2024 is shaping up to be a big year for Modulate. We’ve already welcomed six new Modulators to our team—and it’s only June! Guy, Meg, Ian, Roxanne, Malik, and Adam are just the most recent additions on a long list of new hires that add up to a 20% increase in size since this time last year.
The first question we often get is how do we find and retain such great people? But we think it’s important to address the why first.
At Modulate, attracting and keeping the best people is crucial to our mission. Our dedication to online trust & safety relies on the diverse perspectives and expertise of the brightest minds in the industry. By bringing together individuals who have a passion for creating safer, more inclusive online spaces, we can continue to develop cutting-edge tools for trust & safety teams to do their best work. It’s this why that has helped us create recruiting practices and overall culture that set us apart from other companies in the gaming and tech space.
Roxanne, Account Manager, joined Modulate recently and echoed this key differentiator, saying, “The focus on culture and feedback is unusual in tech, but it makes a huge difference in the day to day work. Modulate feels like a team while still respecting that we are all individuals with our own unique goals and preferences.”
Unique Recruitment Practices at Modulate
Because the quality of our employees (we call ourselves Modulators) is so essential to fulfilling our mission as a company, we focus our energy on a variety of novel recruitment and hiring practices.
Proactive outreach
At Modulate, we believe hiring the best people takes a more hands-on approach. Sure, we’re active on LinkedIn, but we also post job openings on platforms that prioritize diversity, inclusion, and industry expertise.
These platforms include Black Tech Pipeline, IGDA, various gaming Discord servers, Gay Gaming Professionals, and Women in Games. This proactive outreach has a direct impact on attracting a diverse pool of candidates, ensuring we bring in individuals with varied backgrounds and perspectives who can contribute to our mission.
Visibility and recognition
In addition to outreach, the quality of our work also leads people directly to us. Our visibility and recognition definitely increased following our announcement with Call of Duty last year. Now, instead of relying only on our own outreach, we’ve noticed more people reaching out directly because they have heard of Modulate and the work we’re doing.
This increase in recognition led to a shift in the type of applications we receive. Not only do we receive more applications, but many of those applications are more intentional. These new applicants don’t just want to work in the T&S and gaming tech industry—they want to work for Modulate specifically. This allows us to focus on candidates who are genuinely interested and passionate about our mission.
Intentional job descriptions
In addition to recruitment practices above, Modulate creates and reviews job descriptions with a focus on promoting inclusivity, using language that appeals to a broad audience and avoids unintended bias. For example, our job descriptions do not ask for a minimum number of years of experience, or for a minimum level of formal education. We want the best and most qualified candidates to apply, which doesn’t always align with a degree or years of experience.
Mitigating bias in the evaluation processes
At Modulate, we take the elimination of implicit bias in our hiring process very seriously. Our goal is to ensure that every candidate is evaluated solely based on their qualifications and potential.
Step 1: Written Questionnaire
Candidates begin with a written questionnaire instead of a traditional resume submission (although they may submit their resume as well, which will be redacted before review). This approach focuses on the candidate’s fit for the role without revealing any demographic information.
Step 2: Voice-Masked Phone Interview
We conduct initial phone interviews using a proprietary program that replaces the candidate's voice with a synthetic one. Every candidate interviewed for a role at this stage will effectively have the same voice as perceived by the interviewer. While the voice masking doesn’t account for accents, this method helps to mitigate unconscious bias based on most voice-related characteristics or video.
Step 3: Video Interviews
The final stage involves a series of three video or in-person interviews with a wide panel of interviewers from various departments within Modulate. In these interviews, we’re looking for a candidate who is well aligned with the team, the culture, and the role itself. By this point, some demographic information is revealed, but the focus remains on a collaborative discussion rather than high-pressure exercises, quizzes, or tests. There’s hardly ever one “right answer” so we’re really more interested in understanding how and why a candidate might approach a problem in a certain way.
We want to ensure that we are selecting the best candidates who will contribute to our mission of creating safer and more inclusive online spaces.
Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion
We’ve mentioned diversity and inclusion a lot—but why? Diversity and inclusion should be a focus at every company, but we believe it’s especially important in industries that directly impact the safety and experience of consumers, such as the gaming industry. Think of it this way: participants in online spaces in general aren’t one demographic monolith so our team shouldn’t be either.
Our goal is to create safer, more enjoyable and inclusive online communities. We can’t meet that goal if we don’t have a team that reflects the online communities we serve—especially those players who are often on the receiving end of toxicity. A diverse team brings a wealth of perspectives, essential for developing innovative solutions that make gaming spaces safer for everyone.
Want to work with us?
At Modulate, we are united in our goal to create safer and more inclusive virtual spaces—but we’re also committed to doing the same in our work environment. Our human-focused, flexible work culture includes a hybrid work policy and a transparent compensation structure, fostering an environment of trust and collaboration.
Guy, Senior Game Engines Engineer, is one of our newest Modulators and said, “Modulate recognizes the power of investing in people and their well-being. Modulate anticipates what employees need for support and then implements those things before the employee realizes they need them. I've never worked for a company that put so much effort into making sure that employees have the flexibility, support, and freedom to do their work.”
If you care about safe, inclusive gaming and work environments as much as we do, take a look at our current openings. We’d love to have you on the team!
