
Ask HN: First hire offered to work part-time – what should I do? - bluestreak
We are a startup making our first hires. We are three founders, who respect each other hugely, help each other and forgive mistakes. We&#x27;ve been thru a lot together.<p>We raised money and are looking for core hires. Given our personal bond, we would like the core team (first 3-4 hires) to share our passion to some degree. Perhaps naively we&#x27;d like them to become pillars of our company and help us inspire future employees.<p>A former colleague of mine came forward, very bright and capable guy. Exactly the technical talent we need. He likes the project, but he offered to work three days a week for us because he would like to continue working on personal projects in parallel. While I appreciate his honesty, I cannot easily decide if he is the right kind of first hire. Had he joined us a year later, I would hire him in a heartbeat. But right now I feel like lack of commitment from him could possibly influence our culture in a negative way. Is this a right way to think about first hires? What would you do?
======
superzadeh
Controversial opinion but learned through experience the hard way here,
repeatedly proven, anyone that you feel "like lack of commitment from him
could possibly influence our culture in a negative way", just pass (at least
until you have product market fit or a repeatable business running). As soon
as shit hits the fan, they will either leave or drop performance, and you will
have to let them go.

In your case, I think the issue is not about part time, but the commitment
itself. If it's your first hire, you need them to be on-board, and contrary to
what most people say, have more expectations than people would for a "normal"
employee. The truth is, that person is _not_ a normal employee, it's the first
hire in a very early stage business. If you treat that hire as a regular
employee, you will build expectations and won't be able to live up to it, and
it will backfire for both of you 6-8 months down the road. That will hurt your
ability to build a core team, and you will have to start from scratch.

Do not give up on that, no matter what the popular opinion tells you. Most
people are not founders, and you should trust the guts that you have about
building your core team.

~~~
skrebbel
Fellow founder here. I think I agree with the gist of what you write, but I
disagree that a part-time commitment is a good indicator of the level of
emotional commitment.

Passion is important, and there's a huge spectrum between "passion as an
excuse to get people to work many hours without compensating them" and the
bill-by-the-hour contractor attitude. You don't want your first employees to
be anywhere near the right of that spectrum. Basically, you want them to
proudly wear the company logo t-shirt. But this is perfectly possible without
driving yourself into a burnout.

While I agree with many commenters here that way too many startups work their
team too hard for absolutely no benefit to anybody, I do think that employees
of small startups can be expected to have said startup at top thing on their
minds, bordering family etc.

This information is missing from the OP's question. There's a world of
difference between an applicant going "oh, hm yeah I can do some work for you
but only 3 days a week because I'm actually focused on my side project and I
hope it becomes a proper startup someday" and "woa that sounds awesome, I'm
all in! but I don't want to work more than 3 days because I've a couple of
hobbies / open source projects / whatever that I like to keep time for". In
the first scenario, the engineer might be writing hours for you, but actually
thinking about their other thing at the same time. They won't be super
productive, and they'd especially not be all too creative.

Like you, I'd never recommend that a startup hire someone who doesn't have the
success of said startup at top of their mind (again, possibly bordering family
matters). But I disagree with your suggestion that the amount of hours/days
committed is a good indicator of that. Part-time is the future, folks, accept
it, embrace it.

~~~
eropple
_> I do think that employees of small startups can be expected to have said
startup at top thing on their minds, bordering family etc._

They won't be credited like founders, compensated at-the-time remotely near
market, will be overworked to the bone if they don't actively fight it, and in
the event of success will be hilariously undercompensated, if not actively
screwed.

So--why?

~~~
skrebbel
> will be overworked to the bone if they don't actively fight it

Says who? Srsly stop working for shitty startups.

And stop assuming all founders are exploitative psychopaths. We're not. Many
of us just want to build an awesome company that's an awesome place to work
at.

You don't need to overwork the team for that. But you also won't get there
with a bunch of disinterested contractors who just do their assigned tasks.

