Ask HN: How do we find our first employee?

3 points by hansottowirtz 5 years ago | 1 comment

We're a small startup based in Antwerp, Belgium, and we have just raised capital, so we now have the budget to hire our first full-time employee. I'm a co-founder and the only developer, and also currently the biggest bottleneck in growth, so our first employee will be a developer. Our company is almost 2 years old and we all started as students.

I've heard many different opinions when it comes to hiring devs. Some say I have to look in my network (which I barely have). Others say we should first hire students, or remote employees, or use recruiters. However, for the first employee those all don't seem like a good idea.

While I'm very excited to grow our developer team, I'm also very wary of the impact they will have on the company and our team.

I just graduated but I've been programming for a few years, and I think I'm capable of planning the general development roadmap. I'm proud of the existing tech stack, it is ready to evolve.

Needless to say we want to find someone very good and who shares our vision. I really believe in creating great products with great code, and I'd like to find someone who shares that view. I think we should look for someone with more experience than me, with a track record of working on larger projects. Ideally with work experience at a larger company, who has experience with processes and working in teams.

Would you under- or overspecify the kind of person you're looking for?

I'm thinking about posting job posts on Github Jobs, HN, and LinkedIn. Are those the right channels? Should we take a more "active" role? (e.g. going through people on LinkedIn who have worked for interesting companies) Or should we work with recruiters? Where did your company find its first employee?

Should we offer a salary competitive with big tech, and equity?

Any advice is welcome! Very interested in your experiences.

(Context: We create personalized products. Our stack is mostly Serverless, AWS, Typescript, Angular/Vue, Node)

klohto 5 years ago |

You should have definitely mentioned the company name here. I’m looking for a generalist job right now, for example :)

I will try to summarize best experience and results from both sides.

I wouldn’t even recommend going through the recruiter route. Quality ones are expensive, it would be waste of resources at your stage. Cheap ones don’t do a good job, they are not able to spot what you’re looking for and quick keyword search with “Hi $FirstName, I see you have experience in $Technology” you can do that yourself. LinkedIn Premium is a good investment though, and it’s worth buying just for the cold outreach (I’m sure people here will disagree, there isn’t a better directory with online CVs, so…).

Definitely create few job postings. Angel job list is good choice as well. If able to hire remotely, remoteok.io and other remote job posting portals aren’t bad at all. Just be prepared for minor spam and more time spent on filtering. Promote a little, but again, I wouldn’t spend a lot on that. The benefit is little to none, and best candidates usually don’t come from these channels.

Cold outreach is the most effective. Make sure the message doesn’t look automated, message is catchy and contains most information upfront and the candidate is looking for a job or atleast open to offers (highest success, of course “happily” employed candidates might also be open to switching). It’s really like sales. Any platform will do. I did few interviews just from comments on HN.

Pay and equity. Well, since it’s a first employee at a risky, even though funded, startup, equity is kinda expected. Bear in mind, this employee will shape your culture, your technology and even your success. There will be overtime whether you want it or not. This #1 employee will be an asset to the company once you start growing. The candidate definitely needs to be onboard with the vision and understand where the company is going. You’re free to hire “code-monkey” (no shame in that, it’s just doesn’t fit into startup sphere) but at that point might as save money and outsource the development to some local sweatshop. You’re not forced to pay top salary, but be honest with the employee and honest with yourself. I assume you have some financial plan so you know what can you afford to pay. Paying top bucks combined with equity will give you a lot too choose from. Lower the pay, the pool gets smaller but you filter for people who aren’t in just for the money, but believe in the company and that will reflect in their equity %. Best is somewhere between the middle or top. Don’t cheap out on them unless this is the way you want to move forward.

Who to hire? I’m in the opinion that you should hire for the potential and broad knowledge, not specific skills. Generalists, in my opinion, are much more useful employees than specialists. Atleast at the start.

How to hire? Have a friendly discussion about everything that you, or the company, has interest in. Get the candidates opinions, experience, struggles and in the end you will just know. Don’t rush it.

HN monthly threads about who wants to be hire and who is hiring are worth keeping and eye on.

By the way, if you ping me on twitter or LI, I’m happy to chat more. If you’re going the remote route, I would be interested to know what you’re looking for right now.