Bharat & Rakesh faced an upkill mandate: Hire 40 engineers in four months, with only three
people capable of conducting high-quality technical interviews.
Interviewing is a specialised skill, and when you're building tech used by global
enterprises across 13 countries, you can’t afford to spend engineering time on unfiltered
candidates.
That’s exactly the challenge SmartQ faced. The company, which builds the technology powering
corporate cafeterias for large enterprises, had grown from a small startup into a
nine-product, multi-location platform, and the hiring demands grew just as fast.
“We were a startup. Suddenly we had to cater to multiple clients,” Bharath explains. “Our
early processes weren’t built for this scale.”
The numbers made the bottleneck obvious. To fill one position, they needed around 20
profiles. Maybe 15 would show up. Relying on just three or four strong interviewers meant
they would never meet hiring targets.
“We needed the funnel sharpened by someone who could filter with very high quality,” Bharath
says. “Quality was the most important thing.”
The Bandwidth Problem
The hiring math wasn't on their side:
- 20 profiles to fill 1 role
- 15 candidates who might show up
- 3–4 engineers capable of taking solid technical interviews
- 1 internal panel slot per day (2 on a good day)
- No-shows = that day's capacity wasted
Another issue surfaced when senior engineers interviewed candidates almost as senior.
Evaluations became slower, less structured, and inconsistent.
When the hiring target jumped to 40–50 people in four months, Rakesh knew the system would
break.
Choosing Quality Over Speed
SmartQ explored multiple interview outsourcing partners.
Most offered speed and scale. Some offered AI-driven interviews.
Bharath chose Intervue for one reason: the Uber model.
"You get an interviewer with the exact skills required for the role," he says. "Having
access to quality interviewers with the right expertise is what helped us make the
decision."
Intervue was higher on the cost front compared to other vendors. But quality mattered more
and they strongly delivered.
The 2x Hiring Acceleration
Today, SmartQ's process looks like this:
Pre-screening: Rakesh's team evaluates basics.
Round 1: Intervue conducts technical assessment.
Round 2 & 3 : Internal panels with selected candidates
Culture round: Final evaluation.
Round 1: Intervue conducts technical assessment.
Round 2 & 3 : Internal panels with selected candidates
Culture round: Final evaluation.
What changed? Speed. And bandwidth.
The numbers tell the story: 10-12 interviews per week became 20-22 per week. Time to offer
dropped from 15-17 days to less than 10 days.
"It doubled my pipeline movement," Rakesh says. But the bigger unlock?
Weekend availability.
"Most candidates were available on weekends," Rakesh explains. "Intervue takes interviews on
Saturday & Sunday. I can't ask my panel to do that."
In one year, SmartQ went from 60 engineers to 120+ without breaking their internal panels.
The Feedback Shift
The feature both leaders love the most most: recordings + structured skill breakdown.
“Our first round is mostly coding,” Rakesh explains. “The second-round panel can watch what
was asked and how the candidate solved it.”
This meant:
- No repeated questions
- Better second-round depth
- Less bias
- Higher-quality final decisions
Bharath notes, “Earlier, each panel decided the skills and questions on their own, so rounds
happened in isolation. Now, our internal panel sees what was asked in earlier rounds, which
helps define questions for later stages. With Intervue, we finally have structure.”
Their Advice to HR Leaders
Invest in quality, not just cost. “Skipping proper candidate filtering may seem cheaper, but
the ripple effect of a bad hire, including lost productivity, project delays and team
stress, ends up far more expensive,” Rakesh says.
Protect your best technical talent. “Not everyone is great at interviewing. If you have one
or two strong interviewers, don’t burn them out,” Bharath adds.
He even summarises feedback for the candidates using GPT. "Most platforms give you a score.
Intervue gave me insights I could use."
Choose the right filtering model. “We found that matching candidates with interviewers who
had the exact skills needed made scaling much easier,” Rakesh says.
The Bottom Line
SmartQ doubled their engineering team in a year. They accelerated their pipeline without
sacrificing quality.
They protected the time of their most valuable technical voices. And they turned hiring from
a bottleneck into a strength.
“We needed structural change without a productivity hit,” Rakesh says. “We got both.”
Today, SmartQ serves major clients across 13 countries, powered by nine products and 120+
engineers.
That's what winning looks like. The signal is loud & clear.
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