5 Mistakes Pre-Seed Startups Make When Hiring Their First Engineers
I know a founder with burning eyes and a burned-out product.
He has a brilliant idea, first customers, funding in hand. And a senior developer who spent six months writing 50,000 lines of code... that nobody can maintain, including himself. Sound familiar?
Your first engineers aren't just developers. They're the foundation of your entire future architecture, culture, and growth velocity. A mistake at this stage costs more than money - it costs you time to market, team morale, and sometimes the entire startup. In my 10 years working with early-stage projects, I've seen the same patterns over and over. Here are five mistakes almost every pre-seed startup makes when hiring their first engineers - and how to avoid them.
Mistake #1: Hiring a Big Tech Leader Instead of a Startup Person
How it usually happens:
You open LinkedIn, see a resume with Google, Amazon, or a major bank logo and think: "That's our person!". Three rounds of interviews, offer accepted, and a month later you realize your new CTO is trying to play by big company rules in a three-person startup.
Why this is a problem:
A corporate leader excels at working within established frameworks. They have great code review skills in a team of 15 developers. They know how to coordinate architecture through three approval stages. But in a startup, you need to build a product from scratch, make decisions under uncertainty, and wear five hats simultaneously.
Plus, a corporate leader is used to resources - a DevOps team, QA department, a product manager who writes detailed requirements. In a startup, all these roles are them.
What to do instead:
Look for people with early-stage startup experience or those who launched their own projects (even unsuccessful ones—in startups, failure experience is worth its weight in gold). During interviews, ask questions not just about technologies, but about situations they've faced:
"Tell me about a project where you had to launch an MVP in a month with minimal resources"
"How do you make decisions when there's not enough data?"
"Give an example when you deliberately chose a poor solution for the sake of speed"
The right candidate won't talk about perfect architecture. They'll tell you about launching a working product on a shoestring and then refactoring as it grew.
Mistake #2: Choosing Engineers by Stack Rather Than Problem-Solving Ability
What happens:
You have a mindset: "We need a React/Node/PostgreSQL developer" - and you filter out everyone else. You find a candidate who perfectly knows your stack, hire them... and three months later realize they can write code but can't solve business problems.
Why this is a problem:
At the pre-seed stage, your tech stack will change 10 times over. What seems like the perfect choice today might become a bottleneck tomorrow. But you know what won't change? The need to solve customer problems quickly and effectively.
A developer who only knows one stack and isn't ready to grow will get stuck. And you'll get stuck with them when you need to pivot or scale in an unexpected direction.
What to do instead:
Hire problem solvers, not code writers. Give them a real business challenge during the interview:
"We have 1000 users complaining about slow dashboard loading. Infrastructure budget is $500/month, time to fix is one week. What will you do?"
The right candidate will start asking questions: where's the bottleneck? can we redesign the UX? what if we cache it? The wrong one will immediately suggest buying a more powerful server or rewriting everything in Go.
Look at fundamental principles: does the person understand architecture, can they debug, can they quickly figure out unfamiliar code? A specific programming language is a matter of a couple weeks for a good engineer, especially today, with AI technology development.
Mistake #3: Making Hiring Decisions Without Technical Expertise
What happens:
You're a non-technical founder. The candidate talks about microservices, Kubernetes, and event-driven architecture. Sounds impressive. You nod, smile, and make an offer. A month later, your simple CRUD app lives in 15 containers, and you don't understand why.
Why this is a problem:
Technically savvy people can easily impress with smart words. But the difference between a good and bad engineer is hundreds of thousands of dollars and months of time. Without expertise, you can't tell over-engineering from proper architecture, or a brilliant developer from a good self-promoter.
I've seen startups that hired "blockchain experts" for a regular SaaS. Projects with machine learning where simple statistics would suffice. GraphQL APIs for an application with three endpoints.
