Norton is a consumer cybersecurity brand owned by Gen Digital, the software company that also owns Avast, AVG and LifeLock. Gen Digital is co-headquartered in Tempe, Arizona and Prague.
Morgan O’Conner, an Engineering Manager at Norton, led an application modernization and cloud optimization program. He needed software and DevOps engineers who could join his existing teams and contribute quickly.
Modernizing applications and moving fully to the cloud
The program had several goals. Norton wanted to lower its cloud spend and get more out of the AWS services it already used. It also wanted to move older on-prem systems fully to the cloud, expand security along the way and give its own software engineers a better experience building and shipping.
Each goal called for hands-on AWS and DevOps experience. Cutting spend takes engineers who understand how cloud services are sized and billed. Migrating off on-prem takes engineers who have moved production workloads before and build security into the new environment from the start.
Fit mattered as much as skill. New engineers who slow down an established team cost more than they add, so Morgan needed people who could work inside his teams from the first week.
A different engagement model for each role
A program like this rarely fits one hiring model. Some of the work is long term and belongs on the payroll, some is a defined project, and some suits a nearshore team that can scale without a long hiring cycle.
TekRecruiter worked through each role with Morgan and proposed the model that fit it. Nearshore roles went to senior, English-fluent engineers in Latin America who work US hours, with TekRecruiter as their employer of record. Staff augmentation roles went to US-based engineers on contract for the length of the work. Long-term roles became direct hires on Norton’s payroll.
They are highly technical at the account management level and transparently propose different solutions, whether staff augmentation or nearshore outsourcing. That has always helped me get the approvals and buy-in I need from senior leadership to get critical projects done right.
More than 10 roles across three models
TekRecruiter has filled more than 10 roles for the program. Five are nearshore engineers, and the rest are a mix of US staff augmentation and direct hires. They joined Morgan’s existing teams and work across the modernization, from the move off on-prem systems to AWS cost and security.
The relationship predates the program. In earlier years, TekRecruiter filled similar software and DevOps roles for Norton, so it already knew the teams and their standards when the modernization began.
I keep using them as a vendor wherever my career takes me because of the professionalism and convenience their team provides.
