Talent at Specify
The strongest candidates do more than fill a role. They add knowledge, methods, relationships, questions and possibilities the company did not have before.
Specify is being built in a landscape that is changing quickly. We value people who can learn fast, think independently and turn unfamiliar problems into useful work.
Ambitious without being abrasive. Positive without avoiding difficult truths. Flexible without losing professional standards.
A catalogue the next person inherits
Before anything else
Specify is two people. There is no team to join yet, and whoever comes next will be early enough that the way the company works is still being decided.
The honest trade-offs of joining at this point:
If that reads as a warning, it is meant as one. It is also the reason a capable person can do more here in a year than in three years somewhere established.
Location
Specify expects to be based in Stockholm. San Francisco is the alternative, and the decision is not final. We would rather tell you that before you apply than after you have moved.
If where you would have to live matters to you, and it should, ask us where the decision stands before you invest time in a process. We will tell you what we know, including when the answer is still that we do not know.
We prefer working together in person because early-career learning, difficult problem-solving and strong working relationships develop faster when people share the work as it happens.
Concretely, what that buys:
Flexibility runs in both directions. We expect people to contribute outside a narrow job description when the situation needs it, and in return we support occasional remote work and individual flexibility where circumstances and responsibilities allow. Caring responsibilities, health and disability are things to arrange around, not things to apologise for.
This is a deliberate preference for this stage and this kind of work, not a claim that working in person is better in general. Specify is not a remote-first company, and if remote-first is what you want, this will not suit you.
What we look for
We hire on what somebody adds to the company's collective capability, not only on credentials. The useful question is not whether you match a job description. It is what Specify would be able to do with you that it cannot do now.
What the company can then do
What one person adds
Creativity here does not mean producing ideas without discipline. It means finding better ways to understand, test and solve real commercial problems. An idea that nobody can act on is not a contribution yet, which is why we value the ability to turn ideas into useful work at least as highly as the ideas themselves.
The same standard applies in both directions. A person who adds to what we can do, and also improves how well we evaluate and execute, is worth considerably more than either half alone.
There is no single right background
These are not departments and they are not vacancies. They are the kinds of contribution that would be useful, and most people who would suit this company sit across two or three of them.
Turning an unclear commercial situation into something that can be worked on.
Opening real conversations in the sectors Specify serves, and learning from how they go.
Technical does not mean software alone. Production and manufacturing engineering count here.
Making a complicated commercial process into something a customer can actually use.
The work that decides whether a customer succeeds after the sale.
Building repeatable ways of working, which an early company mostly lacks.
Finding out what is true and making it legible to other people.
Some of this is fractional or externally supported at our size, and will be for a while.
A relevant network is genuinely valuable and is not sufficient by itself. Relationships have to be relevant, honestly built, and matched by an ability to create something worth introducing people to.
Three tracks
Everyone develops a common consulting foundation first: understanding a customer need, structuring an opportunity, working within constraints, communicating clearly, and recording what was decided and why. The tracks are where you go deeper, not walls between people.
Understanding a customer's commercial problem well enough that somebody can act on it, then seeing the work through.
Opening and developing real customer relationships in the sectors Specify serves. Consultative rather than high-volume.
Turning customer problems into systems that work. Includes engineering, product and the modelling of capability and constraints.
The tracks are deliberately fluid. A technical person who becomes customer-facing, or a commercial person who develops real product judgement, is a good outcome rather than a deviation. We adapt responsibilities to demonstrated strengths, and we expect people to contribute outside their track when the work needs it.
Fluid does not mean undefined. Responsibilities, expectations and pay should be clear at any given moment, and if they are not, that is a problem to fix rather than a feature of the stage.
Technical colleagues are not a downstream implementation service for decisions made without them. If that is how it feels, something has gone wrong.
Career model
This is an operating model and a direction, not a promotion schedule. There are no durations anywhere in it, because progression should follow demonstrated scope, judgement and contribution rather than time served.
