Hiring and recruitment

We’re looking for people who share our values and align with our culture. We seek out teammates who are curious, adaptable, committed to quality, and fun to be around.

Recruitment process

Our hiring process is designed to be straightforward and respectful. The details will depend on the position you apply for, however, here’s what to expect:

1. Intro Call: A quick 15-minute chat with one of our team members to cover the basics. You can book this call during the application. We call it a first date, because it is something like that. More like a “speedy” first date. On this call, would like to get to know you and your motivations, and you should do the same with us too to figure out whether it could be a match. Once the call is over we’ll quickly get back to you with our decision.
2. Homework: As a next step, we’ll invite you to a take-home technical task to demonstrate your skills. It can take a few hours for you, and if the results are good, we continue with the next step.
3. System Design & Team Fit Discussion: A deeper conversation covering your approach to problem-solving and how you’ll fit into our team. We might talk about the homework, or even your previous experiences, and include future team members in the conversation. Typically lasts 90 minutes.
4. Proposal & Handshake: If all goes well, after an internal discussion we send you a proposal and if you accept, we welcome you on board! 🤜

Onboarding

What will your first day(s) look like?

Picture this: you wake up to a sunny morning, make your coffee, breakfast, do some yoga—whatever starts your day right—and settle in at your desk (or maybe the couch!).

You open your MacBook (delivered earlier to your door if you requested a company laptop). You’ll see all your accounts set up so you can start exploring. You’ll already have a few invitations in your calendar for your onboarding sessions.

So, what happens during onboarding?

We’ll start by sharing a bit about Apex—our story, how we work, communicate, the projects we take on, and more. Then you’re going to meet the core team! Everyone will introduce themselves, and though it might feel a bit nerve-wracking at first, we promise it’s casual and a lot of fun. We usually all learn something new from each other.

And after that? You’ll have ongoing support from your team, along with check-ins every two weeks to share feedback and make sure everything’s going smoothly—for both of us!

Compensation

We maintain transparent pay grades across the company, based on four distinct levels. These levels are determined by your experience, skills, and growth potential. No matter your role—developer, PM, scrum master, or designer—everyone aligns with a single rate structure.

Extra benefits

Health & Well-being

Your health matters to us, so we offer a range of benefits, including mental health support and coaching to help with personal and professional development.

Tools to thrive

We’ll set you up with all the essentials you need to do your best work, from software to top-notch hardware.

Extra paid days-off & leaves

We love a good work-life balance! You’ll get extra days off on your birthday and Apex Fridays (the last Friday of each month) to use however you like—rest, wrap up projects, learn something new, or just relax. Plus, we offer paid parental leave for new parents and extended sick leave for when life happens.

Career

Quality is one of our core values, and that means we care deeply about continuous improvement. We’re here to support your growth, encourage learning, and make leveling up simple and straightforward.

How do you manage your growth or move up levels? It’s a self-driven process. Instead of rigid, corporate-style performance reviews, we rely on common sense and constructive feedback from your peers and clients.

The self-reflection you can ideally do yearly - regardless of leveling up -, but there’s no set schedule. We leave the timing to you because growth is individual, and we believe everyone is accountable for their own paths.

Want to explore other areas or try out a new skill? We’re all for it! Your growth is important to us, whether that’s leveling up, pivoting to a new skill set, or deepening your expertise in the work you love.

Working hours, location, vacations

We give you flexibility, that comes hand-in-hand with responsibility.

Working hours

At Apex, everyone works around 40 hours a week, but it’s based on trust, not minute-by-minute time-tracking. We focus on achieving goals, so how you manage your hours is up to you. Our guidelines:

• Coordinate your work hours with your team.
• Be available when needed, and let the team know how to reach you.

Our work setup: Remote 2.0

Our setup is remote-first, but if you’d like in-person connection, we make that happen too.

Remote

You can work from anywhere that meets client needs and balances time zones, enabling flexibility without sacrificing reliability.

In-person events

We regularly organize hackathons, coding challenges, team-building days, and coworking meetups—usually in Budapest or occasionally in the hometowns of some team members across Hungary. Participation is entirely optional, but we’d love to see you at our annual coding challenge!

Location

Since we’re fully remote, you can work from anywhere. Just make sure you’re aligned with your team’s timezone, you have a reliable internet connection, a quiet environment, and a decent background for your calls. It’s all common sense!

