# Founding Engineer Assessment Framework > **All 23 competencies require Level 3 minimum to proceed. Any score below 3 = automatic no.** ## 📖 Navigation - **[🔄 Process Overview](./First%20Engineering%20Hire%20Process%20Overview.md)** - Main hiring process and workflow - **[🤖 Assistant Prompt](./First%20Engineering%20Hire%20Assistant%20Prompt.md)** - AI coaching setup - **[💡 Hiring Strategy](./Hiring%20Strategy.md)** - Strategic considerations --- ## 🔧 Technical Competencies ### 1. LLM/AI Integration ✓ - **Level 3:** Has integrated multiple LLM APIs, handles streaming, errors, context management - **Level 4:** Built production LLM features with rate limiting, fallbacks, prompt management - **Level 5:** Innovated on LLM UX patterns, deep understanding of limitations/workarounds ### 2. Full-Stack TypeScript Development ✓ - **Level 3:** Proficient in TS across stack, can build features end-to-end - **Level 4:** Expert-level TS, uses advanced patterns, strong type safety - **Level 5:** Thought leader in TS community, contributes to ecosystem ### 3. Product Engineering Velocity ✓ - **Level 3:** Delivers 1 fully working feature per week including design, implementation, testing, deployment, and responding to review feedback - no handholding needed - **Level 4:** Delivers 2-3 fully working features per week through entire cycle OR 1 complex feature with all reviews addressed independently - **Level 5:** Delivers complete feature areas in a week, handles all stakeholder reviews, ships so clean it becomes reference implementation ### 4. Frontend Excellence ✓ - **Level 3:** Builds smooth, responsive UIs, understands modern React patterns - **Level 4:** Creates delightful UX, performance-optimized, accessible - **Level 5:** UI work gets featured on design sites ### 5. Backend & Infrastructure ✓ - **Level 3:** Has owned 1+ production system for 6+ months, can design clean APIs and data models, has built auth/payments/real-time features - **Level 4:** Has owned systems handling 100k+ requests/day, designed event-driven architectures, built complex integrations praised by peers - **Level 5:** Has architected entire platforms from scratch that scaled successfully and became foundation for other teams ### 6. DevOps & Deployment ✓ - **Level 3:** Has been on-call, set up monitoring/alerting, deployed containers, worked with AWS/GCP, implemented CI/CD - **Level 4:** Has reduced incident response time by 50%+, built comprehensive observability, managed K8s in production - **Level 5:** Has designed zero-downtime deployment systems, built platforms that prevented outages ### 7. Autonomous Execution ✓ - **Level 3:** Works independently for days, documents decisions in writing, sends daily updates, asks clarifying questions proactively - **Level 4:** Operates for 1-2 weeks autonomously, writes decision docs before major choices, weekly detailed updates, escalates before blockers - **Level 5:** Full sprint autonomy, creates comprehensive documentation trails, teaches others their communication patterns, prevents surprises ### 8. Sprint Process Management ✓ - **Level 3:** Has run sprint processes before, can lead standups, manage backlog - **Level 4:** Has improved sprint processes, great at estimation, keeps team aligned - **Level 5:** Sprint process expertise, can adapt agile to any team ### 9. Debugging & Problem Solving ✓ - **Level 3:** Has debugged and can debug memory leaks, race conditions, and cross-service issues; has resolved P2 incidents and written postmortems - **Level 4:** Has found and can find bugs in third-party code; has led P1 incidents; can debug issues spanning 5+ services - **Level 5:** Has built and can build debugging tools for teams; has prevented major outages through proactive debugging; debugs at any stack level ### 10. Startup Operating Experience ✓ - **Level 3:** 2+ years at startups, comfortable with chaos - **Level 4:** 4+ years, has seen 0→1 and scaling phases - **Level 5:** Multiple successful startup experiences --- ## 👥 Cultural/Behavioral Competencies ### 11. Mission Alignment ✓ - **Level 3:** Believes AI is fundamentally important to humanity's future, uses AI tools extensively, can articulate why AI matters beyond productivity - **Level 4:** Deep conviction about AI's impact, actively contributes to AI community, has side projects using AI - **Level 5:** Could give a TED talk on AI's importance, has written about AI publicly, influences others to adopt AI ### 12. Drive & Ownership ✓ - **Level 3:** Has technically led 2+ significant features/products from concept to scale, delivered measurable impact - **Level 4:** Has owned entire technical product area that became core to business (like Stripe's API or Airbnb's booking system) - **Level 5:** YC founder caliber - has built entire technical products that achieved product-market fit or became company's main revenue driver ### 13. Self-Awareness & Growth ✓ - **Level 3:** High awareness of weaknesses, can articulate specific learnings from each job, actively seeks feedback, eager to improve - **Level 4:** Has documented growth