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Comment by jarin | Hacker News Reader

It's starting to get to the point where I have so much work that I need some help, but on the other hand I'm ok with taking the risk of eating ramen and potatoes for weeks at a time if I have to (mostly if I have trouble collecting from a client).

A lot of people have suggested contracting out work, which seems good but it has its own problems. I would rather have someone completely on board.

I have half a mind to just jump in the deep end and trust that I'll be able to swim, but having someone depend on you for income is much different than just putting your own well-being and comfort at risk.

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This raises the question, is it better to hire young unmarried developers with no kids if only to clear your conscience knowing that if things go badly you aren't putting an entire families well being in jeopardy.

I'm 27, with a wife and three kids. I've been working full-time on my own startup for the past 9 months. Without salary.

See, there are plenty of us who can kick ass and raise a family at the same time. Not to mention plan and budget responsibly. In fact, you might really want to hire people who are good at that sort of thing, rather than the Red Bull-chugging, couch-sleeping, college codemonkey stereotype. But I suppose stereotyping is what got us here in the first place, and that's not fair to Red Bull aficionados.

I guess I'd just rather you let me and other prospective employees assess the risks for ourselves. That means frank discussion about clear, accurate information. But don't curtail things because of personal bias.

I understand what you are getting at and I agree but I'm not really sure it would be in your best advantage to divulge that kind of information in interviews for instance.

I think it is, but you'd need to exercise this idea discreetly, as if you make this preference known you could run into discriminatory hiring practice issues. (The sad fact is, people still discriminate - they just don't talk about it anymore.)

It's a bit late now; this thread will probably show up during discovery if he ends up in court over it.

I'm merely posing a question and saying all things equal it may be more advantageous to hire the candidate without a family.

I am a big fan of looking at the whole person, but I wouldn't put it in stark black and white terms like that. The fact is that as we age, and go through life changes, we think in different ways and this means we bring different things to the table.

A 22-year-old hot-shot programmer brings to the table something very different than an experienced 45-year-old software developer who used to be a hot-shot programmer. The former can code circles around the latter, but the latter brings a perspective to the table which can save a lot of time, energy, and expense down the road.

I don't think I'd want a software team with an average age of 26, which looks down on or ignores the advice and feedback of more experienced programmers.

Our industry is developing in strange ways. I know a bunch of good programmers who are unable to find work because of their ages, and who then start their own businesses, and are successful there. Then, I suppose they get brought in to the people who might have otherwise hired them as "consultants!"

In the US at least, and Europe, that is illegal discrimination.

IANAL, but this is only partially true.

* Marital status is a protected class. You can't consider it when hiring. * Age is a protected class. You can't consider it when hiring. * Pregnancy is a proxy for sex, a protected class. You can't consider it when hiring [1]. * Parental status is a protected class, but apparently is not applicable to Employment cases [2]. So you could get away with avoiding parents in some places. But man, what a great way to violate the No Asshole rule. Frankly, I'd rather not work for a startup that would want to go down this path.

[1] http://users.aristotle.net/~hantley/hiedlegl/statutes/title7... [2] http://www.seattle.gov/civilrights/discrimination.htm

IANAL, but I do not believe discrimination laws in the US apply to businesses with 15 or fewer employees.

Where the heck did you hear this? This means I could open a hardware store, and a black person would come in for an interview, and I could be like "Black people need not apply"?

That sounds awfully ridiculous.

In the US there are a wide variety of laws at both state and federal level affecting employment discrimination, but all of the laws I am familiar with have a "small business exception". See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employment_discrimination_law_i...

On the other hand, state and local laws may add additional restrictions beyond federal laws and as I've mentioned... I am not a lawyer. And I don't condone people being dicks.

EDIT: In California, the "magic number" of employees below which you can be an open bigot is apparently five. See:

http://ag.ca.gov/publications/civilrights/01CRhandbook/chapt...

I know what you mean. Personally I can live in a much smaller apartment and I don't mind sharing a kitchen so much (unless the other guys are complete slops and never clean anything) but if I had a SO I wouldn't risk it.

Humans are such silly creatures...

I am a fan of contracting with an eye to hire. You get a chance to get to know someone and then if the relationship works, you can hire him or her.

Don't do it. Go with contractors. Here's the thing: a contractor is running a business, just like you are. If you don't work with them any more, they are not out of "a job." Their livelihood is no longer your responsibility. You are only responsible for paying a set amount you agreed for specific work. If they do not deliver, you do not have to fire them. If you can't afford them any more, you do not have to fire them… you simply don't renew a contract. If it turns out you don't like them, you do not have to fire them.

With contractors, you can also afford to try lots of people without disrupting anyone's lives or running out of money. You have freedom and they have other clients.

Firing people is the absolute worst, I can tell you for a fact… and I'm a person who fully embraces difficult experiences and has no problem admitting when she's wrong.

Even if you want to keep the employee (and based on what I learned & then heard from EVERYONE, the chances you'll keep your first employee are about zero), you will have a hard time sleeping at night because they depend on you and you may find your whole job becomes ensuring you earn enough to pay them. (A good rule of thumb is that you must have at minimum 150% of their salary on a monthly basis. More for non-US countries.)

People will say xyz about contractors -- they're not invested, they have other pots on the stove, blah blah blah. The same is true of employees, but they are harder and so much more painful to get rid of, and it hurts them a lot more. The trick is the right people. Finding the right contractor is absolutely possible, and it's much less stress to be wrong than it is when you are wrong about an employee.

For one, you can hire people for small getting-to-know-you projects. You're not going to find it easy to do that with an employee. Moreover, once a person is an employee, their behavior may completely change… being employed (and being an employer!) brings out all kinds of crazy psychological crap you never would have believed possible.

So, yeah. Don't do it!

I am a contractor and part of a larger consulting shop so I'm biased but I have to agree with ahoyhere. You get a reliable burn rate which is adjustable on a schedule you can negotiate. If you're hiring a team of contractors you should get a group who have proven that they have an effective and efficient process for working together which they can apply from day 1 and you can probably scale the size of the team based on your needs and budget. When your needs change or you pivot and you need an expert in a new technology which I don't know I'm happy to walk away or swap places with one of my peers who may be a better fit. I'm also fortunate enough to have coworkers lining up future projects so neither you nor I need to worry about what I'm going to do if you no longer need me or just need to slow down development an focus your resources elsewhere. I'm certainly not invested in your startup the same way an employee might be. I'm not going to work crazy hours and I'm not going to pull off long shot programmer heroics (well not unless that's what you ask for). Instead I can measure my success only by the quality of the work I produce and the value I can deliver to you immediately. Building the tools you need to validate a product-market fit or get a MVP in front of users is often my end goal, not an incremental step towards hopefully seeing a return on some equity share. If I'm lucky I'm helping a startup build a new product every couple of months. I think that offers a breadth of experience which relatively few prospective full time hires can match.

Startups will need employees and employees invested in and committed to their long term success. So while your looking for the perfect first employee, the one who has the combination of personality, skills, passion, and mindset you need, consider if the right contractors might let you get a lot done in the mean time.

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