Hiring rarely fails loudly. It fails quietly first.You see it when outcomes don't move after a "strong hire." When alignment meetings create silence. When the team starts protecting themselves instead of shipping.I learned this the hard way. Watched it happen. Now I help leaders avoid it.I'm Jess. I run Nonstop Talent in NZ.I work with leaders hiring for roles where the downside is high and the signal is messy. Engineering. Product. Data. Cyber. The hires that determine whether you ship or stall.My approach is simple:Clarify the outcome the hire must changeIdentify the real risks in your context (team, pace, constraints)Headhunt candidates who have done this kind of work in this kind of environmentIf you're hiring for impact, not activity, message me the role and what "must be different by day 90."

Jessica Dong

I’m an agency recruiter, so I get the version candidates say when they’re trying not to get burnt twice.

Last week, before salary, before benefits, before any of the selling… a senior engineer just went:

“Who’s paying the company right now: customers, or just investors?”

And you could feel why they asked.

They weren’t being difficult.
They were doing self-defence.

Because they’ve watched the movie where the deck is beautiful, the roadmap is loud, everyone’s “moving fast”…

…and then three months later it’s quiet layoffs, quiet rewrites, quiet people disappearing from Slack at 2pm on a Tuesday.

A CTO once said to me, really quietly:
“I didn’t lose my best engineer to more money. I lost them to another five years of untangling someone else’s mess.”

That’s the shift I’m noticing in 2026.

Salary still matters.

But the best people are interviewing for how long they can stay without shrinking.

So if your strongest candidates keep going cold right near the end…

what are they learning about the business in the interview loop that you’re not saying out loud yet?

Jessica Xin Dong

SaaS + Enterprise Digital Hiring | Contract & Perm | Cut cost of delay

Jade Software Corporation

At Jade, I worked as a Scrum Master (and eventually Agile Coach), helping the team improve their ways of working and collaboration, asking myself this question on a daily basis: "How can I help the team add value (today)?". Here's some of the notable moments:

We lacked an understanding of our quality debt (bugs) and technical debt. I introduced a bug and tech debt triage process that cleared this up, allowing for better priority decisions to be made.

Similarly, a lack of a good process to manage second-line support requests meant requests were forgotten or overlooked. I cleaned this up, and now the process is clear; no tickets are forgotten or overlooked. As a bonus, comms between front-line support and the team improved tremendously.

I was involved in hiring most of the existing diverse team, which I believe, in part, is leading to their collaborative success.

I introduced team health metrics, a 3-monthly checkpoint leadership could use to understand (and act on) how the team were doing on various aspects related to delivery, fun, code health, collaboration, support, etc.

I introduced efficiency metrics (based on Lean). I focused on throughput, cycle time, work in progress, and predictability. This allowed a level of clarity that was lacking from the process and added a more data-driven approach to decision making.

As part of the Agile Practices team, I established and facilitated regular company-wide catch-ups (lean coffees) where we discussed challenging topics. This safe space enabled some interesting topics to be discussed.

My knowledge in Jira allowed me to take over the administration side from the team, freeing them from that burden. I created several quality-of-life automations for the team that reduced the administrative load.

And finally, I won an award for being "a nurturing parental figure who always has a warm hug and a few minutes to listen to concerns and issues." I'm immensely proud of this.

Senior Scrum Master & Agile Coach

Orion Health

Transferred to the Orion Health Christchurch Office to head up one of the teams located there. The focus of the team was to build the company's patient facing portal ("Patient Portal") software on top of/alongside existing Orion Health products. My role in the team was part people manager and part process manager. As a people manager I took care of any HR related concerns, regular catch ups, making sure people were growing their own careers, hiring and onboarding new team members. As a process manager I used my extensive agile experience to focus on ensuring the team were continually refining and improving their processes.

Things that stood out for me in this role was my dedication to making sure that everyone was treated as an individual, with individual needs, making sure people's frustrations were dealt to, clearing up any concerns and making sure everyone understood exactly what we were doing as a business, and what value they were adding to achieve this. On top of this I was really proud of the fact that I could shield the team from the majority of the inevitable bureaucracy that occurs in large corporations, allowing them to focus on delivery of value.

Development Team Lead

Joined Orion Health as a Team Lead to head up one of the development teams focused on adding to Orions existing offerings to the Healthcare Industry. My primary focus was taking care of the team, making sure they were positioned for both organisational AND personal success through regular one on ones, making sure goals were clearly defined, that they understood their importance in the organisation, and supporting them in their career paths.

Some of the unique challenges stemmed from Orions 3 year drive to downsize and the morale impact of this, as well as dealing with a now smaller team having to support a large base of products. Added to this goals and objectives were often vague and the team were often "pinging" across various things, priorities changing on a regular basis. 

I believe I was instrumental in cleaning this up (at least for my team) who are now focused on one or two objectives that they see through to the end. The morale of the team has also improved and I believe the team are now better positioned than before.

Team Lead

Aderant

I led multiple teams building enterprise software for top law firms around the world. As one of the Team Leads my focus was on supporting the teams in delivering to agreed goals, a role similar in nature to my previous work as a Scrum Master, making visible the progress being made to various levels of management, dealing with training and personal growth, and generally just "being there" for my teams enabling them to be the best they can be. 

