Rethinking How You Hire Developers (and Co-Founders) in the Age of AI

Hiring used to be straightforward... ish.

You’d talk to a developer, maybe do a coding task or two, and come out with a pretty good read:

“He’s probably a 7/10.”

You might’ve been off by one point—maybe they were a 6 or an 8—but close enough.

AI has shattered that calibration.

Now, that same "7/10" gut feeling could be masking a 4/10 engineer coasting on AI crutches—or a 10/10 AI-native powerhouse shipping like a full team.

The margin of error in hiring has exploded. And if you're not adjusting your filters, you’re flying blind.

AI Has Changed the Game—Not Just the Tools

AI is everywhere: Cursor, ChatGPT, custom internal agents... It’s not just a toolset—it’s a new layer in the software development stack.

This means your hiring process can’t just test for pure programming skills. It has to test for judgment, adaptability, and leverage.

And that starts with how you run your interviews.

Some founders are told they should ban AI during interviews to get a 'true' read on a candidate's skills. But that advice is missing the point.

Testing someone without AI doesn’t tell you how they’ll work—it tells you how they perform without the very tools they’ll rely on day to day.

That’s outdated thinking.

If you want to know how someone will perform on the job, you need to see how they work with AI, not without it.

Let them use AI. Watch how they prompt, debug, cross-check, and think. That’s how you separate those who use AI from those who lean on it.

You're hiring a human-machine duo. Interview like it.

What Makes a Great Developer Now

Here’s what matters more than ever:

🧠 1. Judgment over syntax
The best developers don’t just know how to code—they know what to build, when to use AI, and when to step in and take control.

⚡️ 2. AI fluency
Can they wield AI like a toolbelt, not a crutch? Can they turn a fuzzy idea into a working product—fast?

🤝 3. Communication
With AI writing code faster, human clarity is the new bottleneck. Clear thinkers. Strong async writers. Good at defining things. Those are your 10/10s now.

📚 4. Learning velocity
The best devs today aren't static experts—they’re fast learners. They explore new frameworks, test new AI tools, and stay one step ahead. In an AI-driven world, learning speed is execution speed.

The Illusion of First Impressions

Here’s the trap: AI makes everyone look a little more polished than they are.

Someone might breeze through an interview with help from AI and seem like they’ve got it all figured out. But in reality, they could be missing the depth, the judgment, and the instincts that separate a good developer from a great one.

At the same time, some of your strongest candidates might not have every answer at their fingertips. They might hesitate. They might even say "I don’t know." But then—minutes later—they’ve found the right path, implemented a solution, and moved on.

It’s not about what they know off the top of their head. It’s about how quickly they get to the right answer.

In a world where AI accelerates execution, speed of understanding and adaptability matter more than preloaded knowledge.

What to Do Instead

Here’s how to adapt:

• Test their AI workflow. Give open-ended problems. Let them use tools. Watch how they prompt, refine, and debug.

• Ask about leverage. What have they automated? What parts of their job do they not do themselves anymore?

• Look for curiosity. Are they playing with AI? Staying up to date? Building side tools for fun?

• Invite them to explain tradeoffs. Can they clearly explain why they made a certain decision? How they balanced speed vs scalability? When they chose not to use AI?

🚨 Watch Out for Shiny, Fragile Builds

AI makes it easy to build fast—but not always well.

Some candidates might wow you with polished demos or MVPs. But under the hood? The architecture might be a mess. The database schema might not scale. The code might be hard to debug. The server setup might be duct-taped together with a few lucky ChatGPT prompts, resulting in something that is impossible to fix if it fails.

Speed without understanding = tech debt on turbo mode.

This risk gets amplified when you're a non-technical founder. It's easy to be impressed by surface-level progress—a sleek UI, a working demo, or rapid iteration. But without the context to evaluate what's happening under the hood, you're flying blind.

You might not realize anything is wrong until you're scaling, breaking things, or hiring someone senior who suddenly uncovers a pile of hidden problems.

AI can help you go fast—but if someone’s building skyscrapers on sand, you're in for pain later.

Ask:

• Can they explain why they chose that stack?

• Do they understand what the current technical debt is?

• What would they change if the app had to scale to 10x the users?

Great devs don’t just ship fast. They build with durability and clarity.

Final Thought

You’re not hiring for memorized answers anymore. You’re hiring for how someone thinks, how they adapt, and how they use the tools around them.

The right developer might not know everything upfront—but they get to the answer fast, and they build with intention.

The wrong one might look productive on the surface but lean entirely on AI to get through the day. That’s not leverage. That’s risk.

AI didn’t just change the tools—it changed the fundamentals of what makes someone valuable.

So shift the lens. Look for clarity, curiosity, and control—not just output.