
Ask HN: What should a seed stage startup do to attract engineers? - arey_abhishek
How do we get good talent when everyone&#x27;s fighting for them?
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itamarst
Every startup competes for the same people: young, single men. They don't
necessarily set out to specifically hire young single men, it's just that all
the other criteria they have get them there.

Specifically, most startups want employees to work very long hours.

So if you want good talent, look for people other startups won't hire: people
who want work/life balance.

Of course, the perception is that startups want you to work very long hours.
So you'll need to _really_ explain why you're different.

If the answer is "But we need to work 80 hour workweeks to succeed!" then good
luck, you're back to competing for all the same people (and, moreover, that is
simply not true:
[https://codewithoutrules.com/2018/10/24/deadlines/](https://codewithoutrules.com/2018/10/24/deadlines/)).

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davismwfl
I will assume you mean software/data type engineers as those are the hard ones
to attract right now and are in context to HN.

It really depends on what type of seed round you raised. If it is a small
friends and family round you are best looking at people who can contract as
freelancers and are ok with the fact money may run out quickly. Attracting
them is different then looking for FTE's which is why I mention it.

If you raised a proper seed round then hiring FTE's becomes more realistic but
as you stated not an easy task. You can't fully compete on salary, options are
not what they once were and competition for quality engineers is pretty solid.

My 2 cents if you want to recruit and find solid engineers. And how I do it
personally:

1\. Pay a fair wage, you may not be able to compete with FAANG, but offering a
10 year experienced engineer $60k and some tiny option % is a non-starter and
shows you aren't serious which will get around quickly. Realize most
experienced people know the stock will be worthless, or diluted to oblivion in
reality so salary is the better carrot. Newer engineers haven't always learned
this yet so YMMV with them.

2\. Young engineers are awesome and bring lots of drive and ambition, find
them, but hire them in a ratio to experienced engineers so your projects have
a level of maturity early. This also lets you build a more mature team earlier
and they will attract more like talent. Plus your architecture will carry
forward less technical debt from day one (but it will still have tech debt no
matter what).

3\. Don't interview like all the other startup companies. Interview people,
and treat them like people, don't ask useless algorithm questions, don't send
them away with some task to do and tell them to get back to you. No, take your
time, interview people, ask them meaningful questions, probe their ability to
do the job and get them an answer within a week from the last in person ( or
video) interview. From your first phone screen to the last person interviewing
should not take more then 5 days for a small team, do it that fast and get an
offer out, having your offer in hand versus waiting weeks to months for others
is super powerful.

If you do those 3, you will beat most all the startups to hiring. Another key,
don't be afraid to hire remote, but favor timezones near you if you do. I'd
always favor hiring people local at first if possible, unless I was in CA,
then I'd go remote first within the US just to control costs. Your dollars go
a lot further outside of CA.

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streetcat1
Increase your risk level by using the latest technology (alpha products) but
ones with some backing from big companies. This way you might have a chance to
offer interesting work.

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espeed
Engineers to do what?

