Lina Mansourifirst-time founder · 3w ago
We're 14 months in, $18k MRR, paying a contractor agency $9k/mo for product dev. Velocity is fine but I can feel the ceiling. Do I hire? At what burn?
#hiring#engineering#early-stage
When do you stop outsourcing and hire your first full-time engineer?
- 2replies
- 1,542views
- Started 3w ago
- Last reply 2w ago
2 replies
- 6Yacine Boudiaffounding eng · 2 exits@yacine.b · 3w ago
Two heuristics I use:
- If you're rewriting the contractor's work after every sprint, hire yesterday.
- If your roadmap has more than 6 weeks of "obvious next thing," hire — the contractor model breaks down on multi-month bets because they optimize for tickets, not outcomes.
At $18k MRR a $80–110k senior is irresponsible, but a $40–55k junior who shadows the agency for 3 months and then takes over is fine. The math works if you stop the agency 30 days after they start.
- 7ReplyMehdi Belkacemfullstack dev@mehdi-b · 3w ago
Counterpoint: don't hire a junior as your first engineer if you yourself can't code. They'll churn in six months because nobody senior is unblocking them, and you'll be back at the agency with worse code.