Case «The man in the virtual mask»

TO FIND AN EXPERT ON COMPUTER VISION

One of our old partner’s projects is a popular messenger. At some point, they decided to add virtual masks to it: you know, when you do a selfie and get a crown or long tongue, or cat’s ears drawn on you.

To make it possible, our client needed a C++ and computer vision specialist. An ironclad requirement: a candidate had to have experience in working on this kind of task. The new employee was to jump in and lead the development immediately, with no time for studies.

The problem was that Computer Vision as a field was founded around 2010. There were few CV specialists around, and little to no experienced ones. Across the region of search the number of specialists could be counted not even in the hundreds, but the dozens, and we had to find them all.

MARKET ANALYSIS AND POINT SELECTION

We began by searching for projects where computer vision was used. Our main field of interest was services that worked with photo and video images of the faces:

• social networks and messengers, such as Snapchat or Instagram;

• face recognition services like Findface, LUNA system, or Vocord FaceControl;

• 3D modelling services like Face.DJ;

• apps for gender and age recognition based on photos.

After that, we made a list of companies that do something like this and have their own development centres. Then we searched for the employees who work directly with CV. We ended up with 67 people. All we had to do afterwards was to dig up their LinkedIn contacts, go through every resume, and hold dozens of interviews. In the end, the list was cut down to three candidates. As easy as apple pie.

One of them was a perfect fit experience and competencies-wise as he had worked on the same technology before. We managed to interest him in the position and he went through the rounds of interviews. The client offered a good package and good conditions, and after the final interview, the candidate accepted the offer.