How Do You Hire a Rails Tech Lead at a Startup?

Last week I spoke to around twenty senior engineers about one Tech Lead role.

Most of them wrote Ruby on Rails every day.

I expected a lot of selling. What I got was a lot of questions.

The same five came up again and again.

Founders tend to read a candidate with lots of questions as a candidate who is unsure. It was the other way round. The ones asking the most were already picturing themselves in the seat.

Why are so many senior Rails engineers available right now?

Of the nineteen engineers I have notes for, ten had left or were leaving because their company ran out of road.

One business was sold and is moving away from technology. One product is being sunset. One team has not been paid since June. Others were caught in layoffs, or in growth that never came.

That count is my reading of the notes. It is not a market statistic.

None of these were weak CVs. They worked somewhere the money or the momentum stopped.

For a founder, the point is timing. Several had another process running. A few were not looking at all and only took the call because the problem sounded different.

The pool is open, but it will not stay open. If you are not sure whether you need a lead who codes, a manager or a part time CTO, this piece on the difference between a team lead and a fractional CTO is worth reading first.

What do Rails tech leads actually want to own?

Almost all of them described ownership the same way.

They want to propose changes, make the call and answer for the result. They do not want to finish tickets someone else wrote.

Several also wanted to keep coding while they lead.

This is cheap to give. Write down the three or four decisions the lead makes without asking you. Name the system they are responsible for. Say who they report to.

A brief that answers those does half the selling. If you want to see how a leadership search runs from start to finish, the Henry Schein One engineering leadership case study is the closest example on this site.

Why do they ask who owns the database?

Three candidates asked me this in different words.

Would there be specialist help for the hard database problems? Why run your own database infrastructure when managed services exist? How much of it lands on me alone?

If you run your own infrastructure, there is usually a good reason. Cost, control, or both.

The trouble is the reason rarely makes it into the first conversation.

A senior engineer looking at a database over a terabyte with no named owner can picture the alert at 3am and nobody to call.

So answer it before they ask. Say what you run, why, who helps when it gets hard and what is theirs from day one.

Does the contract basis matter for a remote Tech Lead?

For a remote role open to people in different countries, it matters a lot.

Seven of the nineteen raised it before we got to the technical side.

Is it B2B? Can it go through an employer of record? Who pays for sick leave? What is the holiday allowance?

The people I spoke to were spread across several countries. Some have contracted for years and prefer it. Others live somewhere the structure changes their tax or their visa.

So the engagement model decides who can say yes at all.

An unclear one is an unanswered risk. The engineer holds the tax return, the sickness cover and the gap between contracts. When they have to guess, they assume the harder version.

You do not need one fixed answer. A range is enough. We can do B2B or an employer of record, employed is possible in these countries, holidays work like this.

It is also one of the reasons offers fall over later, which I cover in why engineers reject job offers.

How honest should you be about scale?

As honest as you can be.

Some of the engineers I spoke to have run more background jobs than you, and larger databases. Others have not come near your numbers.

So do not guess which one you are talking to. Ask.

Ask what the biggest system they have owned looked like, in jobs a day and database size.

Then tell them yours, including where it gets hard. The ones who have been there will want the detail. The ones who have not will want to know what you will teach them and who they will learn it from.

The rest of the founder hiring process is easier to run once the brief is that clear.

Questions this search answers

Why are senior Rails engineers on the market?

In my recent conversations, around half had left or were leaving because their company shut down, sold its platform, laid people off, stopped paying salaries or missed its growth plan. They were not weak performers. They worked somewhere the momentum stopped, so the pool is open now but will not stay that way.

What do Rails tech leads want to own?

They want to propose changes, make decisions on their own and answer for the results, not just finish tickets. Many want to keep coding while they lead. Writing down the decisions they would make without asking you, and the system they would be responsible for, answers this before they have to ask.

Should a remote startup hire a Rails tech lead on B2B or as an employee?

It depends on where the engineer lives and how they prefer to work. Many senior engineers have contracted for years, while others need employed status or an employer of record for visa or tax reasons. When the team spans countries, offer a range and explain how holidays and sickness cover work.

Does a Rails tech lead need to have run your exact scale?

Not always, and some have run far more. Among the engineers I spoke to, some have owned more background jobs and larger databases than most startups see, while others have not come close. Ask what the biggest system they have owned looked like, then be open about your own numbers and where it gets hard.

How fast do you need to move to hire a Rails tech lead?

Quickly. Several engineers I spoke to had another process running, and a few were not looking at all. A brief that names what they will own, who owns the database and how they will be engaged lets you move in days instead of weeks.

If you are hiring a Rails lead and want a second pair of eyes on the brief, I am happy to look at it with you.

Book a call

Arjun Gillard

Founder, AG Talent

agtalent.co.uk