~~~
eropple
_> Says who? Srsly stop working for shitty startups._

I don't work for "shitty startups"\--it's rare that I work for "startups" at
all. But, then again, my skillset is in demand in a way that accentuates the
seller's market, and so I also don't have to. I'm very fortunate.

 _> And stop assuming all founders are exploitative psychopaths. We're not.
... You don't need to overwork the team for that._

You don't have to. But, as a matter of course, it happens. Even to those with
the best of intentions.

Causes and passions are charity work or open-source work. Tying your day job--
and by extension your health and your well-being--to them is not wise. As a
founder, you both have an incentive to tie your own to such--but you have an
even stronger incentive to tie others' to it, and so you literally can't be
trusted.

It's nothing personal to state that founders are not to be trusted. It is, in
a very real and literal sense, _just business_. Cash on the barrelhead and an
absolute intolerance for fuckery are the only ways an employee has to protect
themselves from exploitation.

~~~
ThrowawayR2
> " _Causes and passions are charity work or open-source work._ "

That's one point of view. Personally, I'd say I'm passionate about technology
itself and I only choose employers who work with technologies I find
interesting (generally nothing that involves web stuff) whenever I can. I'm
sure I'd probably have been paid better if I weren't as particular but I'd
also almost certainly have quit the profession long before now as well.

We'd probably agree, though, that being passionate about one's employer itself
being unwise.

~~~
eropple
I agree with this take. You can prioritize things other than money, and that's
some derived value for you. But fully agreed that your employer is not a good
outlet for that passion. "Believing the dream" gets you screwed when you
aren't paying attention.

(And even those pure-hearted, kind founders can lose control of their company
after a bad raise.)

------
perfunctory
Part time doesn't automatically mean "lack of commitment".

I am a big supporter of reducing working hours in general. 40 hour work-week
is not a law of nature. It's about time we rethink what full-time means.

Go for it. Work less yourself. Heck, make "part-time" a standard at your
company. You will get super motivated employees and you'll have much easier
time attracting talent. It's one of the best perks one can have. And one of
you could spend more time with the twins.

~~~
quod_2058
I am a big supporter of part time too. I can't overstate the importance of
work-life balance. Work less, work better, and don't forget yourself nor your
family.

However reading the description, I can't tell whether the potential hire fits
this category.

Are they looking to have 2 jobs in parallel? What would their side thing be,
is it different enough that they wouldn't be working on both concurrently?

If they want to be away from writing software 2 days a week to fulfill a hobby
(e.g restore a boat, paint or whatever) then it makes a lot of sense. They
will be happy, grateful, and the culture will be great.

If they are seeking part time in order to work for 2 startups or setup their
own side business, then I'm not so sure.

