but also do analyst work

129 00:15:19.820 00:15:26.539 Zoran Selinger: like, insight generation and everything we need. That’s all absolutely fine.

130 00:15:27.000 00:15:39.840 Zoran Selinger: all of them can do that. It’s just about… because we, obviously, I don’t know how experienced you are in recruiting and all that, but it is… it can be really hard to find a person.

131 00:15:39.970 00:15:47.369 Zoran Selinger: That is, that can do technical stuff, but also understand and talk to the client.

132 00:15:48.250 00:15:48.920 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah.

133 00:15:48.920 00:15:56.529 Zoran Selinger: You know, and I’ll actually get a client, like, to… to trust in them, and

134 00:15:56.740 00:15:59.290 Zoran Selinger: And, you know, that’s, that’s not easy.

135 00:15:59.740 00:16:00.100 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah.

136 00:16:00.100 00:16:12.720 Zoran Selinger: We had some bad experiences, even recently, with engineerings, talking directly to clients, and they… we had a few fumbles, in that area, so it’s a… it’s a dangerous one, you know?

137 00:16:13.200 00:16:14.449 Zoran Selinger: It’s really hard.

138 00:16:15.520 00:16:24.000 Zoran Selinger: to, to give that kind of responsibility, and… because it can seriously damage a relationship, if…

139 00:16:24.000 00:16:26.160 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

140 00:16:26.300 00:16:32.600 Zoran Selinger: But yeah, those roles that I’m seeing, that’s exactly it. Any of those can be, can.

141 00:16:32.600 00:16:33.080 Kaela Gallagher: Right.

142 00:16:33.100 00:16:39.040 Zoran Selinger: a CSO, it’s just about, like, personality and… and…

143 00:16:39.940 00:16:40.470 Kaela Gallagher: Exactly.

144 00:16:40.470 00:16:43.470 Zoran Selinger: The way you communicate, over-communicate, whatever, right?

145 00:16:43.790 00:16:44.620 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah.

146 00:16:44.620 00:16:47.200 Zoran Selinger: But you know that better than I… than I do.

147 00:16:47.200 00:16:57.189 Kaela Gallagher: I sent you on Slack. I’m curious if you have access to this, but I sent you a link to our hiring and recruitment page in Notion.

148 00:16:57.770 00:17:05.030 Kaela Gallagher: I can get you added to this, if you can’t view it already. Actually, maybe it’s best if I share my screen, and I can just show you.

149 00:17:05.030 00:17:08.250 Zoran Selinger: I see those roles, yeah? I have access to this.

150 00:17:08.849 00:17:11.219 Kaela Gallagher: On Notion, you can see this page.

151 00:17:11.220 00:17:11.839 Zoran Selinger: Oh, yeah.

152 00:17:12.930 00:17:14.669 Kaela Gallagher: Hiring and recruitment? Okay.

153 00:17:15.319 00:17:19.709 Zoran Selinger: Oh, sorry, sorry, no, that’s not that page. Let me, I thought…

154 00:17:20.970 00:17:22.609 Kaela Gallagher: It’s the.

155 00:17:22.609 00:17:28.460 Zoran Selinger: second link that I sent over to you. Yeah, loading the page, let me see if I can see it.

156 00:17:30.640 00:17:32.739 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, I can see it. Okay, cool.

157 00:17:32.740 00:17:42.489 Kaela Gallagher: Okay, perfect. So this is everybody that we have interviewing right now. So just to give an overview, to start at the very end, we have two people in final rounds.

158 00:17:42.670 00:17:56.989 Kaela Gallagher: we have two people ready to go to finals, but we need to build, like, a data engineering final challenge for them. We have 3 people in seconds, one in first, and you can see they’re categorized by, like, either data or AI.

