Careers - Unicus Sweden

SAFE EMPLOYMENT WHERE YOU CAN BE YOURSELF

Technology careers for autistic professionals

Unicus is a unique opportunity if you have autism and want to work with IT. We currently focus on system development and data analysis, where we mainly specialize in programming, test automation, and QA – but we know that our abilities can stretch much further.

Our openings

Is working at Unicus right for you?

All of our IT consultants are on the autism spectrum

Unicus is a unique opportunity if you have autism and wants to work with IT. We currently focus on system development, and we are the best at programming, test automation, and QA – but we know that our abilities can strech much further.

Three requirements for tech consult applicants

We really only have three requirements for tech consult applicants:

You have a diagnosis of autism
You are good at programming
You have completed high school (Swedish gymnasium) or have equivalent experience through other education/work

You can be yourself at Unicus

Unicus offers an inclusive work environment where everyone helps each other and appriciate both our differences and similarities.

"The ability to be open about how I experience a situation has helped me so much. I've previously only kept it inside, like masking. I've been able to leave that habit behind me thanks to the way we work at Unicus."

Every autisitc person and their respective autistic traits are unique. The truth is that autism does not have any “appearance” or even a set of abilities, strengths, or difficulties. At Unicus, our employees possess broad and varied interests – technical expertise among others – and we are respected for it.

More than a job

It is important to us that you enjoy your job and are given development opportunity, both in a technical but also a personal sense. At Unicus, we place great importance on creating the right conditions for you to build a foundation for a long-term sustainable working life.

We offer several different activities, all of which are adapted based on your needs and wishes. There’s a handful of social occasions too, such as games nights or technical lectures.

How we support you

We put great importance on getting to know you and what you believe you need to thrive. This could be about your physical work environment, but also finding tools to better handle situations that you may find difficult.

When on an assignment, all our tech consultants have a workbuddy, and our consultant managers are there to support you, your workbuddy, and anyone else in your assignment.

"We're not giving our consultants synthetic jobs constructed for autistic people. These are real jobs that come with good salaries and good benefits." - Patrick, Consulting Director

CLICK THE JOB TITLE TO READ MORE

Openings at Unicus

Unicus Sweden is one of the few companies that have grown by
more than 30 percent in terms of employees and are therefore awarded the title
“Growth Rocket 2024”.

Our greatest asset

Our greatest asset are our employees. The path to employment at Unicus starts with a recruitment process in several steps. This is all designed to enable both Unicus and the prospective employee to make a well-informed decision.

When we hire a new tech consultant, the first three months are in the form of an internship, financed through the Public Employment Agency. During this internship, we ensure that the consultant possesses the knowledge they need and is given the opportunity for competency development. We also place great emphasis on getting to know each other. If the internship goes well, the employee is offered a 6-month fixed-term employment (a vocabulary a development employment, in the words of the Public Employment Agency). After 9 months, the goal is permanent employment without subsidies, upon which the consultant must be able to work at the customer assignment for a market price, 40 hours per week.

In addition to giving a good start into the role of a system development consultant, the internship also ensures something no less important – that the employee and manager get to Talking about a person’s strengths and challenges is one thing. To experience them in real life is another entirely. And this applies with or without diagnosis.

Our recruitment process

Unicus is always looking for talented and motivated tech consultants with autism. Hence, we are in constant contact with the Public Employment Agency and various job coaches who we know could meet our next talents.

The way to apply is always to go through our website. For us, it is not critical to have a full resumé, higher education, or previous work experience. We are looking for willingness, ability, and challenges that can be overcome together.

Applying to Unicus is a little different. No resumé or cover letter is required. You simply answer the questions presented in our form to give us all information we need. If you might be what we’re looking for, we will summon you to an initial discussion.

During the process, you will also complete tests that will enable us to get to know you better.

Our goal is to employ every applicant with the right competencies, but since we need to find clients and assignments for every consultant, we are limited. Sometimes, we may also meet customers with unique requirements from what we’ve encountered before, which can mean that talent that we previously declined is now relevant. If you have agreed to remain in our system, maybe that talent is you!

Read more about our tests and what our discussion looks like in the FAQ further down!

Who works at Unicus?

The sharp learning curve didn’t stop Jacob

It has been eight months since Jacob started his assignment at one of Europe’s largest pension providers. His role is that of a developer within internal company systems where enormous amounts of data are allocated in a mainframe.

– It is interesting to learn new systems, Jacob says. Most recently, I’ve been exploring capital transfers, and also how premiums are charged and accounted for.

To constantly be attempting to grasp the working of things are a something of a sport for Jacob. Ever since his childhood, he has disassembled and reassembled everything from toys to video games to reverse-engineer how it all comes together. That curiosity is a great asset during his assignment as an IT consultant.

Filip finds every bug in the system with his eye for details

An eye for details combined with his persistent problem-solving abilities led Filip to become a tester. He is now in his fourth year as an Unicus consultant.

Filip joined Unicus as a consultant after his university graduation. Back then, the company was still young and most consultants worked with testing in some form or another. He attended when one of Unicus’s consulting managers spoke about Unicus’ business.

– I understood how well this matched my skill set. I notice things that others might miss, Filip says. He chuckles and continues: As recently as a few weeks ago, a colleague referred to me as ‘the sharpest eyes in the business’.

