Ask HN: I am going to setup an engineering team. What should I know/prepare for?

[arunkumarl]

I used to be an accountant in practice (equivalent of a CPA in India). Became a web developer by accident 2 years ago. Currently building a web application for the accounting industry that automates a lot of reporting tasks. So far it has gone well and I feel like I should be adding more people to my team to handle the increasing workload.

My stack is Rails/Postgres on Heroku at the moment. And some C# for some small windows tools we have built. I did a lot of googling on this subject and made a to-do list of things to prepare for this. - I found the Joel test which I will soon be passing.

I was hoping you guys could help me with some advice based on your personal experiences regarding: 1. What I should expect/prepare for 2. What questions should I be asking, that I am probably not. 3. Anything else that you think I should do.

I think what I am asking boils down to: "What are some things you wish you knew before you set up your engineering org?"

Thanks in advance.

[sarthakjain]

Hire for problems you need solved as opposed to generalists. Hire for strength as opposed to lack of weakness. Hire for skillset but understand that a large portion is going to be learning on the job. Hire someone people who care about your codebase and are going to act like the custodian. Hire some who hack solutions which helps keep velocity in the team. People who complain about their previous company are generally poor hires. Most importantly hire people who get sh*t done.

[kagaw]

You need to have a programmer that is better than you atleast 1 or 2 in your team and go with agile. Finally your mission and vision :-)

[kevindeasis]

Ask yourself if these people can work well together