Has your hiring process kept up with the industry’s AI leaps, or are you still interviewing like it's 2022?

Today’s AI-driven landscape means the skill gap between a good engineer and a great one widens every day, and the great ones can be difficult to find. But how do you choose – and hire – the best in the business? How do you find those elusive engineers who can skilfully handle multi-agent workflows, ship in hours what used to take weeks, and add an AI-focused competitive edge to your startup?

In this episode, Chris Saad and Yaniv Bernstein are joined by Matt Cook, an expert in hiring the best engineers in the business, and co-founder of Scouut – one of Australia's most respected engineering recruiters for early-stage startups. Matt works with pre-seed through to Series C companies and has a front-row seat to how AI is reshaping what ‘great’ looks like in engineering, and how founders and hiring teams alike can keep pace.

They cover what's fundamentally changed in engineering hiring, what hasn't, and how to build a small, elite team that punches well above its weight.

In this episode, you will:
* Understand why AI is widening the gap between great and average engineers
* Discover the three questions to ask any Big Tech candidate to determine if they'll thrive in a startup
* Find out why much more is expected of ‘senior’ engineers, and what that means for founders
* Hear how the best startups are now testing for AI competency in interviews, not just coding ability
* Learn why smaller teams, higher salaries, and generous token budgets are the new arbitrage for attracting elite engineers
* Understand why you should be designing the role for the people you want, and making your AI-forward culture clearly visible

Timestamps
00:00 Coming Up
00:47 On Today's Show
02:25 Today's Guest: Matt Cook, Startup Recruiter at Scouut
03:24 Why the Hiring Bar Stays High
06:14 AI Engineers: From 10x to 50x
08:40 Productivity vs Impact
10:12 Are There Still AI Skeptics? (Yes.)
17:05 Specs Over Source Code
21:50 What is a Founding Engineer?
26:45 Avoiding the Big Tech Logo Trap
32:27 Smaller Teams, Bigger Impact
35:45 Employee Pay
42:25 Funding Pressures and Moats
44:36 Interviewing Techniques
48:24 AI Token Budgets as a 'Perk'
51:57 Do Fundamentals Still Matter? (Yes.)
54:51 Closing Thoughts

Resources mentioned in this episode
* Scouut (Matt Cook's engineering recruitment firm for early-stage startups): https://scouut.com.au/
* Matt Cook on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewmarkcook/
* Claude Code (AI-native coding tool referenced throughout): https://claude.com/product/claude-code
* Loki (Australian startup referenced for their public AI-first hiring stance): https://www.itsloki.com/
* Solid (lightweight vibe-coding tool mentioned by Chris): https://trysolid.com/

The Pact
Honor the Startup Podcast Pact! If you have listened to TSP and gotten value from it, please:
Follow, rate, and review us in your listening app
Subscribe to the TSP Mailing List to gain access to exclusive newsletter-only content and early access to information on upcoming episodes: https://thestartuppodcast.beehiiv.com/subscribe
Secure your official TSP merchandise at https://shop.tsp.show/
Follow us here on YouTube for full-video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNjm1MTdjysRRV07fSf0yGg
Give us a public shout-out on LinkedIn or anywhere you have a social media following

Key links
This episode of the Startup Podcast is sponsored by .tech domains. Forget weird prefixes and creative misspellings; the availability for .tech domains is simply way better than .com. For a clean name that highlights your tech credentials, get a .tech domain at your favorite registrar.

This episode of the Startup Podcast is sponsored by Vanta. Vanta helps businesses get and stay compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in demand compliance frameworks. With over 200 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on. For a limited time offer of US$1,000 off, go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://⁠www.vanta.com/tsp⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Get your question in for our next Q&A episode: https://forms.gle/NZzgNWVLiFmwvFA2A
The Startup Podcast website: https://www.tsp.show/episodes/

Learn more about Chris and Yaniv
Work 1:1 with Chris: http://chrissaad.com/advisory/
Follow Chris on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrissaad/
Follow Yaniv on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ybernstein/

Producer: Justin McArthur https://www.linkedin.com/in/justin-mcarthur
Intro Voice: Jeremiah Owyang https://web-strategist.com/

#AI #Hiring #Engineers #Startups #TechStartups #Founder #TechBusiness #TheStartupPodcast