Hiring Your Founding Engineer: A Practical Guide for Tech Founders
Your first technical hire - or founding engineering team - will be one of the most pivotal decisions you make as a tech-led start-up. This hire sets the tone for your team, defines your early technical direction, and plays a key role in accelerating – or potentially hindering – your product’s development.
There’s no one-size-fits-all. The ideal candidate could come from a range of backgrounds, each bringing unique strengths and experiences to the table.
In this guide, we’ve shared insights from working with companies across industries to help you make this critical hire. You’ll find advice on identifying the right time to hire your first engineer, crafting a job ad that resonates with candidates at your business stage, what an equity package should look like, and avoiding common pitfalls that can derail the process.
When should you make your first technical hire?
Your founding engineer will be one of your earliest hires and a pivotal player in shaping your product and company culture. They’ll not only establish the technical foundation of your start-up but also influence how your future team operates, and impact the quality of talent you’ll attract down the line.
A successful founding engineer hire can:
- Accelerate product development.
- Improve scalability and technical quality.
- Build a collaborative, mission-driven culture.
- Attract top talent for your future tech team.
- Grow into a mentor and potentially lead your tech function.
Timing is key—you need to find the right balance between hiring too early, which could distract you from your priorities, and waiting too long, which could create a skills gap that slows your growth.
Once you decide it’s time to hire, make it a priority. Understand your needs, define your goals, and approach the process thoughtfully. A poorly planned hiring process can harm the candidate experience, damage your reputation in the market, and ultimately cost you more time and resources.
Some key timing indicators could include:
- You’ve raised funding: You’ve recently raised pre-seed or seed funding, giving you the resources to start building your product.
- You’re stretched thin: Your founders are pulled in too many directions to focus on coding, so it’s time to bring in someone to handle the hands-on technical work.
- Your processes are breaking: Your current tools or tech stack can’t keep up with the workload, and you need scalable solutions to support growth.
- Your roadmap requires technical expertise: If your goals demand skills beyond the capabilities of your existing team, it’s time to grow.
Tip: If you’re not ready for a full-time hire, consider a fractional CTO or technical advisor to guide your early decisions.
The hidden costs of hiring
For a hire like this, start with your immediate network—referrals from investors, your team, or trusted peers. Ask for introductions to people they trust and rate highly.
If this doesn’t work, the time spent on outreach, interviews, and admin can quickly pull your founders or exec team away from critical priorities like product development or engaging with customers.
Outsourcing to an agency saves time and ensures focus. A good agency doesn’t just find candidates—they'll be well positioned to help refine your talent strategy, define your EVP, and target the right profile for your business goals.
Our clients choose us for founding engineer roles because of our warm, trusted database of candidates and our ability to deliver highly relevant shortlists quickly.
Do we need a Founding Engineer or CTO?
The right hire depends on your current needs, the maturity of your business, and your long-term vision. While a founding engineer is focused on hands-on building and executing your technical foundation, a CTO typically steps in when strategic leadership and a scaling roadmap are required.
If you’re early in your journey, a founding engineer is likely a better fit. Reserve the CTO title for when your team and roadmap require strategic leadership.
Avoid inflating job titles too soon. Giving someone the CTO title prematurely can create challenges as the role evolves. They may struggle to meet the growing demands, and hiring someone above them later can lead to complications with responsibilities, equity, and salaries.
Core responsibilities of a Founding Engineer
The specific responsibilities of a founding engineer will vary depending on the size, team structure, and mission of your organisation. However, some common core responsibilities include:
- Product Development and Scaling:
- Build, refine, and scale the MVP into a fully functional, user-ready product.
- Design the technical architecture and ensure the product is built for scalability and growth.
- Technical Ownership:
- Take responsibility for the platform's architecture, stability, and resilience.
- Implement and maintain a competitive, up-to-date tech stack.
- Rapid Prototyping and User Feedback:
- Develop and iterate on new features quickly to gather and act on user feedback.
- Establish feedback loops for continuous product improvement.
- Collaboration and Vision Alignment:
- Work closely with the founding team to align technical efforts with business objectives.
- Shape the technical roadmap and contribute to product vision and design.
- Hands-On Development:
- Write clean, maintainable, and scalable code across the full stack.
- Balance rapid development with long-term code quality.
- Adaptability and Problem Solving:
- Operate independently in a fast-changing environment with minimal guidance.
- Take initiative to address challenges and build solutions proactively.
Key traits to look for in a Founding Engineer
Alongside having the right technical skills, your founding engineer will need to be someone who aligns with your mission and can thrive in a startup environment.
Cultural and Mission Alignment:
- Believes in your mission and aligns with your vision.
- Plays a big part in setting the tone for your company culture and works well with the team.
Versatile Skillset:
- A generalist with cross-functional expertise across backend, frontend, and full stack.
- Strong ability to take projects from 0→1, owning end-to-end development.
