Ask HN: First technical hires, what worked and what didn't?

by avyfainon 7/21/2023, 2:36:12 PM with 2 comments
  • by rangooskion 7/21/2023, 3:12:58 PM

    First good decision we made at our old startup was use what was old and real talent was easily available instead of choosing a new tech stack.

    Second was proven self suffiency on capital via revenue rather than funding.

    Third was people, you hire people who chime with you and let them do it. I guess that is what matters on the long run when things go downhill.

    Edit: typo

  • by ralston3on 7/21/2023, 4:05:13 PM

    I'll bite :)

    - Stick to the basics to start: Mattermost/Slack for messaging, Github for issues/work, standard tooling (I imagine you might be B2B SaaS? So maybe Node or Python). There's a small chance you're building something that's actually "new" - so just stick with what is tried and true.

    - Have an onboarding doc! Even if you don't stick with it, or even if it doesn't make a lot of sense. When do people get paid? Who to go to for HR-like questions? Is there a virtual happy hour on Fridays? How should one communicate on Github/Slack? How do I get my project setup with all proper dependencies, etc. This saves a ton of "Oops, we never actually clarified this" down the road. - This doc is where you help clarify company culture (#NoSmartAssholes) and stuff like this. - This is also where you can set expectations on the role, and what's expected.

    - Have work ready to go. It will only take a decent programmer a few hours to get setup (obviously depending on the project, but you mentioned you're small so it's probably just a repo you can clone). Use those Labels on Github issues liberally. Have a slate of "Good first issues" ready to go that can introduce the new hire to all/most areas of the codebase gently :).

    - Lastly, vibe is maybe a little more important than technicals at first? Of course there's work to be done, and it needs to be done correctly, but on a really small team being able to have an actual discussion about "What did you do this weekend?" is maybe a bit more important than "Proper tests were not added for this new feature".

    TLDR: Use the same comms platforms as everyone else, have a decent onboarding doc, have some work already triaged and ready to go, focus on good vibes and the technical stuff will come :)