HACKER Q&A
📣 tpbqs

Best way to hire engineers for a startup?


I'm hiring engineers for a venture-funded tech startup in the bay area, as I & team have exhausted our personal connections.

What's the best approach to take with hiring?

Is it through platforms like Triplebyte or Linkedin Recruiter? Which is better?

Or is it through a recruiter that is paid a fee per hire?

Or is it through Angelist or a similar job board?

I'd appreciate it if you can share any experiences that you have. Thanks!

  👤 davismwfl Accepted Answer ✓
Recruiters are the fastest way to build top of funnel. Work with recruiters to screen for you on the basics. A lot of recruiters have a deserved bad reputation but not all of them. Ideally find a good retainer based recruiter, they aren’t cheap but if you are hiring multiple roles it is far cheaper.

Other hints. Streamline your process, but don’t follow big tech hiring strategies. It is moronic for a small startup to act like Netflix or Meta or Google. Most startups lose good candidates because of the process being poor or disrespectful of the candidates time.

I run a simple process and can get candidates through in a matter of 2-3 days usually, assuming they can make the time too. Recent example, first call on a Thursday, tech interviews on Friday and offer on Monday. That’s how you compete against the tough market conditions and larger startups who can pay more. And even then it isn’t perfect, we lost that candidate cause he had offers higher then we felt we could pay for the match. Good for him, but his feedback was very positive to the recruiter about us and the process.

👤 yuppie_scum
Fastest will be recruiters.