Your first engineer sets the trajectory of everything after. We place founding engineers across Latin America, senior, full-stack, allergic to bureaucracy, who turn your idea into a shipping product and your codebase into something the next ten hires can build on.
They set architecture, velocity and standards. The next ten engineers inherit their decisions.
Full-stack, product-minded, comfortable owning DevOps and infra early, and comfortable with ambiguity.
Whether you’re non-technical or a technical founder who needs a partner, they get you to a live, iterating product.
LatAm’s startup scene was built under constraints, small budgets, big ambitions, which is exactly the muscle a founding engineer needs.
3-5 people who fit the exact role, not a résumé dump.
I’ve made the founding-engineer hire myself.
Not a fit? We replace at no cost.
Operators who’ve made this hire, not account managers.
We start with a 30-minute call. You tell me the role, the stack, and what “great” looks like. No charge, no obligation.
We screen against the role-specific bar and send 3-5 people in days, not a résumé dump.
Meet your favorites. We coordinate everything. Most clients hire within ~3 weeks of the first call.
We handle contracts and payroll via Talent Management (COR). Not a fit in 90 days? We replace at no cost.
Your founding engineer is the hire that shapes every hire after them. Four pitfalls we see most.
Smartest is not the same as best-fit. Your founding engineer needs to be senior enough to ship without direction, scrappy enough to work without infrastructure, and comfortable enough with ambiguity to survive a pre-PMF product. Filter for that combination, not for the biggest resume.
The founding engineer joins for the mission and the ownership. If your brief reads like a job description at Google, you'll get Google engineers who leave in six months. Write the brief for someone who wants to build something, not maintain something.
Your founding engineer will make architectural decisions everyone else inherits. Compromising on the technical bar here compounds for years. Pay for the seniority you need on day one.
Cash-only compensation loses founding engineer candidates to companies offering ownership. Equity is not optional at this stage. Talk to your board or advisors about a founding-engineer package before you start the search.
A founding engineer is your first or earliest engineering hire, broader scope, more ownership, and a direct hand in architecture, product and culture. A senior engineer on an established team usually has a narrower lane.
A founding engineer can be a salaried/contract hire without cofounder-level equity, though many founders offer some. We’ll talk through what’s standard for your stage on the call.
Often, yes, that’s exactly the profile we screen for. Full-stack range plus product sense lets them take an idea to a live MVP without a team.
A founding engineer is a long-term owner; a freelance team is great for bounded projects. If you want a pod for a defined build, see hire freelance teams.
Senior. Your first hire makes decisions everyone else inherits, this isn't the place to save money on juniority.
Portfolio deep-dives and a 0→1 scenario interview. We dig into what they built with no roadmap and no one managing them.
Once the product is moving, you usually specialize, see backend or frontend engineers. Your founding engineer often helps make that hire.
Dramatically less for the same seniority, typically 50% below US comp. See the Compensation Report for benchmarks.
“Your first hire is the one I’d most want to get right. Let’s talk through who you actually need before you commit.” Calvin, CEO of Awana