Overtime

It’s simple. We don’t do overtime—at least, not unless it’s an absolute last resort. 99% of the tasks that don’t get done by Friday afternoon can wait until Monday morning. Sure, emergencies might require extra hours now and then, and that’s okay because exhaustion is temporary, and everyone can go back to their comfort zone. We deal with crises, sure, but finishing a random task or a release isn't that.

Workaholism and overtime aren’t just unnecessary; they’re actively destructive:

• It isn’t sustainable—you’ll burn out and hit a wall. Yes, even if you are in the first phase of burnout and you feel that you are bulletproof.
• It lowers morale, as workaholics make those around them feel guilty for not burning the midnight oil.
• It encourages a “butts-in-seats” mentality—where people spend extra hours on something, even if they aren’t being productive.
• It masks real problems and leads to inelegant solutions when intellectual laziness is covered up with brute force.
• And finally...very few problems can be solved in the 12th or 13th hour of a workday.

All we need is 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. Less is often fine, too—that’s why we introduced Apex Fridays.

Vacations

Vacations are in your hands. Coordinate with your team and client, ensure everything is prepped to run smoothly without you, then switch on your “Out of Office” and enjoy your Slack-free time. We won’t interrupt!

Culture

Teams

We work in teams. Regardless of your expertise, you’ll always be part of a team, having a supporting net around you. It can be a dev team, a product team, a business team, etc. No one works alone. Not only because it’s not fun, but also because it’s not efficient. It’s always good to exchange ideas and get feedback on your work.

We are a relatively small team, and we would like to keep knowing each other more than a name. There is an option to meet every day in a dedicated 30-min timeslot, not only to see different faces, but also having an agenda to discuss company-wide topics, or learn a new cool thing, or debate on sth, or just watch funny videos.

Care

We prioritise the well-being of Apex people. Working in teams is a big part of it, as it creates a supporting net. We also regularly do health checks with the whole team and retros are part of our lives. Needless to say that you gonna have someone - call it leader, scrum master, tech lead, or a buddy - who checks on you from time to time. We value our relationships and support each other beyond work, recognizing the human behind the professional.

Transparency

You’ve probably noticed we mention transparency a lot—and that’s because it’s essential to us! But what does transparency really mean for you as an Apex team member? Here are some practical examples:

• We communicate openly internally and with our clients. We use public Slack channels and Miro boards. You can join any project conversation, get updates, and share insights. Want to see how the sales team’s retro went, what the in-house team has planned for the week, or check out the project allocation matrix? It’s all accessible.
• We maintain an open salary structure, so you can see everyone’s level and corresponding pay. If team members want to, they can also share their personal growth plans—this is completely optional.
• All our notes, strategies, recruitment info, and more are accessible in Notion, Miro, or Jira for everyone to see, review, and contribute to.

These steps help us share knowledge, create alignment, bring up fresh ideas, and take away the stress of being out of the loop.

Feedback

Feedback is an important one. We’re building a culture where giving, asking for, and receiving feedback is the norm. We aim to give feedback right away and in a constructive way. While we have dedicated feedback sessions and retros, feedback is welcome anytime.

Leaders ask for input on their decisions, we ask for client feedback on new designs, and developers seek feedback on code from their peers—this is how we grow.

Our feedback culture is always evolving, and we’re committed to continually improving it.

Openness

We foster an environment where you feel encouraged to speak up. We are open to your ideas regardless of the subject, we believe that’s how we grow together. We view mistakes as opportunities for growth, learning from them to become stronger and more resilient.

Conflict Handling

We know that working with smart, creative people in a fast-moving environment means conflicts will happen— and that’s okay. In fact, many conflicts are healthy; they’re a sign of passion and diverse ideas. What matters is how we handle them.

We see conflicts as opportunities to grow, improve, and find better solutions. Here’s how we approach them:

• Focus on the idea/challenge, not the person. Disagreements should always be about the work, never personal. By keeping conversations constructive, we ensure the focus stays on solving the problem.
• Communicate with care. We use clear, respectful language to share perspectives and needs. This helps prevent misunderstandings and keeps the conversation productive.
• Mutual respect. Even when opinions clash, we treat each other with kindness and respect. We’re all on the same team, eventually.

Do things always go like this? Not every time. But we’re committed to improving, learning from each situation, and making conflict resolution an integral part of our culture.