Startup Mindset:
- Thrives in ambiguity and adapts to a fast-paced, ever-changing environment.
- Entrepreneurial, proactive, and focused on getting things done.
Product-Driven:
- Understands the impact of technical decisions on the end user.
- Balances speed and quality, shipping products quickly while ensuring maintainability.
Proven Builder:
- Experience building products from the ground up.
- A track record of planning, designing, and executing complex projects independently.
Strong Communicator:
- Effectively communicates technical concepts and collaborates with non-technical stakeholders.
Passion and Curiosity:
- Truly passionate about coding, with a willingness to go the extra mile to solve problems.
- Interest in AI and LLMs, reflecting current trends in founding engineer roles.
Red Flags to Avoid:
- Overreliance on specific tech stacks.
- Lack of adaptability or autonomy.
- Overemphasis on past big-name employers instead of relevant experience.
- Poor personal fit. You’ll be working closely with this person—they need to be someone you genuinely gel with and trust as a key part of your team, so go with your gut instinct.
People have different motivations, so it’s important to tailor the development path of the role to the individual. You might hire someone with leadership potential who could grow into managing and mentoring a team. Alternatively, you may find an engineer who’s deeply technical and product-focused, preferring to remain hands-on as an IC as the team grows.
The title of Founding Engineer can carry a certain weight, so if you’re worried about narrowing your pool, consider advertising the role as a Lead Engineer to broaden your reach.
In most cases, you’re looking for someone who’s genuinely excited about building from scratch—taking something from 0 to 1. This doesn’t necessarily mean creating an entire product but could involve developing a core feature or functionality within an existing product. You want someone who’s gone to the customer to identify bottlenecks, understood their needs, built a proof of concept, and then developed scalable software. It’s crucial that your Founding Engineer can think long-term and build with scalability in mind.
Attracting the right candidate: Tips for writing a job ad
Writing a job spec should always start with an honest evaluation of your business. Reflect on where you are now and where you want to go. Founders often have a different perception of their business compared to the reality of day-to-day operations, so it’s important to make sure your vision aligns with the business’ reality.
Your job ad is the shop window for your company—it needs to grab attention while setting clear expectations. Start by identifying your must-haves versus nice-to-haves and focus on what your business really needs, rather than chasing the best person on the market. Take a moment for a reality and ego check. Staying true to your values will help you find the right person who fits your team and mission.
While being aspirational is important, make sure candidates clearly understand your current state, future goals, and the challenges that lie ahead. Be transparent about the projects this hire will be coming in to work on straight away, and frame aspirations as future milestones—whether they’re 3, 6, or 12 months away.
Misleading candidates into thinking they’re joining a team that’s further along than it is will just lead to disengagement, premature turnover, and you’ll be back where you started trying to find a new hire. Honesty from the outset is key. It’s better to hire no one than to bring on the wrong person.
Do:
- Highlight your mission and how the role contributes to it.
- Focus on the impact of the role rather than a laundry list of technical skills.
- Be transparent about current challenges and future aspirations.
- Decide on salary expectations and be upfront on this from the start – it will save you lots of time interviewing people who are very under or over budget. Check out our latest Salary Guide for insights into the current market rates for Founding Engineers.
Don’t:
- Create a “unicorn” role with unrealistic requirements.
- Use excessive jargon or buzzwords that can put off qualified candidates.
What does a competitive equity package look like?
When structuring an equity package for a Founding Engineer in the UK, it’s important to strike the right balance between fairness and competitiveness, considering the role’s strategic importance and the stage of your business.
Typically, equity for a Founding Engineer ranges between 0.5% and 2%, depending on factors like the company’s valuation, funding stage, and the engineer’s level of responsibility and experience. The package should include a vesting schedule (usually over four years with a one-year cliff) to ensure long-term commitment. To make the offer more attractive, include provisions like equity refreshers or milestone bonuses tied to growth achievements.
Clear communication about the potential value of the equity, such as its worth at exit or a liquidity event, is essential to help the candidate understand the upside of joining your business at this early stage.
Check out Index Ventures for some more advice: Founders Guide to Stock Options
Common pitfalls to avoid
- Misaligned Expectations: Be honest about the role’s challenges and aspirations.
- Settling for Mediocre Candidates: A bad hire can slow you down more than no hire at all.
- Focusing Solely on Technical Skills: Soft skills, communication, and cultural alignment are equally important.
- Don’t assume that offer accepted = position filled. Recruiting never stops at offer accepted. Your onboarding process needs to start as soon as you’ve had a verbal acceptance on your offer. Read our blog on how to reduce post-offer drop outs for tips on what this should look like.
Hiring your first founding engineer is a critical step that will shape your startup’s trajectory. Take the time to define your needs, prioritise cultural fit, and move quickly but thoughtfully.
If you need support finding the right candidate or refining your hiring strategy, we’re here to help. Get in touch to learn more about how we can connect you with the right talent to drive your business forwards.