FounderMail 6th Edition: How to Build and Scale a Startup Engineering Team
👋 Hey there! I’m Ilan. This is FounderMail by Unstacked Startups, your monthly dose of startup insights that helps founders hire top talent, raise capital, and stay informed. Building the future? A killer engineering team is a must. Let’s jump in!
First time? Let us introduce ourselves…
Unstacked Startups is building a community of tech founders, early employees, leaders, and VCs uncovering the 'secret sauce' to startup growth. We want to share the insights with you through real conversations on our podcast (subscribe on YouTube or Spotify) live events, and our newsletter FounderMail.
In This Edition:
Shower Thoughts: Beware of the “Meh” Hire
What’s Got Our Attention
Unstacked Podcast: Khang Tran, SVP Engineering at Goodwater Capital
The MVP Play with Oban MacTavish, Co-Founder & CEO at Spade
Unstacked Perspectives: The Guide for Building Early Eng Teams
Shower Thoughts
Soak up insights from our network’s top investors, founders and tech influencers.
Picture this: your engineering team is evaluating a candidate, and while there are no glaring red flags, no one is strongly advocating for them and you make the hire. Congratulations, you’ve just made a meh hire.
Every founder has seen this scenario play out but in a startup engineering team, it’s detrimental. Opting for quality over speed never fails. So, why aim for the moon when it comes to hiring?
Lowering the coding quality and overall standards has a ripple effect downstream. Reversing poor technical work and habits is hard to undo.
It’s costly - Just ask Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh who once estimated bad hires had cost the company "well over $100 million."
Bad for morale - Poor-quality work burdens the entire team, fueling disengagement that can run rampant.
How to tilt the odds in your favour?
Create an engineering cultural manifesto to guide your engineers during interviews and minimize the risk of hiring candidates who are merely 'startup curious’.
Bonus: Listen to Khang Tran on the latest Unstacked Podcast episode (and check out the recap below) as he dives deep into the importance of establishing an engineering startup culture.
TL;DR: Building an early engineering team shouldn't be put on autopilot. Approach it with care and intentionality, and you'll avoid the meh hire.
What’s Got Our Attention
The latest startup news and research you can’t afford to miss.
Soft Skills > Technical Skills (The Future of Jobs Report 2023, World Economic Forum)
Are You Aquaman, The Flash, The Priest, The Spielberg, or The Paladin? (Lloyd Tabb, Looker CTO/Founder for First Round Review)
“2024 will prove that technical hiring is still very much alive and well” says CoderPad CEO (Forbes)
Everyone say hi your new team member, Devin (Cognition Labs)
Unstacked Startups Podcast Recap
Check out our favorite insights from a recent episode of the Unstacked Startups Podcast. Every episode, Unstacked host, Ilan Saks, chats with startup founders, early employees, leaders, and VCs to uncover the 'secret sauce' of startup growth.
KHANG TRAN
In the words of Unstacked Startups Podcast Host, Ilan Saks, Khang Tran has “built some of the most killer engineering teams that have ever existed”.
Here’s a preview of just some of the wisdom the SVP of Engineering at Goodwater Capital shared with us.
Key Lessons
Engineering leaders can drive growth, innovation, and ultimately achieve success in the competitive world of tech startups by building and maintaining strong teams BUT:
You can't build a dream team without a solid foundation. That means laying down the groundwork – from understanding different engineering levels to defining comp bands.
From an engineering perspective (well across the board really) culture often needs some serious TLC. Use culture as a way to help people make decisions. By establishing a strong culture, leaders can guide their teams towards making decisions that are in line with the organization's values and priorities. Plus, culture scales well.
There's nothing worse than an engineering leader or any kind of leader who's not working very closely with the recruiting team because you're not going to end up getting what you want.
The MVP Play
Unlocking the playbooks of startup MVPs, one question at a time.
Checking into the game? For this edition, we chatted with Oban MacTavish Co-Founder and CEO at Spade!
MOTIVATION
Why are you building Spade and what is the driving force behind your willingness to endure the challenges of founding a startup?
I knew I’d only ever build a startup again for a massive opportunity to benefit both businesses, and consumers.
We realized transactional data quality was one of those problems. Nearly 2 billion daily credit card transactions run on outdated 1960s infrastructure, signalling vast opportunities for businesses and consumers through innovation.
We built Spade to empower financial institutions and fintechs to make more important transaction authorization decisions resulting in less fraud, more revenue, and improved customer experience. This problem drives my co-founders and I everyday.
VENTURE
What advice do you have for founders to ensure a good fit with potential VC partners?
Niche Knowledge: We secured investors experienced in fintech and infrastructure.
Key Contact Importance: Ensure your point of contact, potentially a future board member, is trustworthy and committed to long-term support, especially during tough times.
PEOPLE
How do you identify truly bar-raising talent?
Culture Fit: Focus on talent that aligns with your culture and this begins with the founders.
Be Intentional about the Performance Bar: Bar raising is effective when everyone knows the standards and follows the same rules, and success elsewhere doesn't guarantee performance in your company.
Unstacked’s Play
Anchor your startup with engineering pillars. These early hires are the backbone for your company culture and are the real technical architecture.
Pillars will:
Build Culture: Embody the values/work ethic that pass through your team.
Set the Technical Standard: Expertise, and commitment to high quality become the benchmark for future hires.
Become Talent Magnets: Elite engineers attract elite engineers.
Securing these pillars early creates a strong and scalable foundation that drives innovation, maintains standards, and champions an eng ethos that attracts others to join your startup.
Unstacked Perspectives
Unstacked host, Ilan Saks, is on a mission to basically give everyone a Harvard MBA, one lesson at a time.
Ready to build your startup’s engineering team?
Talk about choices.
Do you start with a VP-level hire and have them build out a team, or do you start with technical builders first?
Should your early engineers be in-office or can they be remote?
Do you need to hire “big guns” with big logos and startup experience?
What are the most critical soft skills you should look for in your first Eng hires?
With so many things to look for, or strategic directions you can take, read the StackedSP guide for pre-seed and seed companies hiring their first engineering team.
How We Can Help You Grow Your Startup
Need help hiring elite talent? We’ve built the talent firm for startups.
Raising Capital? Drop us a line, we’d love to discuss what you’re building and how we can help.
Are you an engineer considering your next gig? Check the open startup roles in our network!
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