Keilian Knudsen’s Post

The tech hiring market feels good again, with urgency returning to the forefront—particularly for early-stage startups. The selectiveness is higher than ever though... The most in-demand roles? Founding Engineers. These are the cornerstone hires for scaling startups: versatile, product-focused full-stack engineers who write clean, well-tested, production-ready code. They're expected to design scalable architectures, quickly become domain experts, and operate with self-motivation and curiosity. Essentially, Swiss Army knives capable of driving significant impact. My expertise lies in placing these high-caliber engineers, primarily in hybrid in-office roles across NYC and SF. While there’s some movement in Series B/C/D companies, the bulk of the demand I’m seeing is in the early-stage space, where the right hire can make or break the trajectory of a company. If you’re scaling, looking or know someone who is, let’s connect. I have some huge plans for 2025, and they start now!

"No, no, we're not looking for a unicorn, a donkey with a horn will do" Hopefully by the time you stopped gasping, you'll realise this isn't something I've actually said. Although.... just kidding!! Hiring for a startup is literally inviting someone to become a key piece of a yet-to-be-finished puzzle. And that's a big ask. With the limited resources available, sometimes you go through a hiring round and at the end of it, you're right back at the start. 🫤 Some candidates aren't willing to take a leap of faith with you. 🫤 Others aren't interested in working in a startup environment. 🫤 There's also people who need structure and routine. And that's fine, I'd rather know that right off the bat anyways. However, I think it's important to talk about the lows to balance the highs - there's not one without the other, right? P.S. I'd love to speak with any Software Engineers, who are exploring new opportunities. If you know of any mega Engineering folk, send them my way and I'll happily tell them more! P.P.S. While I would happily collaborate with some of the amazing agency recruiters in my network, unfortunately, it's a no-go. Feel free to come say hi in my DM's still 😉 #ContentCreation #BeingReal #FounderChallenges

How do I hire someone who's seen scale, yet is still scrappy? Aptible posed this question to us and we went to work: It quickly became clear that some of the most talented candidates weren't just working at high growth startups, but within larger companies known for aggressive scale and engineering excellence. But founders are often hesitant to hire someone with lots of big company background. They're fearful there's going to be a DNA or velocity mismatch. That's where it's important to dive deep and peel back the layers of the onioin. Our conversations with Nhien Tran pretty quickly revealed some extremely promising stories. As a critical PM owning the browser side of Datadog's Realtime User Monitoring product, she had learned to work within a smaller team that needed to prove it could punch above its weight to justify more resources. When the need for a React SDK emerged, Nhien led her engineering team to create one quickly, marshaling engineers that had never built one before to treat it like an internal startup. And most critically, she had seen a rapid scaling in her product areas, seeing customers provide real time feedback and enthusiasm about the value that she was delivering. And when you enter a smaller company -- that's often the biggest question founders worry about with a PM. Are they going to build the right things quickly, or are they going to spend lots of time building smart but unneeded things? Nhien answered that question head on at every step of the interview process. Hats off to an incredible partnership with the team at Aptible, including Caroline Lau and Frank Macreery for being great collaborators during this process. And amazing work to our search lead Nikki Bruno for her endless passion in filling this role! Nhien -- we're excited to see what you do!

The more I study great startups, the more I believe this is true: To build an outlier company, you have to have outlier strategies to finding, winning, and leveraging the best talent. A lot of the time, these strategies look pretty weird! Five examples: 1. Stripe was willing to wait 3+ years to hire some of its earliest recruits. The Collisons were patient when it came to winning gamechanging talent. 2. Levels is a totally remote and asynchronous. The company is built to optimize deep work time for all of its employees. 3. Peak Games used to hold candidate interviews at midnight (!). It was a way to screen for interest in the job and the hunger necessary to make a startup work. 4. Traba expects its employees to work ~12 hours a day, taking inspiration from Olympic athletes. It's not unusual for employees to work from 8am - 10pm. 5. Linear holds 2-5 work trials before it officially advances an offer to a candidate. It's a way of testing for a mutual fit before committing. What other examples of unusual hiring/culture-building are out there? I'd love to hear them.

