Practical Guide: How a Small Indie Studio Streamlined Hiring 159 Developer Applicants in 2025
By
jordigh
6mo ago· 5 min readen
80/100
Golden Brown
Bagelometer↗
Kettled twice. Extra chewy, extra trustworthy.
Score80Typehow-toSentimentpositive
Summary
A former EA and Microsoft hiring manager shares practical advice for small indie studios hiring developers in 2025. The article details how a three-person team managed 159 applicants using a streamlined process that includes relevant take-home assignments and a simple Gmail labeling system for efficient candidate triage. The author contrasts the bureaucratic hiring processes at large corporations with the resource-constrained reality of small studios, offering time-efficient solutions for high-volume applicant management.
Key quotes
· 4 pulledHiring in 2025 is extremely challenging compared to any other year. From a company perspective, there's a lack of funds, and even a
As a hiring manager, I only showed up for the final interview. Even at PlayerWON, which was only about 100 people, a lot of that workload was still handed off.
How we, a three-person team, managed 159 applicants using a streamlined, time-efficient process.
The article covers designing relevant take-home assignments and a simple Gmail labeling system for high-volume candidate triage.
A practical guide for hiring a developer as a small indie studio. How we, a three-person team, managed 159 applicants using a streamlined, time-efficient process. The article covers designing relevant take-home assignments and a simple Gmail labeling syst
