12 Tips for Landing Top Tech Talent (and Keeping Them Interested Long-Term)
Hiring top engineers used to mean posting a job, screening résumés, and hoping the right person applied. That era is gone. The best candidates are busy, skeptical, and often invisible. They aren’t just looking for a job—they’re vetting your process, your tech, your team, and how you treat them from first contact to final offer.
And here’s the hard truth: if your hiring experience feels slow, shallow, or old-school, they’re out.
The good news? You don’t need a brand as big as Google or comp as fat as Meta to attract top-tier engineers. You need speed, clarity, substance—and a process that feels like a tech company built it.
Here are 12 ways to land (and keep) high-performing technical talent, no matter the size of your team.
1.Know What You’re Really Hiring For
Before you screen a single résumé, define what success looks like—not just in skills, but in business outcomes.
Example: A team hiring a backend engineer realized the real need was API reliability—not just code speed. They rewrote the JD to reflect resilience and ownership instead of just language skills.
Example: A startup founder swapped “rockstar engineer” language for “product-aware builder who ships fast.” Better alignment, better candidates.
2. Shorten the Distance Between Apply and Action
Tech candidates move fast. Every day you delay is a day another offer might land.
Example: One company used Feenyx to automate assessments on application. Qualified engineers got an interview invite the same day.
Example: Another org ran screening and async interviews in parallel. Time-to-offer dropped from 18 to 7 days.
3. Make Your Job Descriptions Not Suck
Vague requirements, inflated tech stacks, and corporate fluff repel great people. Write for clarity and curiosity.
Example: Instead of “5+ years with Python,” try: “You’ll be building services with FastAPI and async workflows. Experience with similar tools is welcome.”
Example: A dev manager added a “What You’ll Do In Your First 30 Days” section. Applications doubled.
4. Show, Don’t Tell—Use Realistic Assessments
Top engineers don’t want brain teasers. They want signal. Give them tasks that mirror the work.
Example: A team replaced a take-home test with a 45-minute live system design whiteboard. Faster, more collaborative, better signal.
Example: Another org used Feenyx to simulate a real bug in their staging environment. Candidates fixed it live, showing practical skill.
5. Offer Flexibility (But Stay Structured)
Engineers love async, but they hate chaos. Offer options, but with clear deadlines and scope.
Example: A recruiter let candidates choose between a take-home or a timed virtual task. Completion rates improved across the board.
Example: A company gave weekend warriors the option to record their responses to technical prompts on their schedule. It expanded their talent pool by 40%.
6. Skip the Trivia, Probe for Thought Process
Asking “What’s a binary search?” won’t find you your next senior architect. Dig into how they reason.
Example: A candidate was asked to design a URL shortener. Their solution wasn’t perfect—but their thought process showed tradeoffs, failure modes, and scaling concerns. Hired.
Example: One team asked: “How would you break down a monolith?” They didn’t care about the tech stack—just the thinking.
7. Make Your Interviewers Assets, Not Liabilities
Your best interviewer is your brand. Your worst one is a dealbreaker.
Example: A startup rotated in only trained interviewers who’d shadowed first. Candidate experience scores jumped 22%.
Example: One org had Feenyx generate live scorecards and suggested follow-ups based on prior interviews. No duplicate questions. Better flow.
8. Close the Loop. Fast.
Top engineers are ghosted more than they ghost. Don’t be that team.
Example: One hiring manager set a 24-hour feedback rule. Even “no” replies included a line of feedback.
Example: A recruiter sent templated decisions—but added one sentence of real commentary. Positive replies—even from rejected candidates—increased.
9. Don’t Hide the Tech (or the Problems)
Be honest. Show your stack, your challenges, your roadmap—and your mess.
Example: A company linked to their public architecture blog in the JD. Candidates came in pre-aligned on tradeoffs and decisions.
Example: One team shared an anonymized bug backlog with finalists. It sparked real discussion—and showed who was ready to dive in.
10. Sell the Team, Not Just the Job
Top engineers join missions. But they stay for people.
Example: Instead of an HR intro call, a company had the engineering manager record a Loom walkthrough of the team and roadmap. Conversion spiked.
Example: A founder joined every final interview to share the company’s journey. Even candidates who passed said the vision stuck with them.
11. Make Offers That Don’t Feel Robotic
The offer moment should feel personal—even if comp is fixed.
Example: A hiring manager sent a custom “Why You?” deck to each finalist, showing how their skills matched the roadmap. Acceptance rates rose.
Example: One company gave finalists a short call with future teammates before the offer went out. Buy-in = secured.
12. Treat Onboarding as Part of Hiring
The process isn’t over when they sign. It’s over when they’re shipping with confidence.
Example: An org sent their onboarding plan with the offer letter. Candidates saw a clear path—not just a comp number.
Example: A startup assigned a “welcome buddy” and had a Slack channel waiting on Day 1. Retention went up 18%.
Final Thoughts
The best engineers aren’t waiting to be picked. They’re choosing who’s worth their time.
Make your hiring process a competitive advantage: fast, thoughtful, and human. Not just a filter—but a signal.
Feenyx makes it easier: from real-time scoring to async assessments and structured feedback, we help you move fast without dropping quality—or candidates.
You don’t need 10 recruiters. You need the right tools and the right signals. And now, you’ve got both.