The tech stack choice for a startup will highly affect everything regarding the product's performance, build, market, and scalability. Another big thing it will impact is the candidate pool! When choosing a tech stack, considering the candidate pool in the market, especially if the goals are to scale, is very important. A super rare and niche tech stack might slow down the product and company's scaling. #technologyrecruitment #softwareengineers #techhiring

New Podast Alert: 3 Tech jobs that made me a million dollars I was able to launch and grow my Tech startup from $0 to $2.5M, with no outside funding in just over 2 years. This happened because God directed me to the right jobs, that built my skills, beliefs and character traits. The right job can set you up for life. Watch this video to learn how to find, keep and thrive in one.

What happens when you hire two stars for the same job position? Alex Sipkevich, Co-Founder & CTO at Joiner App, shares his learnings. He brought in a second Senior Frontend Developer, equal in stature to the first. Both armed with impressive leadership skills. And this didn't end well. Instead of working together, they started arguing with each other. Tune in to learn more about this challenging experience and learn what to avoid when assembling your dream team! - 🎙️Watch (or listen to) Startup Recruitment Failures on your favourite channel. The link is in a comment. 👋🏻 Hey, I’m Indre, Founder of jobRely. I’m here to help founders grow their teams smarter and faster using AI-powered recruitment services.

The more I study great startups, the more I believe this is true: To build an outlier company, you have to have outlier strategies to finding, winning, and leveraging the best talent. A lot of the time, these strategies look pretty weird! Five examples: 1. Stripe was willing to wait 3+ years to hire some of its earliest recruits. The Collisons were patient when it came to winning gamechanging talent. 2. Levels is a totally remote and asynchronous. The company is built to optimize deep work time for all of its employees. 3. Peak Games used to hold candidate interviews at midnight (!). It was a way to screen for interest in the job and the hunger necessary to make a startup work. 4. Traba expects its employees to work ~12 hours a day, taking inspiration from Olympic athletes. It's not unusual for employees to work from 8am - 10pm. 5. Linear holds 2-5 work trials before it officially advances an offer to a candidate. It's a way of testing for a mutual fit before committing. What other examples of unusual hiring/culture-building are out there? I'd love to hear them.

The traditional recruitment process feels like a black hole. 10Fold is doing something different. We're connecting hiring startups with talented software engineers. 🔍 Cutting Down the Interview Process: Stop the endless interviews and shaky hiring decisions. Our hackathons streamline the recruitment process, allowing startups to evaluate real skills in real-time. This leads to faster, more confident hiring decisions. 🤝 Confidence in Hiring: For startups, every team member counts. Our hackathons offer a unique window into an engineer's problem solving and coding skills, ensuring startup companies find the right fit for their front-end, back-end, and or full-stack needs. 🎯 Showcase and Build: For software engineers, our hackathons are more than just a competition. They are a stage to showcase your abilities in front of potential employers. But worse case? The code you develop becomes a valuable addition to your portfolio. 🌟 Beyond the Resume: We believe that a resume doesn't tell your whole story. Our hackathons allow engineers to demonstrate their skills dynamically and creatively, making them stand out to startups. Join the waitlist. You're early. We're creating opportunities, nurturing talent, and building the future of recruitment in the startup world. #softwareengineering #startups #frontend #backend #fullstackdevelopers #startupfounder #startuplife

**In-person SWE roles at top NYC startups** Things are heating up at July, and we’re on the hunt for a fresh face to join our new office and take the last open desk (for now)! As a company, we’ve always kept things lean, operating with a “hire slow” philosophy to make sure we only bring on absolute KILLERS — and every one of them have been found through LinkedIn. If you’re looking for a new opportunity and want to play at the highest level, I would challenge you to apply. What we're looking for: 1️⃣ Side project junkies (people who love to build) 2️⃣ People who obsess over the details 3️⃣ Founder mentality 4️⃣ Those that love to hustle and want to level-up in all areas If not with us, a few of my good friends are also on the hunt for similar candidates. Daniel Andrews (Playground), Benjamin Döpfner (Vesto), Avante Price (Posh), Keyan K. (222), and Steven Schwartz (Whop), are also on the prowl for talented NYC based engineers that fit the above description. Comment your email down below and someone from our team will reach out with more information about the role! If you don't want your current employer to see you're interested in joining the dark side, DM me! I hope to chat soon 😉 #nyc #startups #growth