
Ask HN: What happens when a solely-responsible engineer quits a startup? - kblander
For example, at a company that has &quot;an&quot; iOS developer or &quot;an&quot; Android developer, as opposed to a team - a pretty common arrangement in startups, I think. This person would be entirely responsible for a component of the company&#x27;s product. They might be the only person at the company that even knows the language they&#x27;re working in, if the backend&#x2F;web engineers are using Python, Ruby, or JavaScript for their server code - doubly so for an iOS developer, since Swift knowledge isn&#x27;t anywhere near as common as Java knowledge.<p>How does the replacement process work? The team would be interviewing someone without any knowledge of the language and frameworks that candidate would be working in, and dropping them into a codebase that no one can explain to them, even if the documentation coverage is great.
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lollipop25
> What happens when a solely-responsible engineer quits a startup?

\- The management will try its best to keep the person. Raises, counter-
offers, benefits will be put on the table.

\- The management will try its best to delay the leave until a replacement is
found.

\- A sudden increase of communication and praise from the management.

> How does the replacement process work?

It depends on the contract. Some companies can use the notice period as
defense. Some can hold you for as long as 6 months, using that period to keep
you as well as find and train your replacement. Some companies won't let you
leave unless a replacement has been found and trained to a sufficient level.
This goes as far as making you find the replacement instead of the management.

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Normally, there wouldn't be a "solely-responsible engineer". If the startup
was managed correctly, there will be at least one other person who knows what
the other person is working on. That way, even if the weakest link falls off,
the entire company doesn't suddenly tip over. Startup people have fancy names
for these things. A team that knows a bit of what everyone else is working on
is called a "cross-functional team". A developer that's part of that team is a
"full-stack developer". It's just a fancy way of saying a developer in this
team has more work to patch up management and HR issues like say, losing
someone suddenly.

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davismwfl
Honestly, early on in a startup it is rare to have such specialization. That
usually happens later. Usually early on you have 1-2-3 jack of all trades that
can and are willing to do whatever so the chances loosing one causes that kind
of disruption is rare. Although it is not unheard of, and if so, there are
ways to manage. As others already said, you first counter with reasonable
offers but only as a means to replace the person, as let's be totally honest,
a founder shouldn't consider this a long term resolution as the employee
already showed they want to leave so expect they will want to leave in the
relatively near future too.

Outside of this, funded startups many times turn to advisors and investors to
help them find a qualified candidate. And when not possible they may use a
recruiter to find a person. For all the shit recruiters take, they have a
place in the market, otherwise they wouldn't be there.

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mtmail
Some companies hire a consultant to do part of an interview. E.g. "Do a phone
interview. Tell us if this person is good at <database or programming
language". It's a good investment compared to hiring the wrong person for a
job. As for dropping somebody into a codebase nobody else in the company
knows: that's sadly business as usual. Ideally there is a hand-over period of
course.

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WalterSear
IMHO, it's not that common (or wise) to split roles like that, fwiw.

