Working at Fuse: Q&A with Head of Engineering Johnny Mor

What’s the secret to building a successful engineering team? What traits or skills does an automotive fintech startup look for in candidates? 

And what’s it like to apply for a job at Fuse?

These are just a few of the questions we asked Johnny Mor, Head of Engineering at Fuse Autotech.

Johnny’s career includes posts at Microsoft as a Full-Stack Developer, at Fiverr as a Platform Architect, and at the Israeli Air Force as a Senior Software Engineer.

As Head of Engineering at Fuse, Johnny brings a unique and powerful methodology responsible for award-winning technology solutions and creating a culture that encourages curiosity and innovation. 

In our recent sit down, Johnny provided key insights into the Fuse hiring process, the common themes that unite Fuse employees, and the top reasons why Fuse is driving the future of the automotive software industry. 

How would you describe the culture of Fuse for developers and engineers?

For starters, we don’t have set rules about how to work. 

We simply care about creating an environment where the absolute best solutions can emerge. To that end, we give our developers the green light to do whatever they need to do to perform at their best.

Looking at the big picture, it’s clear Fuse promotes a culture of curiosity, cooperation, and common sense.

As a team, we don’t draw lines in the sand or build silos. 

Instead, we’re interested in the connections between all departments. And, by ensuring every team is on the same page, we can stress test every individual idea — big or small — that courses through our culture. 

We want every decision to make sense to everyone on our team. 

So you don’t want engineers wondering, “Wait, why was this built this way?”

Confusion is corrosive to a technologically progressive and creative culture.

At the same time, we love questions. And we actively welcome solutions that can improve upon current systems, whether it pertains to organizational structure, bug handling, sprint planning, and everything in between. 

Our hiring process is built on the belief that good ideas can come from anywhere.

No matter your level of experience or title. 

And when developers join the company, they get a taste of that right out of the gate. 

Talk to us about the onboarding process at Fuse

We employ a few action items as we onboard new employees.

For example, every new developer is given a custom assignment to write a new feature using their own model of working — before reading our own code. 

We do this for one reason: we want to see how they work. We want to learn from them. We want to see our new developers think and problem solve.

Then, after discovering their knowledge and creativity, we show them our approach. We can talk about the differences in working methodology, and at the end of the process, we can combine both approaches into a truly robust solution. 

At Fuse, learning is symbiotic, and the roots of that information sharing are born in the interview process.

Obviously engineers are very in-demand these days. How do you approach interviewing in such a competitive climate?

Selectivity has been our North Star, even in the midst of a tight labor market. 

Many companies conduct an infinity loop of interviews, believing that the more people they see, the more obvious the “best” candidates will become.

They basically play the numbers game, cramming as many candidates into each week as possible. They ask “gotcha” questions to intimidate candidates, and then act shocked when developers crack under the pressure. 

Ultimately, we believe this approach deprives developers of thriving in an interview setting and bringing their “A” game to the conversation.  

We’re not looking for “yes men”. We’re seeking opinionated, engaged, and curious developers who want to further accelerate their expertise. 

What’s the journey of becoming a developer at Fuse?

We don’t look at interviewing as an “us vs. them” process. We invest in our candidates, just as we know they invest in us with their time, energy, and perspective. 

Over the course of my career, I’ve been fortunate to work at some great companies.

I vividly remember interviewing at each of those firms, and I’ve distilled those processes into a three-point approach that Fuse now follows. 

We start by providing preparation materials to candidates about a week in advance of the meeting. This “homework” encourages the candidate to think critically, to refresh their working memory, and to begin planning for the upcoming interview. 

Secondly, we strive to create an experience that will provide something educational and informative to candidates — regardless of the outcome of the interview. 

To fulfill this goal, we aim to provide a measure of customization within the interview. In other words, we don’t believe in generic interview questions or topics. 

We realize we’re speaking with accomplished, elite developers, and as such, we facilitate a sophisticated dialogue to fit the individual person’s lived experience.

Ultimately, our interview process is designed to help candidates demonstrate the fullest extent of their skills, experience, and ambition. 

We want prospective employees to feel like they can show us their truest selves through a fulfilling and engaging conversation with our team.  

We want developers to be excited to join Fuse — to choose us because we’re their most compelling option. 

