How to Hire Your First Engineer When You're a Non-Technical Founder

Decide what you're actually hiring for

Most non-technical founders write their first engineering job ad before they've decided what kind of engineer they actually need. The result is a job ad that lists ten technologies, asks for both deep frontend skill and deep backend skill, expects DevOps competence, and somehow also wants the person to lead architecture decisions.

That person doesn't exist at the salary you can afford. They don't really exist at any salary, at the senior level. Modern senior engineers specialise.

Before you write a single line of the job ad, decide what type of first hire you actually need. The three common patterns:

The technical co-founder type

A senior engineer who will own the product architecture, make the technology choices, and grow into a CTO role as you scale. This person is usually 8+ years experienced, has built products end to end before, and is taking the role in part for the equity and the opportunity to shape something. Expensive in cash, but most of their compensation is in equity. Hardest pattern to hire for, because the people good enough to do it have other options.

The senior generalist builder

A senior engineer who'll ship features, build the core product, and grow with the company. Won't necessarily lead architecture but is competent enough to make sensible technical decisions while the product is small. This is the most common first hire pattern for non-technical founders who already have basic technical advisors or fractional CTOs in place.

The specialist

A senior engineer hired specifically for the domain expertise your product needs - a machine learning engineer if your product is AI-first, a mobile engineer if your product is app-first, a data engineer if your product is data-first. This pattern only works if you're crystal clear that the specialist isn't going to lead general engineering decisions outside their specialism.

If you can't tell which pattern fits, you're not ready to hire yet. Talk to two or three fractional CTOs first, get clarity on what kind of engineer your product actually needs, then start hiring.

The brief is the job

The biggest mistake non-technical founders make in the first engineering hire is delegating the brief to a recruiter who doesn't really understand the role either. The brief is the most important document in the hiring process. It's how you'll attract the right person, screen the wrong people out, and evaluate offers when they come in.

A good first-engineer brief needs to cover:

• What the product actually does and who it's for - in the kind of detail you'd use to pitch an investor, not the marketing version
• What's been built so far (even if it's just Figma mockups) and what specifically needs to be built next
• The realistic budget for total compensation, including equity if you have a stock option plan in place
• The cultural and working style preferences - is this remote, hybrid, in-office, async-friendly, meeting-heavy
• What success in the first 90 days looks like, in specific terms

If you can't articulate these things, you're not ready to hire. A recruiter or hiring partner can help you sharpen the brief, but they can't write it for you.

Senior or junior - the honest answer

The common debate is whether to hire a cheaper junior engineer or pay up for a senior. For a non-technical founder making their first engineering hire, the answer is almost always senior.

Here's why. A junior engineer needs technical mentorship and code review from someone more experienced. If you're non-technical, you can't provide that yourself. You'd be hiring someone who would either work without guidance (and produce code you can't evaluate) or who you'd have to pair with a contractor or advisor (which doubles your effective hiring cost).

A senior engineer brings their own technical judgement. They can make architectural decisions, evaluate trade-offs, and ship without needing oversight. The cash cost is higher but the total cost of the hire - factoring in mentorship, supervision, and rework - is lower.

The exception is when you've already got a senior technical advisor or fractional CTO who can mentor a junior. In that case, a junior at half the cost might be the right call. But for most non-technical founders making their first hire, the senior route is the safer one.

What to evaluate when you can't evaluate code

Non-technical founders worry that they can't tell whether an engineer is good. This is partially true and partially solvable.

You can't evaluate the code itself. You can evaluate everything around the code - which is often more diagnostic than the code anyway.

How they think about problems

Ask them to walk you through a hard technical decision they've made in the past, including what they considered, what they chose, what they'd do differently. Clear thinkers explain themselves clearly. Engineers who hide complexity behind jargon are usually hiding something else.

How they communicate with non-technical people

If they can't explain their work to you in a way you can follow, they probably can't explain it to your customers, investors, or future hires either. This is a meaningful predictor of how well they'll integrate into a startup environment.

How they handle "I don't know"

Senior engineers who can't say "I don't know" without flinching are dangerous to hire. The job involves constant uncertainty. The good ones are comfortable with that.

Their references

Two or three reference calls with people who've worked closely with the candidate will tell you more than any technical screen. Ask specifically: would you hire this person again, what's their biggest weakness, how did they handle disagreement.

A paid trial project

For the right candidate, a one to two week paid trial project (paid at their day rate) can replace half of the interview process and give both sides a much better signal than another round of interviews. This is increasingly common in the senior market and good candidates expect to be paid for trial work.

What the first six months actually look like

Month 1: They're getting context. Don't expect significant output. Their job is to understand the product, the customers, the existing code (if any), and the priorities. If they're shipping major features in month one, they're probably moving too fast for the context they've gathered.

Months 2-3: They start shipping. Pace accelerates. You begin to see what their judgement looks like in practice. Watch for the difference between an engineer who tells you what they're going to do and one who asks what you're trying to achieve. The second type is the one you want.

Months 4-6: Patterns emerge. You'll know whether the hire is working by month four. If you're still wondering at month six, you have a problem to address. Don't wait twelve months hoping things improve.

The biggest failure mode in the first six months is the founder defaulting to constant feature requests. Senior engineers want to ship features, but they also need time to think about architecture, set up tooling, and build the foundations for everything that comes after. If you spend their first six months pushing features and no scaffolding, you'll pay for it in years two and three.

Reference check every time

Every single time. Even when you're sure. Especially when you're sure.

Reference checks are the highest-information part of the hiring process and the most consistently skipped. Two reference calls with people who've worked closely with the candidate, at companies relevant to the work, will tell you what no interview round can. Ask the questions you actually want answered, not the polite ones. "Would you hire them again into the role I'm describing" is a better question than "what are their strengths."

If the candidate's references are vague or the candidate is reluctant to provide them, that's a signal in itself.

Working with us

We help non-technical founders make their first senior engineering hire across Australia. The work involves more than running a search - we help shape the brief, set realistic expectations on budget and timeline, and provide the technical advisory you don't have in-house. Book an intake call when you're ready to start.