When Icha joined Slash, it was her first role in the tech industry. Starting as a Recruitment Specialist, she expected her work to center around matching engineering candidates to specific technical stacks.
Six years later, her role spans project resourcing, talent strategy, and People Ops. In this interview, she shares key insights on how talent acquisition evolved over the last decade and why human connection remains central in an AI-driven market.
The Flashback
“When you first joined Slash, what did you honestly think this place was going to be—and how far off was your initial guess?”
To be honest, I didn’t really know what I was getting into because Slash is my first tech company. I started as a Recruitment Specialist and I thought my job would simply be hiring engineers and learning a bit about the tech industry.
But Slash turned out to be so much more than that. From day one, I was trusted to take ownership, share ideas, and grow beyond my role. I started in recruitment, but over the years I’ve also had the chance to contribute more in project resourcing, leading recruitment initiatives that object to the business and working alongside People Ops for learning initiatives, engagement and building experiences that help our team grow.
Looking back, I joined Slash thinking my role was to help the company grow by hiring great people. What I never expected was how much Slash would shape my own growth in return. That’s what has made this journey so meaningful—not just the impact of my work, but the person I’ve become along the way.
The Global & Remote Reality
“After years of working remotely across different cultures, languages, and time zones, what’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned about making global teamwork actually work?”
I think the biggest lesson is that communication is really about understanding each other—not just speaking the same language.
When you work with people from different cultures and time zones, you learn that everyone communicates differently. Some people are very direct, some are more reserved, and sometimes silence doesn’t mean disagreement—it just means they’re taking time to think.
I’ve learned to ask more questions, listen more carefully, and never assume everyone interprets things the same way.
At the end of the day, what makes global teams work isn’t where people are. It’s trust, empathy, respect, and making sure everyone feels heard.
Real Talk on AI
“Now on AI. Where do you land on AI right now? How much has it actually evolved into your daily routine and workflow?”
AI has become my everyday work companion. It helps me with almost everything, simply from drafting emails, writing job descriptions, preparing interview questions and assessments, to doing market research. It also takes care of a lot of the repetitive tasks that would normally take up a big part of my day.
Beyond that, it’s become a great thinking partner, to organize ideas, brainstorm, design learning sessions, build frameworks, and even create dashboards. It gives me a strong starting point, different perspectives, and references that help me analyze things more deeply.
The biggest benefit isn’t just that it saves more time. It also gives me more mental space to focus on the work that creates the most impact—connecting with people, making better decisions, and solving more meaningful problems.
For me, AI isn’t just about working faster. It’s about working smarter. It frees up my time and mental energy so I can focus on creativity, strategy, and the conversations that only humans can have. That’s the part I value the most.
So I don’t see AI replacing people—I see it empowering people. It helps us do our work better, but it’s still the human touch that makes the biggest difference.
Talent & Tech Landscape
“Looking back at recruitment and talent acquisition, what’s the most striking difference in tech supply and demand between 2016 and 2026?”
The biggest difference I’ve seen over the last 10 years is that technology evolves faster than ever—but people have become even more important.
Back in 2016, recruitment was mostly about finding someone with the right technical skills and experience in a specific programming language or framework. If they checked the boxes, they were a strong candidate. When I first joined at slash 5-6 years ago, recruitment was very much about finding someone with the right technical skills. We’d spend a lot of time asking, “Who’s the best React developer?” or “Who’s the strongest DevOps engineer?” The focus was really on expertise in a specific technology.
Today, that’s only part of the picture.
Technology is evolving so quickly. AI, automation, cloud, and large language models are changing the way we build products almost every day. And at Slash, we’ve evolved with that too. We’re not just building digital products anymore—we’re helping companies adopt AI and solve much more complex problems.
Now, we don’t just look for someone who knows a technology, we look for someone who can learn the next one. Curiosity, adaptability, ownership, and continuous learning have become just as valuable as technical expertise.
Another huge shift is that talent is now truly global. Remote work has opened opportunities for both companies and candidates, so we’re no longer competing within one city or one country. We’re competing for talent across the world.
As recruiters, our role has evolved too. We’re no longer just filling vacancies or matching CVs to job descriptions. We’re helping build teams that can grow alongside technology, collaborate across cultures, and solve problems that don’t even exist yet.
I think that’s the biggest lesson from the last decade. Technology will keep changing, but the people who stay curious, keep learning, and embrace change will always be the ones shaping the future.
First Impressions Lie
“Think back to a candidate who completely defied your expectations, someone you almost overlooked, or someone who looked perfect but wasn’t. What did that moment teach you about the danger of first impressions in hiring?”
This is actually one of my favorite questions because it reminds me that recruitment keeps you humble.
