When a problem arises in development,
I often receive requests like, “Please find me a great developer.”
Each time, I almost reflexively ask two questions.
First,
“What kind of person do you consider a ‘great developer,’ CEO?”
Second,
“Are you perhaps building an operating system like Windows or macOS?”
In most cases, they shake their heads at the second question.
And then, a brief silence follows the first question.
When startup CEOs say “great developer,”
they usually don’t mean a top 1% genius developer.
The person they truly want is typically someone like this:
In other words,
rather than “someone who writes code exceptionally well,”
it’s “someone who makes work flow smoothly when working together.”
To be blunt,
what most startups are building
isn’t groundbreaking algorithms or the world’s first technology.
In such situations, what’s needed isn’t
extremely outstanding individual technical skill,
but rather a developer who operates stably within the team.
Of course, basic development competency is important.
However, in a startup, other aspects are more crucial.
Ultimately, what the CEO is looking for isn’t
“a developer without problems,” but
“someone who can handle problems together.”
So, I summarize it this way:
A great developer is not someone with a flashy tech stack,
but someone who makes work progress within our team.
And such a developer is revealed not through
a resume,
not through GitHub stars,
but through their rhythm with people.
