How to Hire Your First Engineer: A Founder's Complete Guide

Hiring your first engineer is one of the most consequential decisions you'll make as a founder. This person won't just write code—they'll establish your technical culture, make architectural decisions that last for years, and likely help you hire the next ten engineers.

Get it right, and you've laid the foundation for a world-class engineering organization. Get it wrong, and you'll spend months unwinding technical debt and cultural damage.

What Makes a Great First Engineer

Your first engineer needs a fundamentally different skill set than your fifth or fiftieth. Here's what actually matters:

### Generalist Over Specialist

At this stage, you need someone who can do everything passably rather than one thing exceptionally. Your first engineer will:

- Build your MVP frontend and backend - Set up your infrastructure and deployment pipeline - Handle security, performance, and reliability - Interview and evaluate future engineering candidates - Make buy-vs-build decisions that affect your burn rate

A specialist who's world-class at React but has never touched a database is less valuable than a generalist who's competent across the full stack.

### Builder Mentality

Look for engineers who've shipped products, not just features. The difference matters enormously:

**Feature engineers** execute well-defined specifications within established systems. They're valuable later when you have product managers and technical leads defining work.

**Product engineers** figure out what to build, then build it. They thrive in ambiguity, make good tradeoffs between speed and quality, and optimize for learning velocity.

Your first engineer must be the latter. Ask about times they shipped something from zero—personal projects count.

### Comfort With Chaos

Early-stage startups are operationally chaotic. Requirements change weekly. There's no playbook. The right answer today might be wrong tomorrow.

Some engineers find this energizing. Others find it anxiety-inducing. You need someone who genuinely thrives in uncertainty—not someone who tolerates it because they want the equity upside.

### Strong Opinions, Loosely Held

Your first engineer will make countless technical decisions with incomplete information. You want someone who has informed opinions about technology choices but updates those opinions when presented with new evidence.

Red flags: Engineers who are dogmatic about specific technologies, or engineers who have no opinions at all and just want to be told what to do.

Where to Find First Engineering Candidates

Traditional recruiting channels rarely work for first engineering hires. Here's what does:

### Your Network (Extended)

Your first-degree connections are the obvious starting point, but don't stop there. Send a carefully crafted message to everyone you know asking for introductions to strong engineers who might be interested in an early-stage opportunity.

Be specific about what you're looking for. "Know any good engineers?" gets worse responses than "Looking for a full-stack engineer with Python/React experience who's done 0-to-1 product work."

### Technical Communities

Identify the online and offline communities where your target engineers spend time:

- Language-specific Discords and Slack groups - Local meetups and conferences - Open source project contributor lists - Technical Twitter/X and Mastodon

Engage authentically before recruiting. Contribute to discussions, share valuable content, help others. Then, when you're hiring, you'll have credibility.

### Hacker News "Who's Hiring" Threads

The monthly Hacker News hiring threads attract high-quality candidates who are specifically looking for startup opportunities. Your post should be concise, honest about your stage, and specific about what makes your company interesting.

### AngelList/Wellfound

The candidate quality varies widely, but AngelList remains a viable channel for startup-specific hiring. Be prepared to filter through many applications to find gems.

### Recruiting Firms (Like Us)

Specialized startup recruiting firms maintain networks of engineers specifically interested in early-stage opportunities. The fee is significant—typically 20-25% of first-year salary—but the time savings and candidate quality often justify the investment.

The Interview Process for First Engineers

Your interview process should evaluate technical ability, product sense, and cultural fit—but should also sell the opportunity.

### Technical Assessment

Avoid algorithmic puzzles that test computer science trivia rather than practical engineering ability. Instead:

- **Take-home project:** Give candidates a realistic problem similar to what they'd work on. Keep it scoped to 2-4 hours. Evaluate not just the solution but how they made tradeoffs.

- **Pair programming:** Work through a problem together. This reveals how they think, communicate, and collaborate—skills that matter enormously when you're working closely together.

- **Architecture discussion:** Present a real technical challenge you're facing. Ask how they'd approach it. Look for structured thinking, appropriate questions, and realistic awareness of tradeoffs.

### Product Sense Evaluation

Your first engineer needs to make product decisions, not just implement specifications. Test this directly:

- Show them your product (or mockups) and ask for critique - Present a feature request and ask how they'd approach scoping it - Discuss a recent product decision you made and ask if they'd have done it differently

### Reference Checks That Matter

Standard reference checks are nearly useless—no one provides references who'll say negative things. Instead:

- Ask references about specific projects the candidate described - Probe for weaknesses by asking "What would make [candidate] even more effective?" - Request backdoor references from people who worked with the candidate but weren't provided as references

Closing Your First Engineer

Great engineers have options. Here's how to compete:

### Sell the Vision

The best first engineers are motivated by the opportunity to build something meaningful from scratch. Be prepared to articulate:

- Why this problem matters - Why now is the right time - Why you're the right team to solve it - What the company looks like if you succeed

### Be Transparent About Risk

Don't oversell. Sophisticated candidates will see through it, and you'll lose credibility. Instead, be honest about:

- Your runway and funding situation - The technical and market challenges you face - What success requires and how likely you think it is

The best candidates appreciate honesty and can make informed decisions about risk/reward.

### Competitive Compensation

You likely can't match big tech salaries, but you can offer a compelling total package:

- **Equity:** Early employees should receive meaningful equity—typically 0.5% to 2% for a first engineer, depending on stage and seniority - **Cash:** Pay as much as you can sustainably afford; severely underpaying creates retention risk - **Growth:** The opportunity to build a team, influence technical direction, and grow into leadership roles

### Speed

The best candidates move quickly off the market. Compress your process as much as possible while still making a quality decision. If you find the right person, move to offer within days, not weeks.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

### Hiring for Pedigree

A Stanford CS degree and Google on the resume looks impressive but predicts nothing about success at an early-stage startup. In fact, engineers from elite backgrounds sometimes struggle with the ambiguity and scrappiness required.

Evaluate what candidates can do, not where they've been.

### Over-Weighting Technical Skills

Technical skills are necessary but not sufficient. An engineer who's technically brilliant but poor at communication, collaboration, or handling ambiguity will struggle as a first hire.

### Hiring Too Junior

It's tempting to hire junior engineers because they're cheaper and more available. But your first engineer needs to make technical decisions that will persist for years. They need enough experience to make those decisions well.

### Moving Too Slowly

A deliberate, careful hiring process is appropriate when you have an established team. But when you're pre-product or struggling to hit milestones, velocity matters more than perfection. Hire the best available candidate who clears your bar, then move fast.

The Offer Conversation

When you're ready to make an offer, have a direct conversation before sending a formal offer letter:

- Confirm their interest and timeline - Discuss compensation expectations - Address any concerns or hesitations - Gauge their enthusiasm level

This conversation helps you calibrate your offer and identify any issues before they become deal-breakers.

Your first engineering hire is foundational. Take it seriously, but don't let perfect be the enemy of good. The best first engineers are builders who thrive in chaos, care about what you're building, and can grow as your company grows.