Cracking the Code

MAY 2, 2019

Recruiting and retaining top talent is even more challenging for software engineers. To get an insight into how successful start-ups approach team building, we spoke to Sylvain Utard, employee number 1 and VP of Engineering at Algolia, an Accel portfolio company. We asked Sylvain to share his secret tips with us.

Part-Time VPE 48

Part-Time VPE Engineer Retention API 48

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 18, 2019

Projecting from the seed stage, there are two types of team-building topics you want to address – key senior hires and org-level team building. As the company progresses through product market fit (PMF), you will want to highlight other key senior hires required to scale and round out the functional expertise of the exec team.

Part-Time VPE 195

Part-Time VPE Seed Stage CTO Hire Forecast 195

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 19, 2009

I would discover that there was a more effective alternative in building a marketing department than hiring traditional marketers with MBA’s. .&# I would discover that there was a more effective alternative in building a marketing department than hiring traditional marketers with MBA’s. Context here.)

Engineer 198

Engineer Silicon Valley Part-Time VPE Advisory Board 198

ReadWriteStart

JANUARY 16, 2020

The expertise of administrators and senior-level developers suffices to handle routine technical tasks under the guidance of such company members as VP of Engineering, Team Lead, and Project Manager. The “right” time to bring in a CTO varies from company to company. Where to find a skilled CTO? OK, I need a CaaS.

Fractional CTO 85

Fractional CTO CTO CTO Hire Part-Time VPE 85

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 13, 2018

If you’re an early employee at a startup, one day you will wake up to find that what you worked on 24/7 for the last year is no longer the most important thing – you’re no longer the most important employee, and process, meetings, paperwork and managers and bosses have shown up. The company was going to hire a VP of Marketing.

Part-Time VPE 333

Part-Time VPE Employee Cofounder Hiring 333

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 2, 2014

There’s an old joke in software development, “How much time does it take to design software?” ” Answer: As long as you have scheduled for the design phase. Design with no constraints becomes a research project. You see there is a creative tension along the spectrum of time and scope.

Software 344

Software Part-Time VPE Engineer Leadership 344

Steve Blank

JANUARY 25, 2011

But over time if developers aren’t careful, code written to find early customers can become unwieldy, difficult to maintain and incapable of scaling. He hired an operating exec as the CEO a few years ago. My observation was that the CEO and VP of Engineering were confusing cause and effect.

Part-Time VPE 318

Part-Time VPE Agile Engineer Startup 318

Feld Thoughts

AUGUST 9, 2013

I’ve written before about hiring for cultural fit, and about the importance of prioritizing cultural fit over competence when hiring at startups. I started thinking about it again when I saw this Dilbert comic , because it pokes fun at the culture of startups and their propensity only to hire people who fit into them.

Part-Time VPE 153

Part-Time VPE Hiring Engineer Portfolio 153

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 1, 2014

Another way to learn more about who’s speaking is to sort the conference program by category and find people addressing specific topics. He was a very early employee of Facebook , and engineering director there through the moment it blew up. Now he’s VP of engineering at Dropbox , where he’s seeing similar growth.

Lean 165

Lean Fractional CTO Part-Time VPE Fractional VPE 165

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 28, 2014

We particularly like this post, Hiring Executives: If You’ve Never Done the Job, How Do You Hire Somebody Good? , In order to ensure completeness, I find it useful to include criteria from the following sub-divisions when hiring executives: Will the executive be world class at running the function?

Part-Time VPE 160

Part-Time VPE Sales Lean Cofounder 160

Ben's Blog

OCTOBER 14, 2010

The biggest difference between being a great functional manager and being a great general manager—and particularly a great CEO—is that as a general manager, you must hire and manage people who are far more competent at their jobs than you would be at their jobs. So, with no experience, how do you hire someone good? Probably none.

Part-Time VPE 78

Part-Time VPE Hiring Wisconsin Matching 78

Austin Startup

AUGUST 19, 2018

You can still get on a panel by finding an existing panel that was submitted and adding yourself to it. It’s not too hard to find the panel organizer on social media and reach out to them. designers will need to reevaluate fundamentally how we interact with technology. Missed your chance to submit a panel? Don’t worry.

CTO Hire 48

CTO Hire Fractional CTO Fractional VPE Austin 48

Austin Startup

SEPTEMBER 18, 2017

A CTO will guide your product strategy, market validation, architectural decisions, process optimization, recruiting, and hiring. A CTO’s real value is in finding opportunities with asymmetric payoffs. They seek the 80/20 economical solution, present options, and discuss tradeoffs. “A

Fractional CTO 54

Fractional CTO CTO Hire CTO Technical Review 54

firstround.com

SEPTEMBER 10, 2013

Product and Engineering. How to Go From Google Engineer to First-Time CTO. Product and Engineering. How to Go From Google Engineer to First-Time CTO. Ian Langworth started his career as an O’Reilly author and software engineer at Google. First Round Capital. The Review. Plusstartup. The Review.

