growing the Engineering team
Formative's founder, Jordan Wan, was an early investor in Dispatch. The timing was pivotal - Dispatch had just raised funding and was ready to start building its team from the ground up.
Dispatch chose Formative over competitors or an in-house approach largely on trust: the recruiter's track record with previous companies, combined with the existing relationship. The engagement started broad with not a single employee in place, but a full talent strategy to build out Dispatch's early engineering team.
Origin Story
The core, ongoing challenge is talent scarcity: Dispatch holds a high bar for its hires, putting them in competition for the same top-tier candidates other companies want. What's kept the partnership productive despite that friction is Dispatch's own strength at closing candidates and getting them excited about the opportunity — a two-way effort between recruiter and client.
Challenges
Our first move wasn't sourcing, it was widening the pool. Dispatch had searched NYC and SF only; we opened it to fully remote from day one, changing the caliber of what was possible.
“Formative has been a true partner to Dispatch since our earliest days as a company. Jack and the Formative team have helped us hire across every level of engineering, from senior leadership to individual contributors, while our needs, team structure, and priorities have continued to evolve through multiple phases of growth. What stands out most is how well Formative understands our culture and technical bar, so the candidates they bring us consistently feel like a strong fit. Multiple years in, Jack feels like an extension of our own team rather than an outside vendor. I know I can trust Formative to understand what we need and help us find the right people to build the team."
Rafi Lurie, Co-Founder & Chief Product Officer
Our Value
We proved our value early on and stayed with them as the team grew from 10 to 50 in four years. When priorities or hiring plans shift, we’re the first one they come to.
We’ve made seven hires to date:
First Senior Engineering Manager — set the team's culture, hiring bar, and interview loop.
One of the first Staff Frontend Engineers — now owns all frontend and helped ship Transitions.
Additional senior IC and leadership hires across four phases of growth.