Article · ~20 min read

My Lessons from Interviewing 400+ Engineers Over Three Startups

Marco Rogers · First Round Review Free Intermediate

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.

  • 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 on review.firstround.com ↗

It answers 3 questions

  1. How do I hire good engineers in India when everyone's competing for the same talent?
  2. How do I evaluate a developer's skill if I can't code?
  3. How do I hire a developer without a warm network or startup connections?

Read with it

  1. Battle-tested YC advice on landing your critical first engineering hire, from founders who've done it at scale. It reframes... YC Startup Library Article · Essay How to hire your first engineer (YC Startup Library) Y Combinator (Greg Brockman, Harj Taggar)
  2. Altman's condensed operating manual for founders, including sharp guidance on focus, spending your time on what only you can... playbook.samaltman.com Article · long Startup Playbook Sam Altman
  3. Finding a great engineer is only half the battle when everyone is competing for them, and this piece is about the other half:... Y Combinator Startup Library Article · Medium read Convincing engineers to join your team Y Combinator
  4. A Startup School talk with a YC partner and Triplebyte's co-founder on finding and hiring key engineers from scratch.... Y Combinator Startup Library Video · Around 45 minutes Building an engineering team Harj Taggar and Ammon Bartram
  5. A simple, repeatable four-step method for making hiring decisions instead of going on gut feel, which is where costly mis-hires... Geoff Smart and Randy Street Book · Book, around 200 pages Who: The A Method for Hiring Geoff Smart and Randy Street
  6. A venture firm's field guide to engineering hiring for founders, covering the full arc from defining the role to sourcing,... CRV Article · Long read How to Hire Engineers: A Guide for Founders CRV
eChai Partner Brands The partnership →