What happens after you send a brief: five working days, step by step
This is the screen our team opens when your brief arrives. We show it because a brief should not vanish into an inbox, and because what you see here is what our account team sees, and no more.
The record
What your brief becomes internally
Every brief becomes one record with an id, a stage and an owner. It does not live in an inbox or a chat thread. The rows below are the real rows, with an illustrative example in the values.
- 1. Lead
- 2. Qualified
- 3. Requirements confirmed
- 4. Matching
- 5. Profiles prepared
- 6. Profiles sent
- 7. Interviews
- 8. Offer
- 9. Placement
- 10. Active engagement
- Requirement ID
- ETR-2041
- Stage
- Matching
- Roles requested
- Illustrative example: one Android engineer and one backend engineer
- Engagement model
- Staff augmentation
- Timezone target
- Central Europe
- Owner
- Account manager
- Internal cost and margin
- Redacted, finance permission only
Five working days
From the brief to the first shortlist, day by day
Five working days from a clear brief to the first shortlist on standing-pipeline roles. This is what happens on each of them, and what we need from you on each.
Day one
Read and qualify
An account manager reads the brief the same working day and replies in writing: either specific questions or a confirmation that we understood. If the brief is not for us, we say so here, not in week three.
Day two
Requirements confirmed
A short call or a message pins the roles, levels, hours, timezone and engagement model. The brief becomes a requirement record with an id, and its text is frozen so we do not match against something that moved.
Days three and four
Matching
We search the network on stack, level and overlap hours. The person shortlisting is an engineer who actually builds software at Folowise, not a recruiter. A candidate who fails the code review does not reach the list.
Day five
Profiles prepared and sent
The first shortlist reaches you: usually two to four anonymised profiles per seat, with the level, the stack, the assessment result and why we picked them. You choose whom to meet, and you can say no without explaining.
The week after
Interviews and offer
Your interviews run the following week. Once you approve, the engineer's notice at their current employer starts, typically two weeks to a month. That is the real reason "as soon as possible" means 3 to 6 weeks.
The rule
The shortlist timing rule, as the builder computes it
The number the team builder shows is not typed in; it comes out of one rule. This is the rule, and these examples are computed from it, not written.
- The slowest role in the brief opens the window: from 5 working days for a backend engineer to 12 for a tech lead. A role we recruit for adds two to three weeks on top.
- The window closes five working days after that.
- A senior seat or above adds three days to the end of the window, because the pool is thinner.
- Five seats or more add two days to the start and five to the end, because the shortlist is a team, not a person.
| Example | Slowest role | First shortlist |
|---|---|---|
| One backend engineer, Mid-Level | Backend engineer · 5 days | 5 to 10 working days |
| One iOS engineer, Senior | iOS engineer · 10 days | 10 to 18 working days |
| A full mobile team, five seats | iOS engineer · 10 days | 12 to 23 working days |
| A SaaS team with a tech lead, six seats | Tech lead · 12 days | 14 to 25 working days |
The rule is one function in the site's code that the builder and this page both read, so neither can promise what the other does not compute. The actual start adds the engineer's notice period on top of the window.
FAQ
About timing and interviews
01How long does this actually take?
For roles where we have a standing pipeline: a first shortlist within 5 working days of a clear brief, and your interviews the week after. The actual start depends on the engineer's notice period with their current employer, and Jordanian labour law requires a month on indefinite contracts. Realistic total: 3 to 6 weeks. We publish both numbers deliberately: anyone publishing "48 hours" alone means time to shortlist, not time to start, and is offering you whoever is unoccupied rather than the best people in the market.
02Can I interview candidates and reject them?
Yes, and without explaining why. Our assessment decides who reaches you; it does not replace your decision. If you reject three candidates in a row, we stop sending and re-read the brief with you, because the problem is probably our understanding of the need rather than the candidates.
03What if the engineer is not the right fit?
Within the first 30 days: tell us, and we replace at no additional fee and with no notice period charged to you. After that, a standard 30 day notice applies. We ask one thing in return: tell us in week two if it feels wrong, not in month three. Most mismatches are fixable when raised early.
Next step
Tell us what you are trying to ship
Not the headcount. Tell us the product, the date, and what team you have today, and we will propose the shape. If we think what you need is not more engineers, we will say so on the first call.
Typical response within one business day · everything you share is treated as confidential