159 00:17:57.080 00:18:09.889 Kaela Gallagher: Or strategy, we just don’t have… oh, here. Deepika is strategy. And then, we have, like, the role here that we think that they would be the best fit for. Data engineer, analytics. So…

160 00:18:10.030 00:18:15.079 Kaela Gallagher: That kind of gives you an overview of, like, where people are at.

161 00:18:16.060 00:18:21.710 Kaela Gallagher: The way that we run the interview processes right now is based on if the

162 00:18:21.710 00:18:42.500 Kaela Gallagher: candidate is considered data, AI, or strategy, that’s what decides who they’re gonna interview with. So if the candidate is strategy, they’re gonna meet with Amber first, then Greg, and then they’re gonna do a panel with Amber, Greg, and Robert. If they’re data, they’re gonna meet with Awash first, then Demi, then have a panel with Awash, Demi, and Utam.

163 00:18:42.500 00:18:42.820 Zoran Selinger: Yep.

164 00:18:42.820 00:18:48.879 Kaela Gallagher: And if they’re AI, they talk to… I think it’s Pranav…

165 00:18:49.400 00:18:56.929 Kaela Gallagher: Or no, Sam first, then Pranov, and then the final pen is Sam, Pranav, Bhutam. So…

166 00:18:57.280 00:19:06.279 Kaela Gallagher: I say this because if you look at, like, one of these profiles, like, let’s say you click on Gilbert and you pull up his LinkedIn.

167 00:19:06.280 00:19:17.559 Kaela Gallagher: And you think, like, oh, Gilbert’s background in data engineering, and then he had a specialization with this tool or whatever, like, that could be really good for my team.

168 00:19:18.610 00:19:29.959 Kaela Gallagher: I… I am sure that we could add you to this final round, and you could sit in on that final panel, and then be like, oh, I really want Gilbert on my team, like.

169 00:19:30.360 00:19:32.809 Kaela Gallagher: You would really be a good fit for my team.

170 00:19:33.920 00:19:34.840 Zoran Selinger: Sure, sure.

171 00:19:34.840 00:19:42.590 Kaela Gallagher: I think that could be, like, the quickest way to get talent to you, because, like, we already have these people in the process.

172 00:19:43.720 00:19:48.070 Kaela Gallagher: Rounds, but… curious what your thoughts are, like, what you would kind of prefer.

173 00:19:48.070 00:19:52.560 Zoran Selinger: No, that’s good. Let me review the people that we have in the,

174 00:19:52.940 00:19:56.950 Zoran Selinger: In the pipeline, and yeah, I’ll give you some feedback on it.

175 00:19:57.190 00:20:08.230 Kaela Gallagher: Okay, yeah, we have this section over here that’s, like, in review. Just ignore that. Maybe just look at the people that are in first rounds, second rounds, final rounds, and see if any of them are of interest.

176 00:20:08.230 00:20:09.500 Zoran Selinger: That makes sense. Okay.

177 00:20:09.500 00:20:13.220 Kaela Gallagher: Okay. Okay. Cool. I know you have to hop, but…

178 00:20:13.220 00:20:14.070 Zoran Selinger: I don’t, I don’.

179 00:20:14.070 00:20:17.810 Kaela Gallagher: Slack me with any questions, anything you need. Where… where are you based?

180 00:20:17.810 00:20:18.870 Zoran Selinger: in Croatia.

181 00:20:19.290 00:20:31.270 Kaela Gallagher: Oh my gosh! That’s so cool! Okay, I’ve… I actually lived in Europe for 5 years, in, like, Germany and then Italy. And I always wanted to go to Croatia, but I never made it, so maybe I’ll come visit.

182 00:20:31.270 00:20:32.850 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, maybe, maybe.

183 00:20:32.850 00:20:35.530 Kaela Gallagher: Alright, cool. Thank you so much for your time.

184 00:20:35.530 00:20:36.390 Zoran Selinger: Thank you, thank you.

185 00:20:36.810 00:20:38.439 Zoran Selinger: Bye, bye, bye.