Two of these levels are open and three are not. That is marked on each one rather than left for you to work out, because a career model that quietly describes positions nobody can apply for is a recruitment advertisement pretending to be a plan.
Level 00
A scoped piece of work with a written brief, a defined learning objective and a supervisor. It produces something specific, and it is not a way to staff an ordinary job cheaply.
Typical profile Current student with an academic or learning objective and a limited-duration project.
What develops here Learn to structure a question well enough that the answer is usable by somebody else.
What develops here Learn how a sector actually buys, from evidence rather than from assumption.
What develops here Learn to scope a technical question so the result means something.
Level 01
Owns defined work with guidance. The move that matters here is from completing assigned tasks to owning a defined outcome.
Typical profile Graduate or early-career, with strong learning ability and evidence of having finished something difficult.
What develops here Improve the quality of your questions and recommendations until people start acting on them without checking.
What develops here Build enough sector fluency to know which conversation is worth having next.
What develops here Build fluency across customer, product and commercial context, not only across the codebase.
Level 02
Leads a defined workstream and is accountable for the quality of an outcome rather than the completion of a task.
Typical profile Demonstrated capability to lead a customer, product or delivery workstream with little day-to-day direction.
Nobody holds this level today. It is described because it is where an Associate would be heading, not because there is a position to apply for.
What develops here Exercise judgement under uncertainty, and improve the methods other people then reuse.
What develops here Learn why opportunities are won, delayed or lost, and make that knowledge usable by everyone else.
What develops here Connect technical decisions to their commercial consequences, and say so before the decision is made.
Level 03
Trusted with complex work and with other people's development. Remaining an expert individual contributor is a valid path; leading people is not a reward for time served.
Typical profile Repeated evidence of leading important work, strong professional judgement, and trust from both customers and colleagues.
Not open, and not close to opening. Included so the direction of the model is legible, not as an implied vacancy.
What develops here Shape how Specify works, not only what a given project delivers.
What develops here Build a commercial position the company can rely on rather than a personal book of business.
What develops here Take responsibility for decisions that are expensive to reverse, and for explaining them.
Level 04
Material responsibility for a whole company capability. Shapes standards, strategy and important decisions.
Typical profile Deep expertise, substantial commercial contribution, or both, with the judgement to be trusted with a function.
This level does not exist at Specify. It is written down so the model has a visible direction, and reaching it is not automatic for anybody.
What develops here Be accountable for whether a whole capability is good, not for whether a project went well.
What develops here Build a commercial engine that works when you are not personally in the room.
What develops here Be responsible for the technical direction of the company rather than of a system.
Exceptional work can move somebody faster than the order below suggests. Time alone should never move anybody at all.
How progression is judged
Progression reflects demonstrated scope, judgement and contribution. When it is discussed, these are the dimensions that get discussed.
What progression is deliberately not based on:
Approximate experience is not a requirement anywhere in this model. Somebody exceptional moves faster; somebody who has simply been here a while does not move at all.
Compensation
We have internal bands for every level and track. We do not publish them, and we will tell you the range for the level you would enter at the first real conversation, before you invest time in a process.
The reason they are not on this page is specific rather than coy: the company has not finally decided which market it is hiring into, and a band that is right for one of those markets would be wrong for the other. Publishing a number we would have to retract is worse than telling you when you will get it.
What determines where somebody sits:
The role and the responsibility
What the work actually requires, and what the company is relying on you for.
Demonstrated capability
What you have shown you can do, which is not always the same as how long you have been doing it.
Scarcity of the contribution
How hard the specific thing you bring is to find, including relevant sector relationships and technical depth.
Commercial contribution
What the work is worth to the company, judged over a sensible period rather than a single quarter.
The company's stage and resources
An honest constraint. We would rather say a number is limited by what we can afford than pretend it reflects your value.
Why the company can pay properly
Specify's pricing model is intended to support the recruitment and retention of capable people rather than treating professional judgement, engineering quality and customer support as costs to minimise. That is a statement about how the company intends to operate, not a promise about any particular salary.
