Building the Product

How do I hire good engineers in India when everyone's competing for the same talent?

A starting point

Lean hard on your network, alumni, ex-colleagues, referrals, because job portals alone won't surface the best people in India's talent war. Sell the mission and the problem, use a mix of channels (LinkedIn, communities, referrals), and remember retention takes as much work as hiring. Craft the pitch as carefully as you'd craft an investor pitch.

Go deeper

Hand-picked from around the web, each with a note on why it earns your time.

2 resources 2 link-checked

Read

📄 Article
✓ Link checked India Free Intermediate

Why we picked it India-specific advice written by an Indian technical founder, addressing the real competition for engineering talent in the local ecosystem. Grounded in how hiring actually works here.

How Can Indian Startups Hire The Right Technical Talent

From Inc42 by Parminder Singh (Hansel.io) ~10 min read

  • Leverage your network hard, job portals alone won't surface top talent.
  • Use a mix of channels: LinkedIn, referrals, communities, agencies.
  • Retention takes as much work as hiring in India's competitive market.
Open inc42.com →
📄 Article
✓ Link checked Free Intermediate

Why we picked it A high-signal, battle-tested framework for evaluating engineering talent from a leader who's done it hundreds of times. Especially useful for founders who can't judge code themselves.

My Lessons from Interviewing 400+ Engineers Over Three Startups

From First Round Review by Marco Rogers ~20 min read

  • Debunks over-indexing on whiteboard puzzles and trivia.
  • Focus interviews on real, job-representative work.
  • Deliberately design your process to improve both quality and close rate.
Open review.firstround.com →

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