Improving engineering hiring at Criteo

Career case study from my employment at Criteo

At Criteo, I worked on global engineering recruiting and process improvement. Engineering time-to-hire fell from 75 days to 44 days while offer acceptance remained at 80%. The work combined focused recruiting with improvements to the hiring process.

Engineering time-to-hire before: 75 days Engineering time-to-hire after: 44 days Offer acceptance maintained: 80%

Looking at speed and acceptance together

A shorter hiring process is useful when the team can still make sound decisions and candidates want to accept. Looking at time-to-hire alongside offer acceptance gives a more useful picture than treating speed as the only goal.

This career outcome informs my recruiting operations work. It is a historical result, rather than a benchmark or a promise for another team. Offer acceptance alone also does not establish the quality or later performance of the hires.

How I would examine a similar process

For a new audit, I'd first agree on how the team defines its stages and measures time-to-hire. I'd then examine the current funnel, time spent waiting between steps and how decisions move between people. I'd want to distinguish delays in coordination from assessment work the team actually needs.

Recommendations would follow the evidence from that review. I would name the proposed change, its owner and how the team could check whether it helped. The measures should include speed and offer acceptance, with candidate withdrawals or other relevant signals where the data supports them. This describes my current audit approach, not a claimed account of the specific Criteo interventions.

When an operations review may help

If engineering hiring is taking too long and your team is unsure where the process slows down, an audit can help identify what to investigate and change first. Implementation or active recruiting would need a separate agreed scope.

Read the case and download the PDF https://cjwooden.com/case-studies/criteo-engineering-hiring

This document was prepared in October 2026 to explain a career outcome. It is not a client project delivered through Contra. Current recommendations are distinguished from the historical result.

Download the PDF: https://cjwooden.com/case-studies/02_Criteo_Engineering_Hiring_Case_Study.pdf