Ramp hired a 14-year-old intern after discovering an app he had built for fun that attracted attention from roughly a million people on Twitter.Co-CEO Eric Glyman discussed the hire during a November 5 interview with founder and editor of Upstairs Media, Alex Konrad, explaining how the $60 billion fintech company evaluates engineering talent beyond traditional qualifications, a recalibration playing out across the industry as AI redraws what a junior role even means.A viral app, no assignment“We had an intern who was 14 years old,” Glyman said. “Part of how we found him was he had built his own app for fun that was genuinely useful, and a million people saw it on Twitter and interacted with it. There was no one who was telling him, ‘Hey, go build this project.’ He just was interested in it.”Glyman did not identify the teenager or specify when he worked at Ramp. “Part of how we found him was he had built his own app for fun that was genuinely useful, and a million people saw it on Twitter…”The Minecraft server testGlyman says Ramp looks for developers who have pursued projects on their own, even when that experience doesn’t come from a conventional job, a premium on self-direction that grows sharper as AI erodes the entry-level tasks that once trained new engineers.“A lot of what we’re looking for is strong evidence that someone has built something on their own, created something on their own, and shown their drive where it didn’t come from other people saying, ‘I need you to go do something’.”“A lot of what we’re looking for is strong evidence that someone has built something on their own… and shown their drive where it didn’t come from other people saying, ‘I need you to go do something’.”In a separate November 3 interview with Blackstone, Glyman said Ramp also looks for developers who got their start running Minecraft servers as teenagers.Some teens built their own servers before high school, gaining practical programming experience long before entering the workforce.Glyman acknowledged that the approach has limits, since talented candidates who haven’t had the time, resources, or opportunity to build something independently could be overlooked at precisely the moment the entry-level rungs of the industry are already thinning out.A 28-year-old running engineeringIn June, Ramp appointed Rahul Sengottuvelu as chief technology officer at 28, replacing co-founder Karim Atiyeh, who became co-CEO alongside Glyman.Sengottuvelu joined Ramp through a 2023 acquisition and later led its applied AI team. He was already building AI products before ChatGPT became a household name.In its leadership announcement, Ramp pointed to Sengottuvelu’s experience building AI products and his ability to make tough technical decisions. He took over as CTO as the company was putting AI to work in more of its products and day-to-day operations.Small teams own the callGlyman also described how Ramp organizes its engineers into small teams of five or six people, giving them responsibility for deciding how to complete their projects.“If you look really deep into Ramp’s organizational design, it’s tons of small teams where we say, ‘Here’s the outcome we want you to drive, but it’s up to you.’ You can make the call on how you want to spend your time. Why hire someone who can surprise you with their creativity and then tell them, ‘Don’t make your own recipe’?”“Why hire someone who can surprise you with their creativity and then tell them, ‘Don’t make your own recipe’?”Glyman says adding more engineers doesn’t always mean getting work done faster since bigger teams often mean more people weighing in on decisions, which can add churn and slow workflow.Ramp instead gives smaller groups ownership of specific projects, with leadership setting the goals rather than prescribing every step.For Glyman, hiring people capable of making their own decisions only makes sense if they’re allowed to do so once they’re on the job.The post A $60 billion fintech hired a 14-year-old. Its CEO explains why. appeared first on The New Stack.