Options
We intend some roles to participate in the company's long-term upside. There is no approved option programme today, so we cannot make an offer, quote a percentage or attach a value to anything. If that changes before you join, it will be in writing and subject to formal grant, vesting, approval and the applicable agreement. Options are uncertain upside and are never a substitute for fair cash compensation.
Sales bonus
Eligible commercial roles may have a bonus. Any such plan would reward collected revenue, contract quality, customer fit and successful implementation rather than announced top-line revenue, because rewarding the announcement is how a company ends up with customers it should not have taken. No plan is approved yet, so no formula is published here.
Review and feedback
Nothing here is a promise of an increase, an option grant or a bonus. It is how we intend to make those decisions, and you should hold us to the process rather than to an outcome.
How we work
Every company claims these. What follows is what each one looks like in practice and where it slips, which is the only part that distinguishes anybody.
Pick up unfamiliar subjects fast, notice what you do not yet understand, and change your position when the evidence changes.
Strong opinions should improve the decision, not reduce somebody else's ability to contribute.
Optimism is useful when it produces action. Candour is useful when it improves the work.
Take responsibility for an outcome rather than waiting for a complete sequence of instructions.
Specify exists to solve commercial problems. That applies to technical and design work as much as to sales.
An early company runs on whether individual people do what they said. Writing and speaking clearly is part of this, not presentation polish.
None of this requires constant agreement. Disagreement is not disloyalty, and a person who only ever confirms what has already been decided is not contributing.
Be honest with yourself
A good employer page helps the wrong people leave early. If several of these describe what you want, you would be happier somewhere else and we would rather you found out now.
None of these are unreasonable things to want. They are simply things Specify cannot offer honestly at this stage.
What exists today
We do not currently have a list of permanent open positions. We do welcome unsolicited applications from people who believe they can make a specific contribution.
Open continuously. You do not need to match a conventional job description. Tell us what you are unusually good at, what you want to learn, and where you think you could contribute specifically. We read them ourselves.
Considered when they are clearly scoped. Every one must begin with a written brief, defined learning objectives, an agreed duration and a named supervisor, and must produce a specific output. A project must never be used to fill an ordinary job.
Submitting an application does not guarantee a response, an interview or a future role, and we would rather say so than imply a process that does not exist. We do read everything that arrives.
No permanent positions are open. Unsolicited applications and clearly scoped student projects are both genuinely considered, and those are the only two routes that exist today.
Stockholm is the expectation and San Francisco is the alternative, and the decision is not final. Ask us where it stands before you go far into a process.
Because the company has not settled which market it is hiring into, and a band that is right for one would be wrong for the other. Bands exist internally, and we tell you the relevant range at the first real conversation rather than making you ask.
Probably yes, if you can name a specific contribution. The tracks describe where people go deeper, not the set of people we would consider. What matters is whether you would expand what the company can do.
There is no date, and anybody who gave you one would be guessing. They open when the work and the funding justify them, which depends on how the first implementations go.
Ordinary productive work is paid. A student project may sit inside an educational framework where the arrangement is different, and in that case it has to be a genuine part of your education with a written brief and a supervisor, not a job with the pay removed.
Who you would be working with
Specify was founded by two software engineers who met working as consultants, and who between them have built B2B ecommerce platforms and large public-sector systems. The About page has their backgrounds in full, including what they worked on and why it led here.
The team is two people today
Unsolicited application
Three short screens. The first one is the one that matters, and it is the one we read first.
There are no open positions. This goes to the two founders, who read everything that arrives. We cannot promise a reply to every application, and we would rather say that than imply a process we do not have.
Not what you have done, exactly. What Specify would be able to do with you that it cannot do now.
Apply
You do not need to match a conventional job description. Tell us what you are unusually good at, what you want to learn, and where you believe you could make a specific contribution.
We are especially interested in people who can connect a customer problem, a commercial judgement and a piece of practical execution, because that combination is rare and it is most of what this company does.