~~~
bluestreak
It is the latter. I appreciate their honesty though, which makes the call that
much harder. Their side projects are bitcoin related, far more than just a
hobby.

~~~
x0x0
Consider that allowing this perk may enable you to hire someone you'd never be
able to get otherwise.

I -- and I'm not the only founder I know who has had this experience -- had to
compromise technically on early hires because they were what we could get.

------
dserban
Just a quick thought, since I thoroughly recognize myself in your former
workfriend. You may have negociated his pay below the level where he can
comfortably cover mortgage and current expenses.

Like many others commented, asking for an employee to be passionate is a real
problem.

You mentioned thinking with heads over hearts. Very good idea, I would say
follow through on it and ask for professionalism instead of passion. Offer a
higher hourly rate during the first 2-3 weeks, on condition that the person
work full-time and that everything should be automated to the hilt and
documented thoroughly. Starting on the fourth week, show your new potential
hires how tight of a ship you are running, some will be excited to join and at
that point you can better negociate their pay because you have something to
offer that most developers want.

As a side note, the way I have solved on my end the problem your former
workfriend is having, was by making the hourly rate a sliding scale (145 in
exchange for working 45 hours a week, 125 when working 25 hrs/wk, you get the
idea). I am personally convinced this kind of system will work for you as well
since is makes transparent the tradeoff between high development velocity and
judicious budgeting.

One last thing I want to point out that most developers intuitively recognize:
having worked in a large number of environments, huge and small, with distinct
engineering approaches / team dynamics is a huge boost to most developer
profiles. Working on more than one project every week and being exposed to all
that variety is worthwhile, for me at least, when I can't charge my full rate.

------
trevi
Had the some doubts for our first hire - he wanted to work 4 days a week. He
seemed committed and enthusiastic about our mission, so we went ahead.

Best choice we ever made: any doubt about commitment, passion, etc were blown
away after a few weeks. He is now a cornerstone of our team. He still works 4
days a week. Now several key team members work 2.5 to 4 days a week, and we're
doing great.

Looking back: I should have asked myself: what is better, working 1 day a week
more or passion and a good technical fit?

------
jlgaddis
I know what you mean and I understand the general sentiment but you should
expect an employee's level of "passion" to match the founder's only when their
level of equity also matches yours.

You might get lucky and find a first hire who really is excited and passionate
about the project, truly believes in it, and will go "above and beyond"
(which, frankly, is what it sounds like you're looking for) but if that's one
of your core requirements to fill the position, well, good luck.

Your friend made an offer that balances his level of "passion" for your
project with his passion for his own projects and it sounds like (to me, a
completely outside observer, obviously) he was trying to be unselfish and
attempting to help you and your startup out.

Now, it's up to you, of course, to decide whether he would be beneficial to
your startup -- but, to simply dismiss him altogether because he doesn't share
your level of passion? Well, as I said, good luck finding someone who does.

------
blowski
It sounds to me like you're uncertain about whether to hire this guy or not.
It's my own personal rule to only hire people when I am 100% certain.

Now I could give you all sorts of reasons why this guy will be an excellent
hire. My personal gut feeling is that some people deliver more value in 3 days
than others deliver in 3 years, so "bum in seat time" can be misleading in
terms of the contribution someone will make. Engineers with side projects are
often more goal-focused, because they purge their need to over-engineer and
try new things outside your core production project. You hire employees for
their talent, not their passion. But these are _my_ gut feelings, not _yours_,
and you need to pay attention to _your_ gut feelings when you make such a
critical hire because it's _your_ startup. Presumably, your gut feelings are
pretty good which is how you're in a position to be running a startup in the
first place.

Over the next few months, you will inevitably have problems. Things will be
harder and take longer than you think. Then you'll be saying "it's because
they're not committed enough, I should have listened to my gut feeling when we
hired them".

I would express my thoughts fully and transparently to this guy. Perhaps you
can explore a middle-ground - here's some ideas:

1\. More hours with more pay in the short-term to help you scaffold things,
scaling back once you're up and running.

2\. Work part-time as an engineer, still be available for operational stuff
outside those hours (with pay).

3\. Help you hire somebody else ASAP, so you don't need the original guy full
time.

------
bwb
If it was me, I would not hire someone PT as the first employee (or first
couple of employees). Why? You are trying to transition from founders to a
team and that is hard. You are going to have to build processes, watch other
people mess up your baby, and generally have to transition power away from
yourself. The emotions behind that process shouldn't be ignored.

In your case, the fact that you are already questioning this person's
commitment is a big warning sign to me. Skip it and circle back later once you
have a few people working there and see if you feel differently.

Culture - If you are going to build a culture around working differently than
the current norms it could make sense though.

PT - I think long term as you build a structure and get to around 15 to 20
people PT is a great way to find amazing people.

------
danbmil99
He's hedging his bets because you are a very risky proposition.

No employee is going to drink the Kool-Aid like the founders until the project
proves itself. If it's going well, he'll come on full-time. If not, he doesn't
have a hole in his resume and his bank account.

If this person has the chops you need, do the deal and prove your worth by
landing customers and investors.

