Why did Swapnil decide to build Cactro?

Years ago, I watched a brilliant engineer (and a close friend) struggle to get hired after a layoff. That’s when I decided to change tech hiring.

Despite years of solid work, he couldn't land interviews.

He was stuck. No offers, no callbacks, just months of silence.

His confidence tanked.

He was told, again and again, to "start DSA prep."

But we all knew it would take him 2–3 months just to get interview-ready.

I understood that DSA isn't a skill companies are looking for. It’s just a filter, not a qualifier.

And if someone with years of real-world experience struggles this much...

How much worse is it for freshers?

I started talking to early devs. Brilliant people. Capable of building incredible things.

But either rejected or never hearing back.

All because recruiters rarely emphasize on “recognising talent”, their job is merely to fill up a pipeline using filters like “degree, background, DSA”.

The system was built this way, it wasn’t broken.

I realised that there was a NEED to break tech hiring.

I dreamt a vision.

What would the hiring process look like if we truly valued skills?

What if you didn’t need to prep for interviews for months?

What if you could leave a toxic job on Friday and get hired on Monday?

What if time spent on DSA was spent on actual dev work?

That’s how Cactro (prev: Elevate Labs / Roc8 Careers) was born.

We’re not just a hiring platform.

We’re a challenge to the status quo. A bet on builders. A symbol of resilience.

Because if you give a cactus even a drop of water, it will bloom.