hiring_skill

Overview

This skill helps non-technical founders hire and manage engineering help with confidence. It guides you on when to use AI versus hiring, how to source and vet contractors, how to run a paid trial, and how to protect your product and budget. The advice focuses on practical steps that reduce risk and get predictable results.

How this skill works

It teaches a decision framework to try AI first, then hire only when needed—covering complex integrations, production emergencies, migrations, security, and native apps. It provides sourcing channels, red/green flags for candidates, a job-brief template, and a paid-trial process to evaluate communication, speed, and deliverables. It also covers ongoing management, payment structures, legal protections, and the fractional CTO option for growing teams.

When to use it

• You can’t fix a production outage or debug infrastructure yourself
• Complex third-party integrations or undocumented enterprise APIs are required
• You need a secure audit, data migration, or performance tuning at scale
• Ongoing maintenance is consuming your time and blocking product work
• Native mobile apps or platform-specific expertise is necessary
• You tried AI tools for the task and failed after 2–3 serious attempts

Best practices

• Define the problem and acceptance criteria before hiring—hire for the problem, not the role
• Always run a paid 5–10 hour trial on a real, self-contained task before longer engagements
• Prefer contractors for one-off work; use fractional CTO or part-time devs for ongoing needs
• Use fixed-price for well-defined tasks and hourly for exploratory work; use milestones for larger projects
• Require code in your repo, written agreement for scope/payment/IP, and limited initial access
• Use AI (Claude Code) to review contractor code and spot obvious bugs or security issues

Example use cases

• Hire a freelancer to integrate a complex payment provider that AI couldn’t complete
• Run a paid trial to add a small feature and evaluate communication and delivery
• Bring on a part-time developer for 10–20 hrs/week to maintain and iterate product features
• Engage a fractional CTO to review architecture and coordinate multiple contractors before fundraising
• Write a clear job brief for a CRUD feature, with acceptance criteria and budget estimates