What to do instead:
If you don't have a technical co-founder - find a technical consultant for the hiring process. This could be:
- A Fractional CTO (hello! 👋) who conducts the technical interview
- An experienced developer from your network you trust
- Even just a senior developer friend willing to help for a symbolic fee
Ask them to pose practical questions and evaluate not only WHAT the candidate says, but HOW they explain it. A good engineer can explain complex things in simple language. If something's unclear to you - that's a red flag.
And give a test assignment. Not an abstract "write a sorting algorithm," but a real mini-version of your task. And definitely ask them to explain the logic of their solution - how the candidate made decisions, what tradeoffs they made.
Mistake #4: Trying to Hire a Senior on a Junior Budget
What happens:
The job posting sounds something like: "Looking for a full-stack developer with knowledge of React, Node.js, Python, DevOps, UI/UX design, analytics setup skills, machine learning experience, and preferably experience in our business domain. Experience: 5+ years. Salary: equity + $30k/year."
Why this is a problem:
Such people exist. And they cost $200k+ per year. Or they've already launched their own startup. Those who respond to such postings at minimal compensation usually either can't do any of it well, or greatly overestimate their skills.
You spend months searching while the market goes to competitors. Or you hire someone "similar" who promises to learn everything on the fly, then fails at all tasks simultaneously.
What to do instead:
Identify your single critical technology bottleneck. Not three, not five - just one.
- Need to quickly launch an MVP? Look for a versatile full-stack developer
- Performance is critical? Get a backend specialist, and cover the frontend temporarily with no-code solutions or AI-generated interfaces
- The main thing now is integrations with external systems? Look for someone with API design experience
Offer fair compensation. If budget is limited - offer significant equity with a clear company growth plan. Or look for a part-time specialist for the first months. Or consider a fractional model until you can afford a full-time specialist.
Remember: one experienced specialist who solves the key problem is better than a fictional generalist who "can do everything."
Mistake #5: Underestimating Cultural Fit
What happens:
You found an excellent developer. They write great code, understand architecture, but they're used to working in complete silence from 10 PM to 4 AM, don't like meetings (at all), despise sales ("that's not my thing"), and think all non-technical team members are useless baggage.
Why this is a problem:
In a 3-5 person startup, there's no room for lone wolves. Your first engineer will interact with founders every day. They'll communicate with first customers. They might need to present the product to investors. They'll become part of the company culture - or destroy it before it even forms.
I've seen startups that fell apart not because of a bad product, but because of a toxic first engineer who divided the team into "smart" and everyone else.
What to do instead:
Check cultural fit as carefully as technical skills:
- Hold an informal meeting with the whole team, not just a technical interview
- Discuss work habits: when is the person productive? How do they prefer to communicate?
- Ask about experience working with non-technical stakeholders
- Give a small test project with quick feedback - see how the person reacts to criticism and changing requirements
Ask directly: "Why specifically a startup? Why not a big stable company?". The right answer won't be about money or fancy words about "innovation." The right answer is about energy, speed, and desire to impact the product.
And most importantly - trust your gut. If something bothers you, even if technically everything's perfect - dig deeper. Your first engineer is almost like a co-founder. The chemistry should be there.
So What Should You Do?
Your first technical hire isn't a sprint, it's a marathon. Don't try to close the position in a week. Better to spend two months finding the right person than six months fixing the consequences of hiring the wrong one.
Here's a checklist for hiring your first engineer at a pre-seed startup:
- ✅ Startup mindset is better than corporate experience
- ✅ Problem-solving ability is better than knowledge of a specific stack
- ✅ Technical validation of the candidate (even if you're a non-technical founder)
- ✅ Realistic expectations for compensation and skills
- ✅ Cultural fit as a critical factor
And remember: if you feel you need help evaluating candidates, building a technical strategy, or just a second opinion - that's normal. Most successful founders surround themselves with experts precisely in areas where they have gaps.
Want more practical insights on building technology teams and products?
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