Looking back, the biggest lessons didn’t come from candidates I almost overlooked. They actually came from the ones who seemed like the perfect fit. Great experience, great interviews, everything looked promising, and we all felt confident they would do really well.
But sometimes reality turned out differently. A few disappeared before their first day, some left within the first few months, and others simply weren’t as committed as we had expected. Those moments were disappointing—not just because we had to start the hiring process again, but because so many people had invested their time, trust, and energy into helping that person succeed.
That experience completely changed the way I think about recruitment. It’s not about finding the perfect candidate—because perfect doesn’t really exist. It’s about understanding whether it’s the right match at the right time, for both the candidate and the company.
Over the years, I’ve learned to listen beyond the answers. I pay attention to consistency, curiosity, the questions people ask, and sometimes even the pauses in between. Those little moments often tell you more than a polished interview ever could.
I still rely on structured interviews and data, but I’ve also learned to trust the intuition that comes from years of meeting people. Recruitment isn’t just about hiring someone who can do the job—it’s about finding someone who’s ready for the journey.
Knowing When to Stop
“Recruitment is often about saying yes, but some of the most important decisions you’ll ever make are knowing when to say no, slow down, or walk away entirely. What did you learn about the value of restraint in a world that’s always pushing you to move faster?”
Earlier in my career, I thought being a good recruiter meant moving as quickly as possible.
Whenever there was a new role, I’d jump straight into sourcing because I wanted to help the business move fast. But over time, I realized that speed without clarity often creates more work than progress.
There were times when requirements weren’t fully defined, priorities kept changing, or we were making assumptions instead of decisions. We’d build a pipeline, invest time talking to candidates, and then realize we weren’t actually aligned on what we were looking for.
That’s when I learned that sometimes the best thing you can do is pause.
Today, I’m much more comfortable slowing the process down at the beginning. I ask more questions, challenge assumptions, and make sure everyone shares the same understanding before we start searching.
Ironically, slowing down at the start usually helps us move much faster in the end.
I’ve learned that clarity isn’t something you find along the way—it’s something you create together before the journey even begins.
What a CV Can Never Tell You
“After years of reading applications and sitting in interviews, what’s the one quality you now look for that you could never actually find on a resume, and how did you learn to spot it?”
After spending years reading CVs and interviewing people, I think the one thing I value most is something you can never really find on a resume.
It’s a curiosity.
Technology changes so quickly that none of us will ever know everything. What stands out to me are people who genuinely enjoy learning, who ask thoughtful questions, who reflect on their experiences, and who aren’t afraid to say, “I don’t know… but I’d love to learn.”
I usually notice it in conversations rather than qualifications. It’s in the way someone talks about solving a problem, how they respond to feedback, or the excitement they have when sharing something new they’ve discovered.
A CV tells me where someone has been. But a conversation gives me a glimpse of where they could go.
And honestly, I think potential is often much more exciting than perfection.
The Hard Lessons
“Some of the best lessons and insights come from things going sideways. Is there a specific moment where something went badly wrong, and what did you learn from picking up the pieces? How do you do that?”
Recruitment can be rewarding, but it’s also full of moments that don’t go as planned.
I’ve had candidates reject offers at the very last minute, people disappear without explanation, and hires that simply didn’t work out the way everyone had hoped.
Earlier in my career, I used to spend a lot of time asking myself, “What went wrong?”
Today, I ask a different question.
“What is this experience trying to teach me?”
I always go back to the root cause. Could I have communicated more clearly? Did we miss something during the process? Was there feedback I hadn’t asked for? I try to involve the team, reflect honestly, and learn from every situation.
I don’t think mistakes define us. I think how we respond to them does.
Some of the best lessons in my career didn’t come from getting everything right. They came from having the courage to reflect, improve, and try again.
The Slash Secret
“After all this time, what do you think genuinely sets Slash apart from every other tech company out there?”
I think what makes Slash different is something I’ve experienced from my very first day.
Yes, we’re a tech company. Yes, we build amazing products and work with incredible clients. But underneath all of that, there’s a genuine belief that people are our greatest investment.
I’ve never felt limited by my job title. I started in recruitment, but over the years I’ve had the opportunity to contribute to project resourcing, recruitment strategy, People Ops initiatives, learning programs, and so many things I never imagined when I first joined.
That kind of trust changes people.
And I think it’s reflected in the people we hire too. Of course we care about technical excellence, but we also look for curiosity, ownership, kindness, adaptability, and people who genuinely want to keep learning.
Technology is what we build. But people are how we build it. That’s what has always made Slash feel different to me.
The One-Liner
“Ten years in, summarized in a single sentence: What is Slash to you?”
I came to Slash to help build great teams. I found people and communities I wanted to grow with, and it became a privilege to have grown in a place that saw my potential before I fully saw it myself. Somewhere along the way, Slash stopped feeling like just a workplace… and started feeling like home.
