Hiring your first engineers without a recruiter

Introduction

As a startup CTO or engineering leader, hiring your first engineers is a critical step that will shape the technical foundation and culture of your company. Without a dedicated recruiter, this process falls squarely on your shoulders—adding another responsibility to your already full plate of product development, architecture decisions, and technical leadership.

This guide will walk you through a structured approach to hiring your first engineers efficiently while maintaining your primary responsibilities. I'll cover everything from preparing your hiring strategy to successfully onboarding your new team members.

Understanding the Time Investment

Before diving into the hiring process, it's important to set realistic expectations about the time commitment:

Engineering leaders typically spend 30-40% of their time on hiring during active recruitment phases. This includes:

• 5-10 hours per week reviewing applications and conducting initial screenings

• 2-4 hours per strong candidate on technical interviews

• 3-5 hours per week on networking and outreach

• 1-2 hours per week refining job descriptions and hiring materials

Laying the Groundwork: Pre-Hiring Preparation

Define Your Technical Needs and Priorities

Start by answering these fundamental questions:

1. What specific technical skills do you need immediately vs. what can be learned on the job?

2. Are you looking for specialists or generalists at this stage?

3. What level of experience is truly necessary for your current challenges?

4. How will these first hires complement your own technical strengths and weaknesses?

Create Compelling Job Descriptions

Your job descriptions should:

• Clearly articulate the technical challenges candidates will tackle

• Highlight your company's mission and the impact engineers will have

• Be specific about required technical skills without creating an unrealistic "unicorn" description

• Include information about your engineering culture and values

• Specify the interview process so candidates know what to expect

Set Up Your Hiring Infrastructure

Establish the basic tools you'll need:

• An Applicant Tracking System (ATS) to organize candidates

• A structured evaluation framework with clear criteria

• Technical assessment methods (take-home challenges, pair programming exercises, etc.)

• Interview templates and scorecards

• A collaborative decision-making process with other stakeholders

Sourcing Candidates Effectively

Leverage Your Network

Your personal and professional network is your most valuable asset when hiring without a recruiter:

• Reach out directly to former colleagues who impressed you

• Ask for introductions to promising engineers from trusted contacts

• Be specific when asking for referrals—describe exactly what you're looking for

• Offer referral bonuses to incentivize your network to help

Optimize Your Presence on Hiring Platforms

Create compelling company profiles on platforms where engineers are active:

• WellFound (formerly AngelList Talent): Complete your company profile with details about your mission, funding, and engineering challenges

• GitHub: Share open-source projects or technical blog posts

• LinkedIn: Post regularly about engineering challenges your team is solving

• Stack Overflow Jobs: Target developers with specific technical expertise

• HackerNews: Participate in "Who's Hiring" monthly threads

Using Yogen to Streamline Your Hiring Process

Yogen (getyogen.com) can be particularly valuable for engineering leaders without recruiting support:

• Use Yogen's automated sourcing to find engineers with specific technical skills, reducing manual search time

• Leverage their AI-powered matching to surface candidates that fit your specific requirements

• Take advantage of Yogen's scheduling features to coordinate interviews efficiently

• Track candidate progression through your pipeline with minimal administrative overhead

• Utilize analytics to understand what's working in your hiring process

Engage with Technical Communities

Building relationships within technical communities can create a steady pipeline of candidates:

• Participate in or sponsor local tech meetups

• Contribute to open source projects relevant to your stack

• Host or speak at webinars about interesting technical challenges

• Create content that showcases your engineering approach

• Offer to mentor developers in adjacent technical areas

The Interview Process

Technical Screening Optimization

As a CTO with limited time, make your technical screening efficient:

• Use a brief (30-45 minute) initial call to assess basic technical alignment and communication skills

• Consider asynchronous assessments like short take-home challenges (limit to 2-3 hours)

• Focus technical questions on fundamentals rather than trivia

• Look for problem-solving approaches rather than perfect solutions

Conducting Effective Technical Interviews

When you do invest time in interviews, make them count:

