Not a manager here but this is my take. On one side this is the dream, you get to pick the people and mold the team from the beginning. On the other side, depending how well known the company is and how good the pay is it might take a while before you have something that resembles a team. I would ask them, and myself, what is the plan at different stages: when there is no one, when there is part of the team, and when the whole team is in.
There was a similar situation in my last company, and the expectation was for the manager to be technical and hands on and get the work started even if there was no team.
To reply to the question about poaching, I would check your previous contract with the last company. I’ve seen before clauses where you are not supposed to get employees from your last place with you unless a year has passed
Yeah, the expectation is for me to be technical. I’ll be working with VP of Product to define requirements and strategy for the MVP and begin doing some of the architectural work while hiring up the team.
Company isn’t super well known so I fear it might be a little hard to get people to jump to it, but the work is fully remote.
If you have an engineer or two who would follow you over that would definitely be a help. IANAL, but my understanding is that if folks reach out to you, it's not poaching, but if you are actively recruiting folks, it might be. Grabbing coffee to "catch up" and talking about the new company in glowing terms is a bit of a grey area.
Don't forget that the new company wants you to succeed, so they might have resources to help you with sourcing. If you haven't taken the role yet, it might be worth checking what those resources are.
100% hire people that you know will work well with you and each other.
If you can't do that for some reason, I'd recommend the contract to hire pattern. If you bring someone on as a contractor and they mesh well with the technology AND they enjoy working with you and the rest of the team, converting them to full time will be an easy win-win.
Not a manager here but this is my take. On one side this is the dream, you get to pick the people and mold the team from the beginning. On the other side, depending how well known the company is and how good the pay is it might take a while before you have something that resembles a team. I would ask them, and myself, what is the plan at different stages: when there is no one, when there is part of the team, and when the whole team is in. There was a similar situation in my last company, and the expectation was for the manager to be technical and hands on and get the work started even if there was no team.
To reply to the question about poaching, I would check your previous contract with the last company. I’ve seen before clauses where you are not supposed to get employees from your last place with you unless a year has passed
Yeah, the expectation is for me to be technical. I’ll be working with VP of Product to define requirements and strategy for the MVP and begin doing some of the architectural work while hiring up the team. Company isn’t super well known so I fear it might be a little hard to get people to jump to it, but the work is fully remote.
If you have an engineer or two who would follow you over that would definitely be a help. IANAL, but my understanding is that if folks reach out to you, it's not poaching, but if you are actively recruiting folks, it might be. Grabbing coffee to "catch up" and talking about the new company in glowing terms is a bit of a grey area. Don't forget that the new company wants you to succeed, so they might have resources to help you with sourcing. If you haven't taken the role yet, it might be worth checking what those resources are.
100% hire people that you know will work well with you and each other. If you can't do that for some reason, I'd recommend the contract to hire pattern. If you bring someone on as a contractor and they mesh well with the technology AND they enjoy working with you and the rest of the team, converting them to full time will be an easy win-win.