Today, we're excited to share that Areia Spinner is joining the team.

Areia brings over a decade of recruiting experience, most of it spent hiring for AAA video game studios, including a credit on the original The Last of Us. She has a sharp eye for culture and the people who shape it, and we're thrilled to have her helping us grow the team.

More about Areia

How did you get into software?

I started my recruiting career in the video game industry. Prior to that, I had gone back to school for digital filmmaking and was looking for a day job between gigs when a game studio happened to come to my town (Providence, RI — not exactly a hotbed for the industry). They were looking for a temp recruiting coordinator and the temp agency folks thought I'd be a natural fit due to my film background.

I also happened to be a big gamer and had been for much of my life, so it felt meant to be. Little did I know I'd be recruiting for primarily AAA games for the next 13 years. My biggest gaming claim to fame is probably being in the credits of the original The Last of Us.

I've only recently moved out of games into other corners of tech, and Resend is where I landed.

What does your desktop/home screen look like?

Vincent Valentine from Final Fantasy VII (this is his Remake version) — protecting my desktop from unwanted forces in the most dramatic and brooding way possible, which is just how I prefer it.

Why are you at Resend?

I pay close attention to culture as a recruiter — it's the thing I'm actually being paid to evaluate, and most of the time I'm doing it from the outside with incomplete information. Resend publishes the entire handbook. Values, how decisions get made, how people are expected to work — all of it, in public. It means I can do my job honestly: I know what I'm selling candidates on, and they know what they're signing up for. I haven't seen another company commit to that level of transparency, and I wanted to be part of one that does.

Oh, and I also love dark mode, just like Zeno Rocha.

Where do you find #inspiration?

Apart from video games, anime, film, books, music, and other artsy/geeky sources, I consider myself to be a traverser of esoteric depths. This is not the sort of thing I'd usually admit on a company bio, but here's more proof that Resend is different! I'm especially into depth psychology, archetypes, and the Enneagram, and I'm usually the first person pulling out an oracle deck or looking up someone's astrology chart at any given function. (If you're curious, I'm a Pisces Sun/Scorpio Moon/Cancer Rising!)

If you weren't in Recruiting, what would you be doing?

I'd be writing. I write in my spare time and I'm working on actually putting my work out there in the near future.

Favorite tool?

I love me some tools of the Goblin variety!

Favorite hotkey?

Sucker for Cmd + Ctrl + Space (the emoji pop-up menu). 💁🏻‍♀️

Favorite place to visit?

This is Houkokuji Temple in Kamakura, Japan. It's a Zen temple with a peaceful bamboo forest and a lovely open air teahouse one can sit in, nurse a cup of fresh matcha, and look out over the gently swaying trees. Pure bliss.

Advice for ambitious developers?

The best candidates I've worked with — across every level, from new grads to executives — have two things in common. They know what they want out of their careers and themselves, and they're still curious. Those sound like opposites but they aren't. Clarity about what you want is what lets you recognize a good opportunity when you see one; curiosity is what keeps you learning inside of it.

The people who only have the first become rigid. The people who only have the second drift. The ones who have both keep growing, no matter how senior they get.