~~~
dbnoch
This seems to be a lot of assumptions on what the "candidate" might feel like.
TBH, We dont have enough information.

Why would the candidate hedge their bets on risky propositions by working
part-time on TWO startups? Wouldn't it be more likely they need a side-gig
(backup plan)?

------
jarofgreen
Get over yourself and hire them.

I've worked part time for several companies and I'd argue strongly against the
idea that part timers can't be committed and have an impact on the company.

In my last job, I worked part time and lead a project to migrate the whole
company to Git and Ansible for deploys. I then lead another whole project to
migrate all the developers from an old dev server with issues to a new shiny
dev server using Docker. Actually, that project we took slowly, we migrated a
handful of developers and let them try it first, work out any teething
problems. Then I was away for a long weekend, I came back, turned out the old
dev server had spectacularly fallen over and rather than try and fix it, they
had just migrated all the developers straight away without me. It was fine.

With that in mind, another point: having part time workers is great for making
sure things are well documented and you don't develop dependencies on key
employees.

And I'd agree fully that "passion" is often a red flag. I'd think carefully
before joining a company that went on about that. Employees will have a
different relation to your company than founders will. You have to acknowledge
that.

Also, have you ever complained that's it hard to find good talent? A lot of
companies do. They complain bitterly that they can't find the tech staff they
need, yet when asked what they do to try and solve this they basically have no
answer. Don't be like them.

Start thinking about how you can attract talent now - and supporting those
that for whatever reason need flexible and part time work is a great way to
attract people. Your current hires reasons are personal projects, but that
won't always be the reason. At my current company we have several great
workers who are part time - because they have child care needs. They are
fantastic workers and contribute a lot. Do you really want to cut all those
people out?

~~~
dang
> Get over yourself

Please edit nasty swipes out of your comments here. Perhaps you didn't mean it
that way, but that's the way it lands on the internet, and it evokes worse
from others.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

------
mattlutze
If this person is bright, capable, and has your trust, you’d likely do well to
bring him on.

You may be surprised what someone can get done in 3 days a week. You’ll have a
as well a grateful employee, who it sounds like has a range of interests (this
May mean even more critical thinking and solution creativity for you).

Also, it’s at least been my experience, that when we grow out of really small
teams, it can take a while to define really well what a role should look like.
This is further then an opportunity to test this 4th employee role without
paying for downtime during that definition phase.

And who knows, maybe he falls in love with your project even more after he
starts and you can re-approach full time work in the heat future.

------
test6554
I would imagine that many top DEVs would love to work for a company that
allows part-time work and be happy to take less money to do so.

~~~
hocuspocus
It's very common in some countries, here in Switzerland I could literally
reduce my work hours to 90 or 80% with a couple clicks on the company HR
portal, and even further down with approval from my manager.

