Checkr, a $5 billion background-check startup, makes AI app-building part of employee onboarding—even for its new CFO

Checkr hired Tim Yarbrough, a former ZipRecruiter executive, as Chief Financial Officer. The company is now requiring new hires across all roles—including Yarbrough—to build a working application using AI tools during their first days on the job, rather than attending traditional orientation.

By putting hands-on AI development into onboarding, Checkr is betting that new employees will learn the company's tech stack faster and understand how AI fits into their work immediately. This approach treats AI fluency as a baseline skill, not a specialized add-on.

For job seekers and employees at other companies, this signals that AI app-building is becoming a core expectation in tech hiring, even for non-engineering roles like finance leadership. It also shows how startups are using onboarding itself as a competitive advantage—forcing new hires to move faster and think differently from day one.