Tushar Vaghela remembers the problem clearly.
It was taking months to hire two or three developers. Not because candidates weren't
applying. Not because of a skill gap. But because scheduling was eating them alive.
"HR would get a time slot from the developer. Then a time slot from the candidate. Then try
to match them," Tushar recalls. "Then someone would get pulled into a project and couldn't
join. It took a week just to schedule one round."
This wasn't sustainable. Proximity was growing fast, serving clients like big clients, and
Tushar needed engineers who could ship on day one.
So they did something most engineering leaders resist: they stopped asking their engineers
to interview.
The 1,000-Interview Education
Tushar wasn't guessing. Over a decade at Media.net, Directl, and now Proximity, he's
conducted more than 1,000 technical interviews. He's experimented with everything, 30-minute
screens, 2-hour deep dives, custom training programs.
And here's what he learned: interviewing is a specialised skill. Not every great engineer is
a great interviewer.
"I haven't seen a lot of engineers who are good at engineering & good at hiring," Tushar
says.
The math was simple. Every hour his senior engineers spent interviewing was an hour they
weren't building. Something had to change.
The Shark Tank Moment
The team saw Intervue on Shark Tank and thought: This is exactly what we need.
But convincing the team took a year. The concern was legitimate: Could an external
interviewer really evaluate what Proximity evaluates? They don't just check if candidates
complete code challenges. They look for a thinking process. Communication. The ability to
work in a pod with Dream11's engineers and hold their own.
They decided to try.
The 72-Hour Workflow
Today, Proximity runs a 72-hour workflow: application to client-ready in three days.
Application → TestGorilla screening (5 min) → Intervue round (same/next day) → Internal
round (if recommended)
Before Intervue, step 3 alone took a week. Now it happens in 24 hours.
"If you apply, in 5 minutes you get the test. Complete it, and you move to the next round
immediately," Tushar says. "The pipeline is automated."
The result? Proximity grew from 8 people when Tushar joined to 50+ engineers today, all
remote, all top 1%.
What Actually Surprised Him
Tushar expected Intervue to handle scheduling. What he didn't expect was how well they'd
evaluate thinking.
"Each interviewer asks questions based on the candidate's profile. They test weak areas.
They evaluate approaches, not just answers," he says. "That's what surprised me, the quality
of evaluation."
His engineers noticed too. When Tushar told the team they'd be outsourcing first rounds,
there was confusion at first. But within days, they saw results. No one objected. No one
asked to go back.
Because they could finally focus on building.
Advice for Leaders Scaling Fast
Let engineers do engineering. "Not everyone can interview. It takes years to develop that
skill. Get specialists."
Build vs. buy? Buy. "When you buy, you get technologies that are already tried and tested.
You don't need to build and test from scratch, that consumes a lot of time."
Hire for day one. "We don't hire people who are '80% there.' If I hire today, they should
help tomorrow."
The Bottom Line
Proximity's story isn't about outsourcing. It's about recognising that hiring is its own
craft.
The result? Engineers who build instead of interview. A pipeline that moves in days, not
months. A team of 50+ serving India's biggest tech companies.
"I think we've figured something out," Tushar says.
He has. And the signal is loud and clear.
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