The world of work is changing rapidly. We see the major tech companies laying off tens of thousands of overpaid local engineers. The global workforce was brought top of mind with the pandemic, and it's been a long time trend. I saw some of this change over a decade ago with competitions for labor as an employee of TopCoder. Seeing some of the smartest engineers in the world do weeks of work for a chance at getting paid the prize was eye opening. I suggest taking the best of both worlds by hiring fractional executives and specialist contractors. Here I lay out the reasons to hire part time (1099/corp to corp/cash) vs full time (w2/salaried).

Finding the right fit for your engineering staff is important, and there's a few things to keep an eye out for on resumes to share here. Screening out bad fits is much more important than being sure to hire the perfect person. So screening out good candidates should be seen as a necessary mistake to ensure the wrong employees don't get hired.

When hiring your first engineers, it's important to show them you have a plan for their success at your company. The best way to do this is to have a promotion pathway laid out for different levels of engineers at your company. Aligning individual contributor goals to broader organization goals ensures mission alignment and work is focused.

Interviewing engineers is a complex task that requires special skills. A new industry has popped up catering to this need — Karat runs interviews for medium to large sized companies, with some customization. Because the engineers and the core of your company, you should be thoughtful in who you hire and why. As the graphic above describes, the cost of hiring a bad employee is huge, whereas the cost of not hiring a good employee is not that high. Always err on the side of caution when making full time hires. Here, I'm going to give some thoughts on how best to conduct your process.

Competing with Google for top talent can feel defeating. They have unlimited money, and all the clout. But there is a boutique industry popping up for specialized services of senior and principal engineering services.