Being headhunted

Geertjan Wielenga: How did that connection start if they weren't aware that they needed such a function? Why did you pick that particular organization to do this at?

Ted Neward: Well, actually, it came about rather accidentally. I met the principal technical recruiter for Smartsheet at a HackerX hiring mixer about two and a half years ago. I also met with the VP of engineering and we just had a nice chat. It was purely random.

Then, about five months later, one of my students from my university classes was interning at Smartsheet.

He emailed me to say, "By the way, thanks for the class. It really helped me to get ready for this internship."

I said, "Oh, Smartsheet, I know those guys. Tell them I said hi." That brought me back to the top of the cache, so to speak. They said that they wanted to talk to me.

"I said, 'I won't be a developer advocate, but I will build the department for you.'"

—Ted Neward

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