Sara’s development is only going upwards

Sara’s development curve at Unicus has gone straight up since she joined us in early 2020. She currently works with deployment and monitoring using DevOps methodology for an integration platform.

– I work in DevOps, and it’s great fun, Sara says. I’m new to it, but I really feel like it’s my thing.

Sara’s initial assignment was aimed towards documentation of various services, but she was soon handed more tasks by the client. Her neat-and-tidy sense, combined with her ability for long-term repetitive tasks, yielded excellent results:

– I have no problem doing repetitive tasks that may be boring to others. To me, it’s safe and comfortable.

Rikard finds even the smallest discrepancy in large datasets

With the background of a BE in data technology from the KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Rikard previously worked as a developer in both Java and robotics. From there, he brings with him solid experience in programming and automation. Now he is out on consulting assignments within the financial sector.

During his assignment, Rikard mainly performs data modeling in Power BI to present large amounts of data visually and interactively. He must ensure quality and also have the data processed, enabling the rest of the organization to explore up-to-date information in an accessible way.

– My assignment consists in large part about investigating available data in order to develop required applications. We deal with copious amounts of data, and I am good at finding discrepancies. It’s a blessing and a bit of a curse, Rikard adds, smiling.

Malin Bäckmark, Consultant Manager Stockholm

Meet Malin, one of our consulting managers

After 20 years within IT and business development, Malin wanted to explore something new. She went into self-employment as a stress educator and coach, but her longing for a larger team grew on her.

Malin first came into contact with Unicus during a course on work-oriented rehabilitation. She was handed the task to write about a company involved with some form of social entrepreneurship. Unicus – which only recruits consultants with autism – fitted the description well. A few years later, she is standing here, ready to assume the role of a consulting manager. A role where she is given the opportunity to combine her professional skills.

– My interest in Unicus has only grown during the recruitment process, Malin says. They look at the human being and create a dialogue, instead of just looking at my previous work.

Employment changes lives

We believe affecting change in one life is the starting point for changing society. We therefore measure our social performance through the difference Unicus makes to the lives of our autistic colleagues, the impact on our customer organisations, and the role we play in creating awareness of neurodiversity in society.

Between 15-20% of the global population are neurodivergent. 2% are estimated to be autistic. Despite many autistic people being talented, qualified and keen to work, only 29% of autistic people are in full time work. Within the autistic workforce, a vast majority are under-employed, working in jobs that they are over-qualified or over-skilled for.

Read our latest Impact Report

Feel they can be their authentic self at work 82%

Feel valued for who they are at Unicus82%

Improved wellbeing 80%

Feel more confident 80%

FAQ

WHAT ARE SOME CUSTOMER OF UNICUS?

Globally, our customers include many companies you have probably heard of, such as Porsche, Deloitte, Airbus, Disney, UBS, Volkswagen, and many more. In Sweden, some of our customers are Vattenfall, SEB, 3, and SVT.

WHAT IS UNICUS' COMPENSATION MODEL?

At Unicus, our compensation model gives you an identical salary each month, regardless of if you have an ongoing assignment or not. We have chosen that model to ensure that you as an employee may feel secure and always know how much you will be paid.

We also offer an employment benefit for health and wellbeing (Swedish “friskvårdsbidrag”), and we give you noise-cancelling headphones if you want.

OPPORTUNITIES FOR COMPETENCY DEVELOPMENT

To apply for a position at Unicus, you must have the competence requested as per the job listing.

As an employee at Unicus, you will given opportunities for competency development in many ways. It could be through certification within a technical solution, or to learn new skills on your assignment. We make a yearly plan for your competency development which we follow up and adjust regularly.

IS UNICUS A CHARITY ORGANIZATION?

No. Unicus is a privately owned for-profit company. We employ autistic professional as IT consultants who offer competence and creates solutions for our customers during assignments.

DOES UNICUS EMPLOY NON-AUTISTIC PEOPLE?

All our tech-consultants have autism, and it is a requirement to apply for the position. For other occupations at Unicus, there is no autism requirement.

DOES UNICUS OFFER THE POSSIBILITY OF REMOTE WORK?

We can never guarantee the possibility of remote work.

Our internship is on-location at one of our offices, because we view this as a contributing factor to establish good routines as well as provide better opportunities to get to know you better.

After the internship, the basic rule is 3-5 days on-location at our office. What exactly applies to you will be agreed upon between you and your consultant manager.

When you start an assignment at a customer, you follow their rules. Usually, three days in the office is the standard.

In case you want to work from an office every day, there is always the option to do that from Unicus’ office.

HOW DOES AN INTERVIEW/DISCUSSION WORK?

Our interviews – or discussions as we prefer to view it as – use the fact that all our tech consultants have autism as a starting point.

If you want to, we could be the ones asking questions. You need not keep the conversation going or talk freely on your own.

If you want to arrive early, you are more than welcome. Ring the doorbell and take a seat.

During the discussion, we will be curious about your previous experience, your future plans, your activities outside of work, and naturally, what your strengths are. We will also want to explore your challenges, all with the purpose of together determining if you will fit in and feel well in among us.

If you advance from the first discussion, you will meet other Unicus employees. We will ask you many of the same questions, the reason being that we do not talk much between ourselves about applicants. This is to grant everyone the opportunity to create an original, informed perception of you as an applicant.