CTO Hire 52

CTO Hire Engineer Software Review Part-Time VPE 52

Seeing Both Sides

JANUARY 14, 2013

Today's post is brought to you by my friend, Paul Blumenfeld , a recruiter who is one of the most thoughtful people I know when it comes to hiring processes. So we created a wish list of things we thought we needed, like designer flatware, gold-rimmed china, and a blender that makes bread dough. that would get the interview.

Part-Time VPE 54

Part-Time VPE CTO Hire Matching Hiring 54

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 5, 2009

I’ve convinced the team you’d be perfect, come join us as the VP of Marketing.” My ex-boss was going to be the VP of Engineering and I would report to the CEO whose marketing acumen and sales instincts seemed at the time to be telepathic and sense of theater was legend. We were going to be guessing.

North Carolina 125

North Carolina Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 125

ConversionXL

AUGUST 18, 2021

“From the Flywheel dashboard, you can quickly find any site you’re looking for. And of course, if you have any questions during any of this, our team of Happiness Engineers are always here to help. Squarespace does it by leaving a “Start with this design” button in the top right corner of its template demos.

Product 122

Product Analytics Part-Time VPE Video 122

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

Their engineering teams didn’t have the expertise using off-the-shelf microprocessors (back then “real” computer companies designed their own instruction sets and operating systems.) They couldn’t keep up with the fast product development times that were enabled by using standard microprocessors. Their engineers hated us.

Technology 138

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 138

www.reincubate.com

FEBRUARY 1, 2010

Start-ups often hire at one extreme -- closer to a Lead Developer or VP of Engineering -- whereas corporates may focus on their CIO, which is potentially quite a different role. Strategic Report to the CEO or board as an active part of the senior management team. Work with others to produce graphic design for prototype.

Fractional CTO 40

Fractional CTO CTO Technical Review CTO Hire 40

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

So I initially gravitated to the CTO title, and not VP of Engineering. If youre trying to design an architecture to maximize agility, how can that work if some people are working in TDD and others not? But since I spent a long time in a hybrid CTO/VP Engineering role, I still have this nagging question.

CTO 168

CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review 168

Seeing Both Sides

AUGUST 16, 2012

I first met Steve when he was VP of Engineering at Centerline software, a software development tools startup, and I was a junior in college. In founding TripAdvisor, Kaufer wanted to take his hard core engineering skills and apply them to vertical search in travel. Scaling Lesson 1: Focus On Finding A Great Business Model.

Part-Time VPE 54

Part-Time VPE Software Review Costa Rica Technical Review 54

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 7, 2008

In a few cases, they are clearly smart people in a bad situation, and Ive written about their pain in The product managers lament and The engineering managers lament. Its common to find a hacker at the heart of almost any successful technology company. Suffice to say, most of the hackers Ive known have been men. Just change it.

Software Review 94

Software Review Technical Review Part-Time VPE San Francisco 94

rapidrollout.wordpress.com

JANUARY 15, 2011

He or she might call himself a “consulting CTO,&# “freelance CTO,&# “on-demand CTO,&# “CTO on call,&# “CTO for hire,&# or just a “technology strategy advisor.&# If you find him, he’s gold, and not only because of his knowledge and experience. For one thing, you’ll learn from his mistakes.

Fractional CTO 40

Fractional CTO CTO CTO Hire Fractional VPE 40

www.women2.org

MARCH 8, 2012

Published on: July 13, 2011 Posted By Angie Tags: Elizabeth Knopf , Finding A Co-Founder , FounderDating , Sorced , Technical Co-Founder , Tips & Tricks. Thus, I embarked on the journey to find a technical co-founder. Then, what’s missing — clearly an engineer — and why do I want a partner?

Cofounder 47

Cofounder Technical Review San Francisco Founder 47

blog.expensify.com

APRIL 24, 2012

Update: The end is near, Expensify is hiring a.NET programmer! As you might know, we’re hiring the best programmers in the world. But finding such people is more than a full time job. Indeed, I spend about half my time on it, while Lisa spends about all hers. Because.NET is designed to extend, not disrupt.

Java 107

Java PHP Software Review Coder 107

Altgate

OCTOBER 1, 2010

We’ve designed this Scorecard and it’s currently being built, but in the meantime I wanted to get feedback from CEOs and VCs on the feature design. .&# The idea behind the Scorecard is to provide a comprehensive benchmark for the management team of a particular company compared to it’s specific peer group.

Part-Time VPE 39

Part-Time VPE Startup Salary Equity 39

www.paulgraham.com

AUGUST 1, 2008

We could hire employees, but we want to be forced to figure out how to scale investing. In essense, let the market design the product. As the volume of startups increases, big companies will start to develop standardized procedures that make acquisitions little more work than hiring someone. Weve done the same thing ourselves.

Web 54

Web Startup Silicon Valley Technical Review 54