So how do you interview for a company that doesn't exist? Simple... recruitment is done on past connections and recommendations, and the interviews are about sizing fit. Not so simple is trying to understand what the shape of the team should look like, and how the relationships should work within the team.
In the past couple of weeks I've been meeting the candidate engineering team, 6 folks drawn from a pool of connections that the two co-founders have previously worked with - I'm the exception as I'm outside of this circle and I'm coming in on a recommendation. I've been in an open dialogue with the co-founders for several months now, and have been providing some technical blueprints and sample app mock-ups to build up a level of trust and a working relationship.
The candidate team meet-ups are definitely a non typical 'interview' - its candidate on candidate, mostly a 1:1 basis followed by providing feedback to the co-founders. Its an interesting dynamic, both parties trying to impress on the other, limited technical assessment as the candidates are all coming from proven backgrounds and there's a large expectation for all to be able to pivot on new technologies and skills as needed to take advantage of the bleeding edge technology in the market.
Its definitely an alien recruitment process to me, personally I prefer heavy technical assessments as it plays to my strengths but this is probably the first of many cultural differences to this type of environment. What works well is that the team is getting a collective buy in and there's a build-up of energy and momentum.
Current plan is for the company to come together within the next 3 weeks, and hopefully I'll have a formal contract very shortly!