But even in the US, I know people at big companies that take one or two months
of unpaid leave. Would it be a problem to take every Friday off as unpaid
leave?

~~~
perl4ever
Talking about big companies is getting off on a tangent from startups, but the
thing about asking for accommodations in general is that you never know what
is really permitted. If you ask for too much, and nobody tells you because
it's awkward or illegal to refuse, then down the line you may have
consequences that you may or may not notice, with your job/career. Even if the
consequences are in some sense reasonable and justified, it could be you're
not thinking of them when you take the actions that cause them.

I think it's inevitable that the more formal your options and protections are,
the more people work around that, so in a country like yours I would expect it
to be an unspoken minefield.

------
fsloth
Hire for professionalism. You've been working on this for a long time. It
means it's intrinsically interesting for you, and you've gained quite a lot of
internalized intuitive understanding of the field.

It's very unlikely that you find someone who is intrinsically interested of
the same things as you. Or has as deep intuitive understanding of all the
business variables. But it does not mean he can't provide great value.

Id's say it's a red flag if you hire for "passion" instead of
"professionalism". True professionals want to do a good job and ship on time.
You don't need "passion" for that.

------
PaulMest
I think it depends on the management team and on the hire. Just like some
people can work remotely effectively and others cannot... some people can work
part-time effectively and others cannot.

I've had this be very successful one time with a senior developer who was
working in roughly the same stack across side projects as well as what I had
hired him for. He was able to time-slice very well. He could come in and in a
fraction of the time of the rest of the team make a meaningful impact in both
pushing his own features as well as reviewing others' code/architecture.

I've found in running a consulting practice that if people need to split their
time across projects that they generally do their best work when they can
devote a consistent set of days to specifics projects/team (Project A on Mon-
Wed, Project B on Thu, Project C on Fri). Trying to time-slice throughout the
day of 4hr with Project A and 2hr with Project B and 2hr with Project C
becomes too much context switching for most people.

One other thing to keep in mind: if people do not work enough on a single
project, they will not achieve enough momentum to do great things. Or if the
rest of the team is working full-time, it may be too much effort to keep them
in the loop of everything that has changed since it is moving at a faster pace
than what their time allows. You can try to overcome this by not working on
critical parts of the product or having their features not be depended upon by
others.

------
quickthrower2
Can he get done in 3 days what someone else would do in 5?

Businesses are always selling products that claim to do be better and do more
than their competitors. I’m sure the same is true for employees!

If so then let him work the 3.

------
iovrthoughtthis
Hire good people.

Are they good? Then hire them.

Are they not good? Don’t hire them.

Everything else is a distraction at this stage.

N days of good people is better than 0 days of no one.

Also, you’re the leader, you live the culture, others will follow your lead.

------
artsyca
Agreed you're going to DRY yourselves into repeating the same naive mistakes
as every trio of passionate and friendly guys who are looking to make their
first hire and don't screen for whether they use the urinal without holding a
cell phone

Then you'll build up all your institutional knowledge in some pillars of your
company who will bounce the minute they get an opportunity offering better
foosball tables and that's when you'll realize all your technical debt is
baked so deeply into your processes you will have to hire a vice president to
bail you out with a director in tow

Meanwhile as with most people you won't understand a gift horse as it's
staring you in the mouth of a guy who's offering you a real break because you
insist that work has to feel like a slog and you really want to be like the
cool kids in the valley but you're not

You're just three regular stooges who don't know a corporation from a clambake
and the next post is going to be about how you defaulted on your vision but
you'll call it a pivot

------
adrianN
Hire him if he has the skills you need. If three days a week are not enough
for you you can always hire another person later on.

------
5ep
You cannot require potential employees to be passionate about your company.

It is _your_ responsibility to make them passionate about your company. (If at
all possible.)

------
julianj
> had cancer followed by twins. We reassigned the CEO title, thinking with
> heads over hearts.

This sounds like the person was punished for being sick and then having kids.
Am I reading this wrong?

~~~
pjc50
Depends what happened to their compensation and stake in the company
(hopefully nothing); in that state it's harmful to both parties to keep the
CEO responsibility on someone who's going through that much.

------
spottybanana
If your culture breaks because you hire a mercenary, it sounds like a shitty
culture to me. Other employees will be more engaged than others, and it is a
good idea to accept that from the start.

In my opinion it is good to have diverse people. Part-time people have more
time-management costs and hassle, so it should be otherwise better
price/quality ratio. However "lacking passion" is not a good reason to reject
a candinate IMO. You should hire to get the job done.

------
not_a_moth
> could possibly influence our culture in a negative way

Pretty sure you're supposed to ignore "culture" until your company has
established itself

------
PeterisP
The big question here probably is regarding compensation. Are you offering
sufficient compensation to "buy out" these personal projects? If you're
offering half the compensation that he expects, then you can afford half of
his time; This post does not have enough details to tell if that's the case
here, but it's a possibility.