How has that philosophy shaped your company culture?

I think it’s been instrumental in creating a truly tight-knit team, and the stats bear that out. 

For example, we have ZERO turnover in R&D since we began building our team.

Look, we work in a very technical industry, right? As far as I’m concerned, the wisest thing we can do is take an intellectually stimulating, emotionally engaging, and thoroughly human approach to the interview process.

Is there a common thread that brings people to work for Fuse? Be it education? Background? Ambition?

Everyone at Fuse is looking to maximize their potential. 

And if they don’t quite know what their potential looks like, they come to Fuse to test it out. 

Beyond the immediacy of their day-to-day jobs, people don’t work at Fuse merely to be developers or engineers — though that’s obviously a key part of the story. Across the board, our team is replete with people who are hungry to learn more. 

They not only want to contribute to Fuse in a meaningful way, but they want to ultimately found their own companies. We love the fact that the most ambitious and talented developers choose Fuse, even though many of them will go on to start their own companies.

They want to become CTOs, CEOs, and founders, like the visionaries who inspired them to enter the industry in the first place. 

At fuse, they can measure, sharpen, and expand their skill set in truly exciting ways. 

That’s what engineering funzing is all about. 

Sorry…did you say engineering “funzing”? What is that?

It’s a funny word, right? Here’s the Sparknotes story behind it. 

We wanted to establish a forum to share ideas. A lot of our developers would have eureka moments of discovery, but they lacked an outlet to communicate their breakthroughs. 

Typically, most companies don’t make time for seemingly non-essential items. It’s all about deliverables and the day-to-day tasks.

But there’s a problem with that. If your head is buried in work 24/7, how can you continue innovating? 

You often can’t. 

And as every developer knows: great ideas strike like lightning, and if you don’t harness them, they vanish into the ether. 

Enter engineering funzing, which is a monthly meeting where developers from Fuse as well as other firms can share new ideas and valuable insights in an engaging format. We’re lucky that our headquarters is in a cluster of high-tech superpowers including Google (just on the floor below us), Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft.

Sometimes the topics are directly related to Fuse. Other times, they’re simply an engineer sharing personal breakthroughs and advice for the rest of the team.

They’re like TED Talks for the Fuse team and the audience at large. 

Wow. You don’t mind publicizing your team’s abilities and insights to other firms?

Well, that’s one of the risks we’re willing to take. 

Frankly, we’ve had a number of companies try to steal our developers after hearing them speak at a funzing session. 

But we believe information sharing is vital, and we don’t want our team to put their engineering lights under a bushel, so to speak. 

We want them to shine. 

If we zoom out for a second, can you share your perspective on the automotive industry? Specifically, where does Fuse stand in comparison to legacy systems?

Our mission is to make financing a car simple. And, in this case, simple is not easy. 

It’s really a battle of ideologies, of old versus new, of orthodoxy versus (perceived) heresy. 

That’s true across the board, down to the dealerships and the salespersons themselves. 

Fuse is disrupting the entire space, and in the process, we’re paving the way for those following behind. 

Has the road been filled with challenges? There’s no question about it, but our team has never backed down from the fight.

We’re constantly reminded of our unifying goal: to bring much-needed innovation to every aspect of the car-buying process. 

Can you describe that innovation in layman’s terms?

Sure. Did you play video games as a kid?

Yep. Big fan of Super Mario. 

That’s a classic, but have you seen any footage of the latest video games?

The comparison is night and day. Everything from the graphics to the presentation is vastly superior, even if you have a nostalgic connection to an old school game. 

With Fuse, the difference in technology is equally stark. 

And honestly, we don’t take all the credit for it. We’re just responding to the demands of our customers and innovating according to their needs.

Customers will always expect products to evolve. It’s simply astounding that the automotive industry has taken so long to adapt. 

And when industries do adapt, they typically do so once, and then quietly hope that they can maintain the status quo for a decade or longer.

With Fuse, however, we’re interested in promoting a state of constant adaptation and evolution. That’s what the automotive industry needs, it’s what customers ultimately want, and it’s something the Fuse team is capable of delivering. 

We’re innovators on the cutting edge. To us, the cutting edge means delivering the best automotive fintech possible for the customer — and to deliver the best tech requires the best work from the best talent in the world.