• Structure interviews around real problems your company faces

• Use collaborative coding sessions to observe how candidates think and work

• Assess technical depth in areas critical to your current challenges

• Evaluate how candidates handle feedback and ambiguity

• Include cross-functional stakeholders to get diverse perspectives

Evaluating Culture Fit vs. Culture Add

While technical skills are crucial, consider how each hire will shape your engineering culture:

• Look for candidates who bring new perspectives to complement your own

• Assess collaboration style and communication preferences

• Evaluate how they approach learning and knowledge sharing

• Consider their potential to grow with your company

• Be conscious of unconscious bias in your "gut feeling" assessments

Making Competitive Offers Without a Massive Budget

Structuring Compensation Packages

Startups often can't compete on salary alone:

• Research current market rates using resources like levels.fyi and Glassdoor

• Develop transparent equity packages that reflect meaningful ownership

• Consider flexible work arrangements as part of your compensation strategy

• Offer learning stipends or conference budgets to appeal to growth-oriented engineers

• Emphasize the accelerated career trajectory possible at a growing startup

Communicating Your Value Proposition

When extending offers, clearly articulate the full value:

• Quantify the potential value of equity over time

• Highlight the unique learning opportunities at your stage

• Emphasize the direct impact engineers will have on product and technical decisions

• Discuss your vision for how the role will evolve as the company grows

• Share concrete examples of how previous team members have grown professionally

Onboarding for Success

Creating an Engineering Onboarding Process

A strong onboarding experience sets the tone for your engineering culture:

• Prepare a structured first-week plan with clear goals and expectations

• Assign meaningful initial projects that provide context and quick wins

• Schedule regular 1:1s during the first month to provide feedback and support

• Create documentation of key systems and processes

• Establish mentorship relationships with existing team members or yourself

Setting Expectations and Success Metrics

Be clear about what success looks like:

• Define 30/60/90 day goals and expectations

• Establish communication norms and feedback mechanisms

• Clarify decision-making authority and escalation paths

• Set up regular check-ins to assess progress and provide course corrections

• Create a culture of continuous learning and improvement

Managing Your Time Effectively During Hiring

Blocking Focused Hiring Time

Protect your calendar to make hiring efficient:

• Block 2-hour chunks 2-3 times per week specifically for hiring activities

• Batch similar tasks (e.g., resume reviews, initial calls) to minimize context switching

• Consider dedicating specific days of the week to interviews

• Use tools like Calendly to streamline scheduling

• Delegate non-essential tasks to free up bandwidth for hiring

Leveraging Other Team Members

Even without a recruiter, you don't have to do everything alone:

• Involve other founders or team members in cultural interviews

• Ask technical advisors to conduct specialized technical assessments

• Consider hiring contract recruiters for discrete phases of the process

• Use services like Yogen to automate parts of the candidate sourcing and evaluation

• Create simple processes others can follow to help with screening

Measuring Hiring Success

Key Metrics to Track

Evaluate the effectiveness of your hiring process:

• Time-to-hire for each role

• Offer acceptance rate

• Source effectiveness (which channels produce your best hires)

• New hire performance at 3/6/12 months

• Team diversity and inclusion metrics

• Candidate experience feedback

Iterating on Your Process

Use data to continuously improve:

• Review what's working and what's not after each hire

• Solicit feedback from candidates about their experience

• Analyze where high-quality candidates are dropping off

• Refine job descriptions based on what resonates with successful hires

• Document your evolving process for future scaling

Conclusion

Hiring your first engineers without a dedicated recruiter is undoubtedly challenging, but it's also an opportunity to establish the foundation for your engineering culture. By approaching hiring systematically, leveraging the right tools like Yogen, and making efficient use of your limited time, you can build a strong initial team that will help drive your startup's technical success.

Remember that hiring is not just about filling positions—it's about finding the right partners for your startup journey. Each early hire will significantly shape your product, architecture, and company culture for years to come, making this investment of your time one of the most important contributions you'll make as a technical leader.