------
tekkk
I think you are over-thinking it. A single part-time employee won't fail your
start-up, a lot of other things will like not being able to deliver before
your runway runs out. For great employees, it's a negligible loss if they want
to take time off to do something else. Not everyone wants to toil away their
lives slaving for somebody else.

But if you have other candidates who possibly wouldn't be part-time employees
in your sights, you might want to try to hire them first. I know from
employer's perspective part-time workers can be a little annoying as they get
all the benefits with only eg 60% commitment. And they take as long vacations
as the regular employees too.

Disclaimer: I have worked as a part-time employee, and I did deliver during my
few work days as much as I would have done as a full-time employee. Moreover,
it actually felt much nicer to me to do only a few days a week and being a
full-timer at times was almost a bit depressing. Same old stuff, everyday,
kinda bores you out.

------
juped
Don't hire - there's nothing wrong with him, or with working part time, at
all, but you already don't trust him. Unless you have the absolutely iron
self-discipline to not sabotage his work by distrusting him, don't put either
yourself or him through it. Unfortunately, the negative culture has already
taken root.

------
CodeWriter23
You are correct to think about the implications to your company culture. IMO
it’s going to be tough to reconcile expecting the others to grind hard with
him being part time. Also, I think you’re basically providing runway for his
other venture. The bottom line is, what kind of company do you all want?

Edit: someone once told me: hire slowly, fire quickly.

------
f6v
I think you shouldn't hire him, but your reasoning is somehow wrong. Early
stage startups require decision-making on the spot, daily. If the guy isn't
there, he'll be out out the loop and you'll be frustrated. So the reason not
to hire lies in logistics.

Now, about passion and culture... I don't know if this is your first ride, but
you probably know that business models and products change. I personally
joined a startup which was building brain-training mobile app. Half a year
later we were doing marketing automation for recruiters. I think few of the
founders have passion for the product, they have passion for building things,
or for making their equity worth millions. So you've got to look for employees
who like building things, rather than excited about your product.

------
dbnoch
I can emphasize with you, as a first hire is always a tough decision. Having
bad first hires can set a company back, make it harder to hire others in the
future and be bad for moral (which makes it that much more important).

What an employee does outside of work should not matter in your decision (tons
of people have side gigs, for example).

What should matter is the expectations and the output of the employee. If you
feel that its important to have someone working full-time, in the office 5
days a week, then I think that's perfectly OK (in the same way that its OK if
an organization cannot handle remote teams). This is a decision you would be
making. If you wanted 5 days a week, that would disqualify this candidate (at
least for now).

IMO (and experience), the lack of commitment is the `three days a week`
instead of full-time.

------
mirekrusin
Why so much drama? Hire him and keep or let go in a month or two depending if
both of you are happy or not.

------
goatherders
If you want someone who shares your "passion" then you are looking for a
cofounder, not an employee.

And to change the subject: you've been in existence long enough for someone to
battle cancer and have kids but no income has been generated? Is making some
money on the radar?

------
andy_ppp
I can understand why you guys are worried about this but what is the problem
with trying it and seeing how it goes - you could also negotiate with him
about different time schedules and maybe a small amount of time on his days
off should it be necessary.

I have no problem with the word passionate but in the end will you be happy
with this person's contribution for what you are paying them. If not you need
to let them go during their probation/as soon as possible.

You really have nothing to lose and you probably get a well rested developer
who can work hard for the 3 days. I would go for it but set boundaries and
expectations - for example I would prefer to have him in full time for the
first 3 weeks of every month say rather than this odd schedule.

------
torgian
I would hire him if he really is that capable.

Edit: misunderstood that the colleague actually isn’t currently working for
OP. Still, I stand by that if he was good before and you trust him to do a
good job, then he’d make a good hire.

Think of it this way: you cannot, in a million years, think that an employee
is ever going to be as passionate about _your_ project as you are. It’ll never
happen.