The teams I led ranged in size from 3 to 7 covering various areas of the business, including mobile, framework and devops, spanning various disciplines from software development to quality assurance, and include a full range of graduate, junior, mid and senior level engineers.

We followed an agile process, adapting as and when needed to meet the ever changing demands of vendor software development and the law software industry.

Some of the achievements I was particularly proud of included the introduction of estimation techniques (effort estimation using planning poker), spearheading the test automation drive, pushing for better collaboration through the use of real time communication tools (Slack), leveraging my 25 years experience to act as a mentor for new interns, graduates and trainee leads, and reinforcing and protecting the great culture.

Development Manager

MultiChoice

Worked with a team of Java developers working on the next generation user interface for the companies set top decoder device. While working as a Scrum Master I improved the teams agile implementation leading to regular delivery of value, improved quality, an overall improvement in morale and collaboration, and a greatly improved visibility of progress. 

I was further involved in improving (and building) some of the tools used by the project team to improve their effectiveness, including the continuous build environment, bug search solutions and improved metric reporting allowing for better strategic decisions.

Some of the key challenges I overcame was changing the mindset of what being "agile" meant, correcting the way metrics were being calculated (and thought of) for the project and dealing with cultural differences between the Indian and South African developers, in order to improve collaboration. Together with this the challenge of creating a continuous integration solution for an embedded software environment proved particularly interesting.

Scrum Master

Discovery Health

Brought on as a Senior Java Developer with enterprise development expertise, I worked with a team of developers building an in house commission payment and intermediary management system. My responsibilities included turning user specifications into working code. More specifically I worked on several web service (SOAP) interfaces to allow the automation of printing and sending of customer related documents. One of the key challenges I overcame was the need to quickly understand the business domain and the need to pick up development of a project that was already on a late delivery path.

Senior Java Developer

DStv Online

As a Scrum Master at DStv Online I was responsible for a team of senior developers researching and building ground breaking software (predominantly Microsoft technologies) for the company. I was responsible for agile development process (Scrum) definition and guidance, assisting the Product Owner with defining what needed to be built and team members in understanding the intricacies of agile software development. Additionally I took on the responsibility for the technical/hardware aspects of the development environment (continuous integration, source control, hardware) allowing the team to focus on the software aspects. 

One of the key challenges I overcame was the need to get a team of very senior and knowledgeable developers who had never worked together before, to work together in harmony, a task I enjoyed and managed to do quite effectively.

The Mobile Services Company

I worked with a team of mobile (J2ME technology) testers and developers responsible for testing, development and maintenance of an in house mobile product in partnership with Microsoft. I defined and maintained quality processes, tools (issue tracking, build tools) and managed the team from a resource and people perspective.

One of the key challenges I overcame was cleaning up the SDLC to ensure a good quality product. Testing and development was chaotic and haphazard and needed to be more controlled to guarantee a good quality product but still maintain the agility to adapt to change. Achieved this by introducing Scrum and some good engineering practices like continuous integration and unit testing.

QA Manager

Kaizania

Hired as a consultant Scrum Master for my knowledge of the process, I was placed at Standard Bank to assist the teams in their transition to a more agile way of working. Unfortunately a change of management (and desire to drop the agile approach) at Standard Bank led to us being recalled and me being retrenched from Kaizania.

PruProtect

Hired as a Senior Java Developer responsible for development of user defined specifications into J2EE applications, later spearheaded introduction of agile methodologies and took on role of Scrum Master and hands on Team Lead, guiding a team of Java developers creating J2EE applications for UK based insurance provider.

One of my key achievements was becoming a Certified Scrum Master and successfully transitioning our department from a Waterfall process to a more agile (Scrum) process for delivering projects. The first project we ran using this process was a success, and spearheaded the release and adoption of Scrum into the rest of the organization. I became the agile evangelist for the department and the "go to" guy for anything agile, a role I enjoyed tremendously.

Team Lead / Scrum Master

Diners Club

Hired for my expertise in enterprise Java development I was brought in to complete an important client facing web application being built by external consultants for Diners Club. 

Some of my key achievements was the need to rapidly understand not only the business domain but the existing J2EE code and product implementation, in it's undocumented and non-working state. I was the only Java capable person and had to overcome the challenge of handling the full SDLC, from requirements gathering and interpretation, through to development, release and testing.

In addition to the above I managed to implement a custom Content Management System for updating the website, in an attempt to offset the regular requests for content changes.

"Once you stop learning, you start dying", a quote attributed to Albert Einstein that has always guided my life.

As a data-driven and analytical problem-solver, I'm passionate about staying up-to-date with the latest developments in technology. With a keen eye for creative solutions, I enjoy collaborating with others to tackle complex challenges and add meaningful value.

My approach is built on respect, trust, and motivation - I believe that by empowering individuals and teams, we can achieve remarkable things together. Whether it's sharing insights, exploring new ideas, or simply listening to concerns, I'm always looking for ways to inspire and enable others.

Let's connect!

If you're interested in discussing innovative solutions, collaborating on projects, or simply learning more about my approach, feel free to reach out. I'd love to hear from you!

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