Any Tips For Hiring Your Earliest Engineers?
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What are your lessons and learnings about hiring some of your earliest engineers? What traits, what red flags, do's and don'ts, any best places to search?
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What are your lessons and learnings about hiring some of your earliest engineers? What traits, what red flags, do's and don'ts, any best places to search?
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Hi, this was my most important hire so far, so I totally get your caution.
Before hiring, I spoke to some of my friends in the same field and asked them for advice, I researched some important technical questions to ask, ran 3 hiring rounds including a case study to see how we work together, but honestly, ultimately it was my gut feeling!
Just make sure to take the probation period as real trial period if it works out, don't ignore red flags and vest you equity. ;)
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Great question, Dan — hiring your first few engineers is a big deal and honestly, pretty tough if you’re not technical yourself (been there).
Here are a few things I’ve learned:
1. Look for builders, not just coders.
Your early engineers should be excited to figure things out, not just follow instructions. You want people who enjoy solving problems, even outside their job description — not just writing code, but helping shape the product and business.
2. Green flags:
They ask smart, honest questions about the business and the users.
They’ve built something on their own.
Good github profile (very vague ik but look for someone with projects containing README files that you can understand)
3. Red flags:
They don't ask questions.
They talk a lot about big-company processes and titles.
As for where to find them:
You can start with Github, LinkedIn.
P.S. I’m helping founders build MVP, you can check me at tfw.agency
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