So deal with it. Remember that if push comes to shove and you lose money,
you’d be firing him due to not being able to pay him. And the same would
happen to you if the roles were reversed. You’ll never be part of a “family”
in a company, despite what everyone out there says. Business is not family,
it’s money.

If he’s putting in good work while part time, then that’s all you need from
him.

------
metalgearsolid
I would definitely hire them. I don't see it as a lack of commitment, rather
he/she just understands the value of their time. 24 hours of labour is NOT 60%
of a full work week, especially for a knowledge worker.

It's a big green flag from my perspective.

------
bluestreak
Thank you all. We hired the guy. He came to our office, had a one2one with
each of us and we clarified the reasons for 3 days and side projects. Everyone
was happy and we shook hands the same day.

He is would still work three days, run side projects for fun and if he likes
what we do he’d join full time - let’s see!

I don’t expect passion as a given from employees, even though we share good
chunk of equity and our project is hugely challenging technically and open
ended. Perhaps I should have used “enthusiasm”?

------
muzani
Being someone who was there, it sounds like this person is looking to 'hedge'
their risk. He's placing two bets - on his own project and yours.

If you're afraid of this affecting your culture, don't treat him as a full
timer. Instead, treat him as a contractor, with the option of going full time
if you do well.

This is IMO the only sweet spot for contractors, when someone is brilliant but
outside your budget. I'm not a fan of part-timers, but 3 days is a good
commitment, as opposed to someone who only works nights. Depending on the type
of person, a developer might even end up achieving as much in 3 days as they
would in 5 days.

------
yodsanklai
It all depends on your options. If you think you can find someone else equally
capable, that fits your culture, then don't hire this guy. I think we work in
a field where some guys can do in 1 day what others would do in a week or
more. It's not only a matter of putting long hours. In my company, we have a
guy working remote from around the world, I'm not even sure how many hours
he's supposed to work for us but he's not full time. He has been extremely
helpful in his own ways (fixing bugs, reviewing code...). I'm glad we've been
flexible enough to accommodate his profile.

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codingdave
I'd be more dedicated to a project that allowed me part-time work than I am to
my job. I would consider that flexibility to be as valuable to me as my
financial compensation, and would fight to keep it. It would let my work/life
balance shift more towards life, so that while my time is limited, my passion
to keep that role would inspire me to be as productive and effective with that
time as possible.

So I'd talk directly to this person about your concerns. Maybe they are like
me, maybe not - but talk to them and find out, then make a decision.

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golergka
I don't think you're giving enough neccessary information here. Is his role
just chunk out the code, help with backlog and fix some bugs? Or he's going to
be responsible for making strategic tech decisions and then communicating with
entire future tech team about them? Obviously the latter is a much worse fit
for a part-time, low-commitment employee.

What about these features he'll have to compete - are they well-defined? Has
he done similar things dozens of times before, or will he have to research it
as he goes together with everybody else?

------
textread
I can offer a perspective from the developer's point of view:-

Great developers (like the one you mentioned) have significant opportunity
costs.

Unrelated:- I am looking for opportunities in this space.

[Resume]
[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mzQHjxMlAi_LOrQwccnQUskjzjr...](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mzQHjxMlAi_LOrQwccnQUskjzjr1RU6I/view?usp=sharing)

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mindcrime
Meh... In _most_ cases, talking about "passion" in this context is just a
roundabout way of saying "we want people to work harder for less
compensation." Expecting founders to have "passion" is fine, since they
(presumably) own equity stakes that will make them wealthy if the company is
successful. But unless you're giving your early hires a large stake in the
company, I'd suggest dropping the "passion" verbiage and treat them like
mercenaries - like every other employee. Your vision, your dream, your
passion, etc. are _yours_... there's very little reason to expect other people
to share that, given that they likely _already have_ things that they are
passionate about, visions they care about, etc.

