Getting a job at Bending Spoons comes with no bonus, no fancy title, and a warning

Bending Spoons has turned hiring into a filter as sharp as the business it runs. The Italian tech group, which owns Vimeo and AOL, sends prospective hires a list of what it calls “controversial” workplace principles before they even get far in the process. The message is plain: expect heavy workloads, high standards, and no room for half-in commitment.

That approach hasn’t scared people off. Last year the company got 800,000 CVs and hired 286 people. About 60,000 applicants made it past the first screen and into online tests meant to show how quickly they can solve unfamiliar problems and learn new skills. Some of those tests last up to six hours, and a few are watched. By the company’s own math, the process is far more selective than the Ivy League.

The whole system is built to keep judgment away from the usual interview glow. Nicolle Wasserman, who runs people operations, says interviews can reward confident speakers and penalize shy candidates or those who are not native English speakers. Practical tests, she argues, make it harder to exaggerate. Around 3,300 candidates reached interview stage, but the final call sits with a central talent team, not a hiring manager. Bending Spoons also built its own recruiting tool, Role Model, which uses test results and AI models trained on years of hiring data, including how earlier recruits later performed.

The company is equally blunt once people are inside. It does not pay performance bonuses. It keeps titles flat, with no distinction between junior and senior engineers and managers called “leads.” In most cases there are no more than three layers between the chief executive and the core team. Employees can buy stock through salary at a discount, and 84% of eligible staff did so in 2025.

Bending Spoons says that same pressure is why it gets so much out of its people. Revenue per full-time employee rose from $1.12 million in 2023 to $2.57 million in 2025, according to its IPO filing, and the company says only 0.6% of the core team quit in 2025. But there’s a catch: even good enough is not always good enough. The firm says it parts ways with employees performing “adequately” if stronger contributors are available. That’s a brutally honest hiring model. Also, very Italian in the sense that even the warning label has a warning label.