On one side, there’s artificial intelligence, and on the other there is human experience and knowledge. And then there’s Torc, which combines the two to connect companies with a select group of software professionals at speed.
“We’re an AI-driven talent marketplace for remote developers,” says Mike Morris, co-founder and CEO.
One side of Torc’s marketplace is its talent community of more than 5,000 developers, which grows by two members every hour.
Morris says developers find out about the company virally and through social media, and then they come on to Torc’s talent platform to register, create profiles and find jobs. “Developers hook up their GitHub accounts and give us access to a set of their historical data,” he says. “They tell us what they’re interested in and what skills they have, and then we engage them to take assessments through the Torc platform and prove those skills.”
The assessments enable the developers to showcase their abilities. About 20% become what Torc considers vetted, which means the company has three views of their skills: what they say they are good at, what they have historically done and what they have proven to be good at. Companies worldwide are on the other side of the marketplace. Torc serves them through its “white-glove matching.”
The Torc platform gathers information from job orders — rate, location, time zone overlap and both hard skills and soft skills — and its AI narrows the talent list down to the 10% of developers who are the closest matches. Then, Torc’s team of professionals further streamlines the list.
Torc aims for a two-to-one hit rate: For every two people it sends, one should be whom the customer is looking for. Torc also focuses on software professionals in six remote developer roles: front-end developer, back-end developer, full-stack developer, DevOps engineer, software architect and Salesforce developer.
“Since we focus on six high-demand profiles, we can match and onboard people — like go from zero to code — within 48 hours,” Morris says. “That speed, accuracy and efficiency are what set us apart, and you can’t do that without a community.”
Looking ahead, Torc plans to acquire technology that tracks developer productivity. Morris likens it to an Apple watch that tracks health metrics, exercise, etc. Torc’s tool will track developers’ own personal productivity. For example, it would track where they are spending their time, how much effort they put into coding versus reading code, how much time they are spending testing and researching, and more. It will provide developers with ongoing resources such as AI-based coaching.
“Performance measurement is for the benefit of the talent, not to spy on what they’re doing,” Morris says.
The Buzz
Torc fills select developer roles with speed and accuracy using both an AI-driven talent platform and industry professionals to make successful matches. It invests in technology to help its talent community learn and grow, which translates into better returns for companies.