Hire the guy (or gal), scale their compensation to match the amount of work
they actually do and call it good. If you're worried about them leaving too
soon if their side project takes off, you can always try some "golden
handcuffs" in the form of some perk that disappears if they leave before X
months. And who knows, maybe that would make them decline the offer. In which
case, honestly, everybody probably wins in the end.

~~~
rriepe
Yeah, "passion" is a huge red flag word for me. In the same realm as "ninja"
or "rockstar."

~~~
bwb
What do you all call the feeling around enjoying the work you do because of
the mission and/or technical challenge and/or team? Or, the feeling of wanting
to do high quality work wherever you are?

Generally, I've never worried about that being called passion.

~~~
clarry
> Or, the feeling of wanting to do high quality work wherever you are?

We have a word that literally translates as "professional pride." Now I'm not
sure it has the right vibe in English, but it captures the idea that you do
high quality work and you wouldn't do a sloppy job, even if the job sucks.

For example, I would like such a plumber, because I know they will be careful
not to make a mess, and they will clean up after them, and they are careful
and will double check their work to make sure it's fully done and solid and
not going to leak.

I don't expect them to be passionate about working with clogged pipes full of
literal shit. I'm OK with them not wanting to spend 16 hours a day doing
plumbing; if they only do three days a week but perform a respectful job, that
is perfectly fine. In fact I'd be a little concerned if they said they're
passionate about plumbing..

> What do you all call the feeling around enjoying the work

Enjoying the work. That's it.

To me, passion is something much deeper and even intimate. If you devote your
life to something and you'd do it even when it doesn't pay the bills, I could
accept it as passion. Otherwise, it's just a job that you enjoy.

~~~
martin_a
> We have a word that literally translates as "professional pride."

Where are you from and what is the word?

~~~
clarry
Finland. "Ammattiylpeys."

~~~
orrymr
How do you pronounce that?

~~~
Sharlin
Uh, with difficulty :D For starters, English doesn't have the /y/ vowel or the
geminated /tt/ sound…

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techslave
so many words! such easy answer! pass. (with reluctance)

i also want to comment on shuffling the CEO role. that’s a mistake, in the
abstract. the CEO role isn’t a dart you throw. would you say, i guess i’ll be
CTO or CMO because of xyz extenuating circumstance? no. the role has to be
filled with someone suited for it.

i don’t even know why you mentioned it. seems irrelevant to the question.

------
discordianfish
I think it makes a lot of sense to pay extra attention that the first hires
have a passion for the mission. Passion could be driven by just a great
product but also good equity package (with some flexibility of selling equity
before an exit, IMO important for early employees. Maybe your former colleague
could get passionate about your company under such terms?

If not, but the person is fairly senior and has excellent skills, I'd still
consider hiring them but make it clear that's a different role and not the
pillar shaping the company but rather a person laying a good technical
foundation. That way you can hire another person that is more committed to the
company but could benefit from that technical foundation.

But otherwise, I'd pass.

I've been working at startups for 10+ years and while I understand the
negative association with 'passion' and saw that as excuse for bad
compensation as well, I'm gonna assume you're not just looking for cheap labor
but truly people who can grow with the company and and benefit from it
success. In that case it would be a shame to hire a person for which it's just
another job. (There are plenty of jobs if that's what one is looking for.)

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peteridah
If you are unable to hire elsewhere the skill-set that your ex-colleague
brings to the table, what happens to your startup in the short to medium term
? i.e would that set your MVP back by x months ? I would try to frame the
question in those terms and balance it against the commitment/culture fit
concerns.

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JSeymourATL
> I cannot easily decide if he is the right kind of first hire.

Do you have a NEED?

Understand that you only have bright, capable, technical talent for a brief
time window. They don't offer their services to every Bozo.

These people grow, their needs change, interests evolve. The challenge for
every employer is keeping them engaged.

------
philshem
> But right now I feel like lack of commitment from him...

At this point I realized that this post is appropriate for Reddit's AITA[0].

[0]
[https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole)

------
ficklepickle
Ah, the jail warden theory of management