plans with action items, tracks progress, can show before/after skill development - **Level 5:** Invests in external coaching, attends workshops/conferences for growth, has transformed major weaknesses into strengths ### 14. Communication Excellence ✓ - **Level 3:** Writes clear PRDs, technical docs, and commit messages others understand - **Level 4:** Writes docs that become team standards, excellent technical blog posts - **Level 5:** Writing has been shared widely (HN, conference talks, internal fame) ### 15. Judgment & Escalation ✓ - **Level 3:** Makes good technical decisions independently, escalates blockers within 24hrs, brings 2-3 options when asking for input - **Level 4:** Only escalates true decisions (not just FYIs), comes with recommendation, catches issues before they become problems - **Level 5:** Proactively creates RACI charts, documents decision frameworks, makes escalation paths clear for future hires ### 16. Product Sense ✓ - **Level 3:** Understands developer workflows, has opinions on good AI UX, can critique existing tools - **Level 4:** Predicts what features developers will actually use, has built developer tools before - **Level 5:** Has product insights that surprise and teach you, could be a product manager ### 17. Collaborative Work Style ✓ - **Level 3:** Works well 1:1 with technical founder, adapts to founder work style, has worked closely with demanding leaders before - **Level 4:** Makes 1:1s highly productive, pushes back constructively, has made previous managers better - **Level 5:** Past founders/CTOs reference them as best engineer they worked with, elevates whoever they work with ### 18. Disagree and Commit ✓ - **Level 3:** Voices concerns clearly during decision phase, fully commits once decision made, no passive-aggressive behavior - **Level 4:** Disagrees productively with data/examples, strengthens decisions through pushback, champions decisions after commit - **Level 5:** Masters the balance - known for both valuable dissent and incredible execution post-decision ### 19. Bias for Action ✓ - **Level 3:** Ships first version in days not weeks, iterates based on feedback, doesn't overthink MVPs - **Level 4:** Makes reversible decisions in minutes, builds prototypes while others are still planning - **Level 5:** Legendary for speed - "by the time we finished discussing it, they had built it" ### 20. Demo Creation ✓ - **Level 3:** Can create clear product demos with some feedback, understands narrative structure - **Level 4:** Creates compelling demos independently that excite users/investors - **Level 5:** Demo work goes viral, drives significant business outcomes ### 21. Linux/Docker/Command Line ✓ - **Level 3:** Comfortable with Linux CLI, can write bash scripts, solid Docker experience, knows when to use grep/sed/awk - **Level 4:** Debugging containers in production, complex bash scripting, optimizes Dockerfiles - **Level 5:** Kernel-level debugging, builds custom images, trains others on CLI efficiency ### 22. Customer Orientation ✓ - **Level 3:** Talks to users comfortably, incorporates feedback into features, does support when needed - **Level 4:** Proactively gathers user feedback, builds features users didn't know they needed - **Level 5:** Users become evangelists, has turned support conversations into major features ### 23. Team Building & Hiring ✓ - **Level 3:** Has interviewed engineers and can assess technical skills, knows good hiring practices - **Level 4:** Has mentored junior engineers successfully, improved interview processes - **Level 5:** Can design and run full hiring process, maintains/raises bar, builds interview rubrics --- ## 🎯 Quick Screening Filters Check these first during initial conversations: 1. **Mission alignment** - Do they believe in human-AI collaboration? 2. **Deepest technical project** - What's the most complex thing they've owned end-to-end? 3. **Startup experience** - Do they have 2+ years at startups? 4. **Work ethic/grit** - Evidence of sustained high performance ## 🔧 Technical Sniff Tests Use these to quickly assess technical competency: - "We have a file with phone numbers, some valid and some not. How would you quickly get just the valid ones?" *(Should mention grep/regex)* - "How would you check what's taking up disk space on a server?" *(du, df commands)* - "How would you debug a container that won't start?" *(docker logs, exec, inspect)* ## 📅 Meeting Cadence Expectations - Daily standups (15 min) - Weekly 1:1 (deeper sync) - Ad hoc as needed but must be efficient - They own most technical decisions but escalate important ones --- ## 🔍 Required Decisions 1. Confirm all Level 3 minimums are appropriate bars 2. Any missing competencies? 3. Frontend/backend importance weighting for full-stack role? --- **Related Documents:** - [🔄 Process Overview](./First%20Engineering%20Hire%20Process%20Overview.md) - Main hiring workflow - [💡 Hiring Strategy](./Hiring%20Strategy.md) - Budget and strategic considerations - [🤖 Assistant Prompt](./First%20Engineering%20Hire%20Assistant%20Prompt.md) - AI coaching setup