How to hire developers in an early stage startup?

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Someone asked me this question recently and while I was giving him the answer, I thought this must be a common question for a lot of companies. I decided to write a post about it!

Question the person asked me:

One of the companies where I have recently invested in is finding it hard to find good engineering talent (1-2 years exp). Is there something that has worked well for you at Akto?

My answer:

Who do I want to hire?

Good devs have the capacity to take ownership, are curious to learn a lot, and possess decent programming skills. In a startup, they should also be prepared to take on any task, be willing to accept a lower salary for higher ESOPs, and take the initiative. I want to hire only 5 devs - really good devs.

You don’t know what problem is going to hit you, you don’t know when would a customer be blocked on a P0 bug and you don’t know which approach to take if there are 3 available. What you definitely know if you need the solution as fast as possible. You want to iterate fast and fail fast.

What do good devs want?

If our standards for good devs match, then it is important to understand what they want from the company.

1. They should be given ownership of a significant chunk of a product lane, with an experienced senior dev as guidance.

2. They should be presented with challenging tasks, such as scale, latency, and accuracy

3. They should be presented with a unique experience that they would not find in bigger companies.

4. They should be provided with a really good mentor.

Ambitions are very high when you are fresh out of college. Personally, I wanted to make significant impact in the company I joined as a developer 10 years ago. I wanted to learn more about the tech world and at the same time apply it too. I wanted a good mentor to help me and guide me. Most of such ambitious freshers and even senior devs find it hard to get a good developing environment around them.

How to get them in short time?

Here is how you find such people in 3 months:

1. Referrals: Reach out to your network and ask if they know anyone that is looking for a job change. Provide them with two great qualities of the role and manager.

2. Previous employers: Contact any good developers from your network to see if they are looking for a new opportunity.

3. LinkedIn outreach: Believe it or not, this strategy works! Find a reputable company who has good hiring/screening practices. Reach out to their developers too. Perhaps someone wants to work in a new and exciting company - so it's worth a shot. Aim to message 100 people, as 20 will respond, 10 will talk to you, and one may convert. Make sure the CTO is the one to contact them.

I reached out to all good devs I have known and worked with. Most of them weren’t looking for a change, but they helped me a lot in providing referrals. Some of them joined Akto. I also cold-messaged quite a few devs on LinkedIn to tell about Akto’s vision and achievements. 20% responded and were open to a call.

How to keep getting them in the longer run?

We can't rely on the above methods alone; they may not be as effective 3 months down the line. A good approach is to build a pipeline of developers.

1. Stay in contact with everyone you spoke to in the points above. They may not be ready to join you yet, but one day they may become unhappy with their current job and you should be the first company that comes to mind.

2. Post interesting tech-related content on your company's or founder's LinkedIn profile. Any good tech blog will pick up on such posts, and if it seems impressive enough, they may become more interested.

3. Recruit a skilled intern from universities such as IIIT, BITS etc. A single good intern can spread the word to their college and encourage more of their friends to join you. We have had five interns at Akto, two of which are now full-time employees. Even if they haven't graduated, they can gain lots of valuable experience.

4. Handle applicants who are desperate for a job carefully. In this tough market, they should not join you just because they need a job, they should join because they believe in the cause. You need to be aware of the fact that they may leave once the market improves and they can get a better salary.

We regularly post technical blogs on LinkedIn and Twitter on APIs, API Security and handling scale. We used LinkedIn & Cuvette (https://cuvette.tech) to hire interns. I have received some calls back from candidates who weren’t ready earlier, but now want to join Akto.