Are Group Opportunities a Thing in Tech Hiring? | Hacker News Reader

Are Group Opportunities a Thing in Tech Hiring?

3 points_imba_4 comments

In my 15 years of working, I’ve often seen discussions on the importance of building great teams, but what about teams that stick together across opportunities? Over time, a core group of us has naturally formed—one of those groups that tends to move from job to job together. Started with two 15 years ago but we're up to about four or five with the last two missions. We're just people that work very well together and have found a great rhythm. We’ve taken on a big challenge/stepped into a obvious trap a few years ago: transforming a more traditional company into a tech company.

I’ve decided it’s time to at least start looking at some opportunities, but there’s nothing on the horizon in my network at the moment.

What strikes me as curious is that while recruitment and opportunities is a normal subject on platforms like Hacker News, I don't think I've ever seen discussions or even comments about entire teams looking to move together. I also don't know any other groups larger than maybe two co-founders that constantly move together.

Aside from the obvious scenario of acquisition, is this just not a thing? Does anyone have experience with group opportunities, or is it simply too custom, or even not feasible for most?

I'm in a similar position to you. Group of friends which has formed from working across multiple companies over the years.

I asked a few recruiters this question and was really disappointed that none of them were interested in placing a group (even just 2 developers) together.

The only way we had any success was by talking with early-ish stage startups who were looking to build engineering teams. A friend and I spoke with a couple of founders who wanted to hire us both. Unfortunately one didn't have enough cash and the other opportunity was less exciting to us, so it didn't go anywhere.

We've since ended up working on a project together for a very early stage startup, compensated with equity as well as salary. We still have our day jobs though, it's an evenings and weekends thing for now.

Interesting. I haven't gone to recruiters but I would assume going as a group makes their jobs easier. We've done some moderately successful startups (small non-US market, though) in the past, but I don't think anyone has the appetite (or ideas) to realistically bootstrap again right now.

> I asked a few recruiters this question and was really disappointed that none of them were interested in placing a group (even just 2 developers) together.

Have you seen a recruitment agreement/contract? They're usually standardized to focus on hiring individuals, with specific roles, at a certain rate/method of payment. They want to send your resume to more than one client - how many companies want to hire a pair of people and would enter into a contract to conduct that search? Probably zero. Recruiters can lose their fee if the hires quit/fired before a certain date. What if only 1/2 or 1/3 worked out? Hiring a group would be complicated from the recruiters perspective, not worth the risk. They don't get paid unless they make the hire.

Imo, the group/pair should approach the CTO/CEO or engineering leadership and do negotiates that way instead. Recruiters take a hefty chunk of $$ and if you're trying to "market" yourself, going thru a recruiter is less professional as a small squad vs direct business development.

Starting a new consulting company is the typical way a team moves to a new work context together. This makes it simple for an organization to engage the team: there's but a single negotiation and no responsibility for assigning contributor tasks and compensation in a way that makes each team member happy.

Good luck.

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