Overview
Your first engineering hire isn't just a developer—they're your founding technical partner who will shape everything that follows. This person will:
- Set technical direction — Choose your stack, architecture, and coding standards
- Define engineering culture — Their habits become team habits
- Recruit future engineers — Great engineers attract great engineers
- Translate tech to business — Explain tradeoffs to non-technical founders
- Do everything — Frontend, backend, infrastructure, support
The wrong first hire can set you back 6-12 months through technical debt and culture problems. The right one accelerates everything: they ship your MVP, help you raise funding, and hire the team that scales the company. Take this hire seriously—it may be the most important non-founder decision you make.
Who You Actually Need
The Profile: "Full-Stack Generalist with Founder Mentality"
Your first engineer should be:
Technically broad, not deep
- Can touch frontend, backend, databases, and basic infrastructure
- Comfortable learning new technologies quickly
- Prioritizes "good enough" over "perfect"
A builder, not an optimizer
- Has shipped products from 0 → 1
- Comfortable with ambiguity and changing requirements
- Makes pragmatic tradeoffs (speed vs. quality)
A communicator
- Can explain technical decisions to non-technical founders
- Writes clear documentation
- Asks questions instead of making assumptions
Aligned with your mission
- Excited about your problem space
- Willing to work through uncertainty
- Sees upside in equity and growth potential
Common Founder Mistakes
1. Hiring for Your Dream Stack
You don't need a Kubernetes expert when you have 100 users. Hire for where you are, not where you hope to be in 3 years.
What happens: You hire a senior infrastructure engineer from AWS who's used to building at massive scale. They spend 3 months setting up "proper" infrastructure when you needed an MVP shipped yesterday.
Better approach: Hire someone who's comfortable shipping fast with simple tools. You can always add complexity later.
2. Over-Indexing on FAANG Experience
A Google engineer who worked on one small feature in a 500-person team may struggle in a startup where they need to own everything.
What happens: They're used to clear requirements, code review processes, and specialized roles. Your chaos paralyzes them.
Better approach: Look for startup or small company experience. Someone who's shipped a product as part of a 3-5 person team is more valuable than someone who contributed to a Google product with 200 engineers.
3. Skipping the Culture Conversation
Your first hire sets the tone. If they're brilliant but toxic, your next 10 hires will inherit that culture—or won't stay.
What happens: You hire a fast coder who dismisses feedback, works in silos, and creates a hostile environment. Your second hire quits in 3 months.
Better approach: Explicitly interview for communication, collaboration, and how they handle disagreements. Check references specifically on these traits.
4. Not Offering Enough Equity
Your first engineer is taking a massive risk joining your unproven company. Salary alone won't attract the best.
What happens: You offer $150K salary + 0.1% equity. Strong candidates take better offers. You settle for someone who just needed any job.
Better approach: 1-2% equity is typical for first engineers at pre-seed/seed companies. The equity should feel meaningful.
What to Offer
Compensation Benchmarks (2026)
| Stage | Salary Range | Equity Range |
|---|---|---|
| Pre-seed | $100-140K | 1.5-3% |
| Seed | $120-160K | 1-2% |
| Series A | $140-180K | 0.5-1.5% |
Notes:
- Bay Area and NYC command 15-20% premium
- Remote positions can find strong candidates 10-20% lower
- Equity vests over 4 years with 1-year cliff (standard)
What Strong Candidates Look For
- Equity that matters — Not 0.1% in an overvalued company
- Technical autonomy — Freedom to choose tools and approaches
- Meaningful work — Problems worth solving
- Growth potential — Path to engineering leader/CTO
- Founders they respect — People they want to work with
The Interview Process
Keep It Fast (2-3 weeks max)
Strong first-engineer candidates have options. A drawn-out process loses them.
Recommended process:
- Intro call (30 min) — Culture fit, mutual interest
- Technical conversation (60 min) — Past projects, problem-solving approach
- Practical exercise (2-3 hours, take-home OR pair programming) — Build something small
- Founder deep dive (60 min) — Vision alignment, expectations, offer discussion
What to Evaluate
| Area | Questions to Ask | Red Flags |
|---|---|---|
| Breadth | "What's the full stack of the last thing you shipped?" | Only knows one area deeply |
| Speed | "How long did it take to ship?" | Can't ship without perfect conditions |
| Ownership | "What decisions did you make?" | Always followed others' direction |
| Communication | "Explain [technical concept] to me like I'm non-technical" | Can't simplify complex topics |
| Motivation | "Why a startup? Why us?" | Looking for stability, not mission |
Where to Find Candidates
Best Sources (for first hires)
- Your network — Ask everyone: "Who's the best engineer you've worked with?"
- Founder communities — YC, Indie Hackers, On Deck often have hiring channels
- Angel investors — They often know engineers looking for startup opportunities
- daily.dev — Developers who are actively learning are often open to new challenges
- Twitter/X — Post authentically about what you're building; engineers follow
Avoid (for first hires)
- Traditional recruiters — Expensive and often don't understand startup needs
- Job boards — Volume of unqualified applicants
- Offshore development shops — You need someone embedded, not contracted