One of the things I underestimated when starting Test Double was how important it is to have a meaningful purpose for the business and a vision for achieving it. If you have no purpose, your people will inevitably show up for a paycheck and when the next better offer comes along, seek those greener pastures.

Purpose

At Test Double, we’re constantly trying to pull people into our virtual office who believe the software development industry is broken—so that we can help improve it, one person, project, codebase, and client at a time. In this sense, our mission is our compass. It ultimately guides what we do at a very high level.

Equally important is the company’s stated vision. It is ideally a 5-10 year view of how the business will evolve while still pursuing its mission. Our vision helps the team see what is coming and align their goals and aspirations with those of the company. It signals to everyone what they should expect as the company progresses and improves.

Test Double 10 year growth target

Growth

Almost six years ago, I stood in front of the 20 or fewer double agents at the time and outlined our vision of growth, one aspect of which was hiring our 100th employee by January 2026.

Today, we’re excited to welcome Jaquel Rogers Robertson as Agent #00100! Jaquel is joining as Operations Coordinator, and helps us turn the page on this goal a few years early. Sorry, no fruit basket or yearly supply of donuts or anything for being the 100th person through our doors.

Jaquel Rogers Robertson

As we look back on achieving this milestone of our vision, it’s interesting to see how updates to our vision have consistently centered around one thing—our people. We believe that great software is built by great teams. Rarely is the software the actual issue, it’s always the people behind the keyboards who are the barometer for success.

People

As a services-based business, we are nothing without our people. Test Double as an organization cannot succeed without hiring and supporting as many awesome humans as possible. Further, we’ll only ever have a miniscule impact on our industry if we’re a 20-person consultancy. So we are always trying to grow without sacrificing the culture our team has come to appreciate.

Our current vision outlines that we’re going to scale to 150 active employees so we can have a broad impact on our industry. We’re going to solve a more diverse set of challenges facing our clients so we can have a deeper impact on the businesses that we’re fortunate enough to work with. Further, our vision states we’re going to become a more diverse team of humans at Test Double so we can be better equipped to solve the myriad of challenges presented by our clients, and so we can be an example for other companies in our industry to follow.

Impact

Nowhere in this vision is a statement about revenue or profits. Believe me, we understand that these things are important, but they aren’t what motivates us. They are a very lagging indicator of whether we’re running a business that can sustainably continue. What motivates us is the idea of bringing more talented, diverse, and awesome humans into our midst, so we can have a more lasting impact on this broken industry of software development.

At times we have referred to our recruiting efforts as a developer rescue operation, and I think it still fits. We provide opportunities for software engineers to solve challenging problems, grow in their careers, do so in a balanced work week, and eventually reap the rewards of their efforts via ownership within the company. If this aligns with your goals and aspirations, we’d love for you to apply here and help us fix what’s broken in software.

Finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t offer up our gratitude for all of the current and former double agents who have made Test Double such an amazing place to work. Please know that your contributions have helped shape our company and enabled us to evolve and improve over the last 10 years. A sincere thank you to the first 100:

001 - Todd Kaufman0051 - Jamie Phelps
002 - Justin Searls0052 - Nate Kandler
003 - Jason Karns0053 - Mike Jansen
004 - Andrew Vida0054 - Sara Jackson
005 - Zach Briggs0055 - Rob Vitaro
006 - Matthew Boston0056 - Daniel Flynn
007 - David Mosher0057 - Tommy Groshong
008 - Neal Lindsay0058 - Tom Nightingale
009 - Kevin Baribeau0059 - Jason Allen
0010 - Daniel Thompson0060 - Elmar Valmores
0011 - Amber Conville0061 - Mark Miranda
0012 - Kevin Pfefferle0062 - Marshall Serlin
0013 - Dustin Tinney0063 - Eric Newbury
0014 - Josh Greenwood0064 - Stephen Vance
0015 - Jerry D’Antonio0065 - Stephen Rivas
0016 - Michael Schoonmaker0066 - Chris Caragianis
0017 - Katie Miller0067 - Alex Martin
0018 - Dean Radcliff0068 - Keith McCanless
0019 - Sam Jones0069 - River Bailey
0020 - Dania Lieberthal0070 - Josh Klina
0021 - Adam Lukens0071 - Jennifer Konikowski
0022 - Ali Ibrahim0072 - Van Anderson
0023 - Steve Jackson0073 - Joé Dupuis
0024 - Joshua Starkey0074 - Lora Abe
0025 - Jacob Smith0075 - Anya Iverova
0026 - Raelyn Bangel0076 - Kevin Truong
0027 - Marc Peabody0077 - Tim Hogg
0028 - Jason Grosz0078 - Carl Carr
0029 - Jeremy Fairbank0079 - Minnie Lee
0030 - Megan Walters0080 - Cathy Colliver
0031 - Ross Brandes0081 - Camilo Payan
0032 - Joel Helbling0082 - Nichol Alexander
0033 - Kyle Adams0083 - Landon Gray
0034 - Kevin Solorio0084 - Viral Patel
0035 - Brittany Moore0085 - Jessie Puls
0036 - Marla Brizel Zeschin0086 - Ed Toro
0037 - Cassandra Faris0087 - Meagan Waller
0038 - Juan Caicedo0088 - Henry Nicholas
0039 - Brooke Kuhlmann0089 - Jon Grenning
0040 - Joshua Wehner0090 - Meri Brace
0041 - Kaleb Lape0091 - James Walker
0042 - Micah Adams0092 - Katie Macke
0043 - Lee Quarella0093 - Aaron Frerichs
0044 - Christine McCallum-Randalls0094 - Kenneth Bogner
0045 - Ilana Corson0095 - Mike Doel
0046 - Jake Yesbeck0096 - Jesse O’Brien
0047 - Kerry Diehl0097 - Joseph Lozano
0048 - Dayton Nolan0098 - Matt Jones
0049 - Eric Weinstein0099 - Benjamin Chodoroff
0050 - Cliff Pruitt00100 - Jaquel Rogers Robertson

Todd Kaufman

Person An icon of a human figure Status
Double Agent
Hash An icon of a hash sign Code Name
Agent 0001
Location An icon of a map marker Location
Westerville, OH