March 14, 2025

Northflank uses Paraform to hire across Engineering, GTM, and Marketing

Cristina Bunea

Head of Marketing @ Paraform

In this blog

Why Northflank chose ParaformNorthflank’s hiring challengesEngineering rolesGTM rolesParaform, the productThe future of hiringConclusion

Northflank powers the infrastructure behind products you might already use.

It's a production workload platform that lets developers build, deploy, and scale on their own cloud—whether AWS, GCP, Azure, or bare metal. It provides self-service infrastructure, automates “day 2” operations, and enables one-click preview environments, eliminating DevOps bottlenecks. Teams get best-in-class infrastructure for CPU and GPU workloads without the overhead of a massive DevOps investment.

Particularly useful for developers and teams that want to deploy applications quickly without dealing with complex cloud configurations.

Will (Co-founder / CEO) and Chase (COO) both played key roles in hiring for Northflank. They had worked with external recruiters before but found the process didn’t always meet their needs, it sometimes required too much back-and-forth.

When they were introduced to Paraform, Chase was skeptical. As a former VC, he had seen countless recruitment automation tools fail. But after using Paraform, both he and Will became strong advocates for the platform.

Why Northflank chose Paraform

Chase initially dismissed the idea of yet another recruiting tool.

“I came into it somewhat skeptical. I had seen a lot of software in and around sourcing automation, and everything was kind of a dud. It was highly manual, and the businesses weren’t very good. When Will said, ‘Take a look at this,’ I was like, ‘Let’s not waste our time.’ But he pushed me to try it, and I’m glad he did.”

The skepticism quickly faded once they experienced our approach. Unlike traditional recruiting, which required constant check-ins and produced minimal results, we enabled them to scale their hiring without the usual overhead.

“My number one complaint with recruiters is high overhead, low velocity. They want weekly calls, they need constant calibration, and even then, you get maybe one or two good candidates a week. With Paraform, I was able to go from zero to hiring-ready with just a 30-minute call and some async feedback. That left a strong impression.”

Northflank’s hiring challenges

The Northflank team was hiring across multiple functions: engineering, GTM, and technical content. Their biggest challenges were:

• Volume of applicants – Some roles received 3,000+ applicants, making it impossible for a small team to filter through them efficiently.
• Speed – They needed to hire multiple engineers in a short time frame, and traditional recruiting wasn’t keeping up.
• Candidate quality – External recruiters often sent through a mix of strong and weak candidates, without proper calibration.

“We needed quite a few engineers, and we needed them immediately. Paraform allowed us to find and calibrate top candidates in real time. I was able to interview 30 engineers, move some through the process, and hire multiple high-quality backend engineers in quick succession with minimal hassle,” Will says.

Engineering roles

For engineering hires, Northflank saw a significant difference in candidate quality and process efficiency. Will highlighted how the structured and filtered approach of Paraform made a massive difference:

“When you work with recruiters manually, it’s a whole load of effort. Sometimes they don’t even ask for calibration, and it’s very manual. With Paraform, I get a report, I can rank candidates, see their work history in a consistent format, and review their responses to screening questions. It simplifies everything into a single screen, so I can decide quickly who to interview.”

One of the biggest wins was finding a recruiter through Paraform, Sam Stevens, who placed multiple high-quality engineers.

“We found a recruiter through Paraform who just unlocked great talent for us. Not only did we hire strong backend engineers, but they also had infrastructure experience, which was exactly what we needed.”

GTM roles

While Paraform is well known for engineering hiring, Northflank also had success hiring for go-to-market roles.

“The AE candidates we got through Paraform were incredibly engaged. One of them wasn’t even actively looking but took the meeting because the recruiter reached out, introduced Northflank well, and convinced him to check it out. He even reached out to one of our customers, who gave us a glowing review, which led to him taking an interview and, eventually, a job.”

In contrast, past experiences with external recruiters for GTM roles were underwhelming.

“We tried hiring a developer advocate through external recruiters. One of them looked great on paper but ghosted us after six meetings. That was a massive waste of time. The difference with Paraform candidates was clear—these were engaged, informed, and actually excited about Northflank.”

Paraform, the product

Several Paraform features stood out in Northflank’s hiring process:

• Pre-screening questions & candidate summaries – “I had very specific pre-screening questions, and I loved that they were in the same view as the resume. It made prepping for interviews seamless.”
• Centralized candidate profiles – “Candidates that weren’t in Paraform felt harder to evaluate. With Paraform, I had everything in one place—their resume, screening questions, recruiter notes—so I could immediately decide what to ask in the interview.”
• Effortless workflows – “The activity log and recruiter Q&A feature meant I didn’t have to give recruiters direct access to our ATS. Everything was contained and structured within Paraform.”

The future of hiring

Chase and Will see huge potential in Paraform evolving beyond just recruitment and into a full hiring platform.

“If Paraform became our ATS, that would be game-changing. We’re still getting 10-15 applications per day, and most of them don’t fit. If Paraform could filter that noise based on past hiring feedback, it would be the ultimate tool.”

Beyond that, they see a future where hiring teams use Paraform as their command center.

“I don’t like clicking into multiple roles to track hiring. I want a dashboard that shows all my candidates, their roles, and all recruiter messages in one place. Paraform could be the hiring command center for startups.”

Conclusion

Northflank went from skeptical to fully committed to Paraform. With a seamless onboarding process, a structured approach to candidate filtering, and the ability to scale hiring across multiple functions, Paraform has become a core part of how Northflank builds its team.

“Paraform allowed us to hire multiple top-quality engineers, an account executive, and a technical content writer—all within a short time frame and with minimal effort. The recruiters we found through Paraform were exceptional, and the platform itself made hiring structured and efficient. It’s hard to imagine hiring without it now.”