Hi, I'm Matt. In 2015, I founded www.re-factor.co and I've built all sorts of software engineering teams for pre-seed startups to Series-E Exits. I've hired as many as 50 on to a single product software team. I've worked with brand new engineering managers and fortune 500 CTOs. I've built a network of software and product folks that's helped save product companies thousands of hours of lost engineering time on interviews. I've built a small company and trained fellow recruiters to do the same. Over the years, I think (I hope) I’ve helped a ton of software engineers navigate sometimes silly job interviews and move their careers in the direction they wanted them to go. I think I’ve helped hiring managers do the same.
Fast forward 8 years. Tech hiring is still a mess and we’re at the precipice of what seems like a tech downturn as global macros, venture capitalists and their investors look to flip the script on the metrics that define successful startups and product companies. In many ways, tech hiring is just as noisy and messy now as it was when I founded Re-factor in May of 2015 but with even more complicated externalities. I thought it a great time to get off linkedin and start writing for a community of folks here at Substack. The hope is we can feature thoughtful and insightful hiring managers and founders I’ve worked with over the years who I know “get it”, do early career and career changer candidates “ask me anythings” and get above the linkedin Crying CEO debates to actually help folks network and land the jobs and candidates they’re after.
While I’m not a professional writer—please forgive me for the em and en dashes in advance—I have made a career out of helping folks get hired and hire better. If you’re interested in joining the converstation, I hope you’ll decide to sub and follow along at a moment that seems unprecedented in tech hiring!