S1 #4 Jono Spiro

Insights on Hiring Early Engineers and Building Impactful Teams

On the 1st10 Podcast, I recently had the privilege of interviewing Jono Spiro, the Principal Software Engineer at Fractal Software.

I was itching to talk to Jono about his perspective on hiring founding engineers and building impactful early engineering teams. I have distilled Jono's amazing insights into a few simple takeaways for founders and CTOs looking to build successful engineering teams for their startups.

Hiring Founding Engineers

According to Jono, the concept of a founding engineer is crucial in the early stages of a startup. Founding engineers are the first 1 or 2 engineers that founders bring on board to build the initial engineering team. Jono highlighted the importance of hiring individuals who complement the CTO's skills and have aspirations for entrepreneurship and leadership in the future. He stressed the significance of finding engineers who are hungry, gritty, self-directed, and have a bias-toward-action.

But what separates a founding engineer from an early engineer?

According to Jono, founding engineers are the first 1 or 2 individuals who set the talent ceiling for the company. Early engineers, on the other hand, are engineers number 3 to 10. You typically recruit them to complement the skills and expertise of the founding engineers. It's crucial for CTOs to understand the career aspirations and growth potential of their early engineering hires, ensuring they have the capacity to mentor and lead the team as the company grows.

Fostering Engineering Culture

Jono highlighted the importance of understanding and defining the engineering culture as being essential for the long-term success of a startup. According to him, engineering culture encompasses a wide variety of topics such as how the team likes to work, communicate, and collaborate. Whether remote, hybrid, or in-person, fostering a positive engineering culture requires open communication and a shared understanding of the company's values and goals, not to mention usage of effective tools!

Speaking of tools, Jono pointed out that Zoom wasn't really a good tool for collaboration. And the same went for the Atlassian suite of tools. In his own words, "It's all overhead. It's just all overhead."

Instead, he emphasized the need for effective tools that minimize overhead and maximize productivity, such as Tandem or similar. He recommended using tools that promote low effort, low friction, and single points of access for company knowledge and communication.

Advice For Founders and Early Engineers

But, to me, the best moment of the interview was Jono's incredible advice for founders and CTOs looking to build impactful early engineering teams. It was simply: "Don't settle." Jono insisted that it was necessary to set the bar high and hire individuals who are better than yourself, individuals who displayed potential for growth. He recommended founders and CTOs  prioritize finding the strongest, hungriest, and grittiest engineers to lay the foundation for their startup's engineering success.

For early engineers looking to join a startup, Jono had this reminder: "Make sure that you're ready to join a startup." He emphasized the need to be ready for instability, unusual hours, and tasks outside of their experience. He also stressed the importance of maintaining a supportive home and family life while pursuing a career at a startup.

There is tons more in the conversation that I haven't included in this post and I recommend that you listen to the entire episode, when you can! You can get it wherever you listen to podcasts. We are on YouTube too, if that's your preferred platform. And when you are done listening, do let us know who you'd like to hear from next - we'll definitely try and get them on a future episode of the 1st10 Podcast!

About Us: 

1st10 was founded on the simple philosophy that there is nothing more important to the success of your startup than the first ten engineers you hire. Because the first ten will impact the next ten and any wrong misstep can be the difference between success and failure. 1st10 works with visionary founders and exceptional engineers to build world class engineering teams.

1st10 was founded by Boris Epstein, original founder of Binc, the firm best known for pioneering embedded recruiting in Silicon Valley. Binc built early teams for Pinterest, Ripple, Stripe, Square, Airbnb, Reddit, Tesla and many more. Binc was acquired by Robinhood in 2021.