Hiring Your First Engineer

Contractor First, Then Full-Time

Before you commit to a $160,000 salary plus equity, spend three months with a contractor. The contractor-first rule exists because most early-stage startups hire too fast: they bring on a senior full-time engineer before product-market fit is clear, burn through runway, and then face an agonising layoff conversation six months later. A 3-month paid contract lets you evaluate the engineer's code quality, communication style, and ability to work autonomously under real conditions — conditions no interview can simulate.

The transition from contractor to full-time should be triggered by one event: consistent product velocity that you can't sustain alone. If your contractor is shipping features, unblocking you, and asking smart questions about architecture decisions, that's the signal. If after three months you're still rewriting their pull requests, you've avoided an expensive mistake without ever opening a PayPal dispute.

Writing the Job Description

"Ninja rockstar developer" is a joke now, but the underlying problem — vague, inflated job descriptions — still dominates startup hiring. A useful job description names the exact stack: Next.js 15, PostgreSQL, TypeScript, with prior experience in row-level security or Stripe integration if those are core to your product. Candidates filter themselves when they see specifics; they apply in bulk when they see "passionate team player with 5+ years."

Beyond the stack, your description should state what the engineer will own in the first 90 days — not a list of duties, but one or two outcomes. "Own the migration from our monolith to a modular architecture by Q3" tells a candidate whether this role is interesting to them. "Be responsible for back-end systems" tells them nothing. Include the salary band openly; job postings with a stated range receive 30–40% more qualified applications and avoid wasting both sides' time in late-stage offer negotiation.

Technical Interview Structure

LeetCode puzzles don't predict whether someone can debug a race condition in a Next.js API route at 11pm on a Friday. A take-home test capped at three hours — building a small feature that resembles actual work at your company — evaluates the skills that matter: code organisation, error handling, documentation, and judgment about what to skip. Send it with the same brief a real colleague would receive.

Follow the take-home with a 45-minute system design conversation and a 30-minute culture-fit discussion. The system design question doesn't need to involve distributed systems at Netflix scale; ask the candidate to design a feature you're actually planning, such as a notification system with user preferences. The culture-fit session should probe for autonomy: "Describe a time you made a technical decision without asking for permission." Candidates who can answer that question concretely tend to survive startup environments; candidates who can't usually need more structure than you can provide.

Compensation and Equity

In 2026, a mid-level full-stack engineer in the US commands $120,000–$160,000 base; a senior engineer with five or more years of relevant experience expects $160,000–$220,000 or more. Use Levels.fyi, LinkedIn Salary, and Radford surveys to anchor your offer — Glassdoor is directionally useful but tends to lag six to twelve months behind market moves. Don't guess; underbidding by $20,000 at offer stage kills good candidates who have a competing offer in hand.

For equity, the standard for the first five engineers is 0.5–1.5% options each, structured on a four-year vest with a one-year cliff. The cliff matters: it prevents an engineer who leaves after eight months from walking away with a significant stake. When you present the offer, show both the current value and a 3× growth scenario so the candidate can make an informed comparison against a competing cash offer. Transparency about valuation methodology builds trust and reduces the chance they feel misled when dilution happens at Series A.

Frequently Asked Questions

Should I hire a generalist or a specialist as my first engineer? For most early-stage products, a generalist full-stack engineer is the right first hire. You need someone who can ship a feature from database schema to UI without blocking on a missing specialist. Specialists become valuable once volume justifies depth — typically after your second or third engineering hire.

How do I evaluate code quality in a take-home test? Look at four things: folder structure and naming conventions, error handling (does the code crash or recover gracefully?), test coverage if any was included, and the git commit history. A candidate who makes small, descriptive commits during a take-home is demonstrating the same discipline they'll show in production code.

What equity percentage is fair for a founding engineer joining pre-seed? 1.0–1.5% on a four-year vest with a one-year cliff is the common range for a founding engineer joining before the first funding round. Engineers joining after a seed round typically receive 0.25–0.75%. These numbers shift with the valuation and how much cash compensation is being offered below market rate.

Can I hire internationally to reduce salary costs? Yes, but factor in the overhead: contractors in different jurisdictions require different contracts, tax treatment, and payment infrastructure. Platforms like Deel and Remote handle the compliance, typically for $35–$100 per employee per month. Senior engineers in Eastern Europe and Latin America often command $60,000–$100,000 for comparable skills, which can extend your runway meaningfully.

When should I hire a second engineer? When the first engineer is consistently blocked waiting for your input rather than blocked by technical complexity, you need a second engineer. A healthy early engineering team has work queued up, not engineers waiting. If your first hire is finishing features faster than you can specify the next ones, it's time to hire.