# Engineering hiring for CTOs and founders

A founder runs a two-hour live session before you meet anyone. You get one to three engineers, each with written evidence.

Source: https://www.wepair.works/solutions/ctos-and-founders
Published: 2026-10-06
Updated: 2026-10-06

## Sound familiar?

Hiring lands on the person with the least spare time on the team.

- “I lost three evenings to first-round calls with people who couldn’t walk me through their own pull request.”
- “The agency sent fourteen resumes. I needed one engineer.”
- “Our last contractor built exactly what the ticket said, and nothing we actually needed.”
- “I have no idea who screened them, or what they were tested on.”

## What changes when a founder runs the first round

You still make the call. You make it with evidence instead of a resume.

| Today                                              | With wepair.works                                                                |
| -------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| A stack of resumes to triage between meetings      | One to three engineers per role, each with a written technical record            |
| Your evenings spent on first-round technical calls | A founder runs a two-hour live session before you see a name                     |
| “Trust us, they’re senior”                         | Strengths, gaps and mistakes, written by the person who watched them work        |
| The vendor disappears once the contract is signed  | The founder who vetted them keeps reading their work and reports back in writing |
| A rotating pool you can’t name                     | One engineer in your standup, your repo and your review queue                    |

## What you read before you spend an interview slot

### A write-up from the session, not a scorecard

Every shortlisted candidate arrives with what we saw, where they needed prompting and what to probe next. Two rows from a [real, published write-up](/artifacts/vetting-write-up):

> **Systems reasoning: excellent.** Given 4M events/day on one Postgres box, he went to the write path before the read path and named lock contention on the ledger table as the first thing to break. We did not prompt for it.
>
> **Code he defends: acceptable.** Explained why he chose a token bucket over a sliding window, then said he would use the sliding window now because the burst behaviour caused a support load he had not predicted.

### A founder runs every session

Alvaro or Bruno pairs live with each candidate for about two hours. No outsourced screener, and you can call the person who made the recommendation.

### One to three names

Small on purpose. If nobody clears the bar, we tell you that instead of padding the list.

### We keep reading the code after they start

A founder reviews the engineer’s actual work weekly or every two weeks and writes you a digest: what shipped, what stalled, what they picked up without being asked, and where they pushed back on your plan, or should have. [Read a sample digest](/artifacts/digest).

### Inside your process, not beside it

Your repo, your board, your standup, with four to six hours of overlap with US working hours. No project manager or account manager sits between you and the engineer.

### A replacement, not a restart

If a placement stops working, we present a vetted replacement within 5 business days at no new placement fee. In the first 30 days you can cancel without notice.

## How it runs from your seat

Twenty minutes to brief us. After that, you read before you interview.

### Brief a founder

Twenty minutes on the stack, the scope, the seniority, the hours you need to overlap and what success looks like.

### We search for the role

Active and passive candidates across Latin America, matched to your stack, seniority and working hours. Not a bench.

### A founder pairs with each one

About two hours of live work: unfamiliar code, debugging, architecture, AI-assisted development and how they explain a decision.

### You read, then interview

One to three write-ups with the gaps stated. Our assessment narrows the guesswork; the decision stays yours.

### They start, we stay

We hold the contract, the IP assignment and one US invoice. The digest arrives weekly or every two weeks.

## Questions founders ask first

### Do I still interview them?

Yes. The write-up tells you what to probe. It does not replace your interview or your decision.

### What if nobody passes?

We say so and explain why, rather than sending the closest miss. Search, interviews and a shortlist you decline cost nothing.

### What does it cost?

One all-inclusive hourly rate in USD, from $49 an hour and banded by seniority. Search, interviews and a shortlist you decline cost nothing. New clients pay a two-week deposit before the start, credited against the final invoice. [See the rate bands](/pricing).

### Are they our employees?

No. Most engineers provide services to us as independent contractors and work inside your process. We hold the contract, confidentiality and IP-assignment chain. [Read the engagement terms](/legal).

### How is this different from Turing or Toptal?

The person who ran the technical session is a founder you can call, and you read their written evidence before the interview.

### Can we hire them full-time later?

Yes, through contract-to-hire conversion. The fee is set out in the [engagement terms](/legal), with no lock-in beyond it.