Indian founder hires developer without ‘technical interview’ – did it pay off? ‘DSA questions don’t build apps’
An Indian founder hired his first developer without a technical interview, using a paid 7-day trial. Eight months later, the developer helped generate $60K revenue, proving practical tests can beat DSA questions.
An Indian startup founder recently shared on X how he hired his company’s first developer without any formal technical interview. Kartikey Singh, the entrepreneur, revealed that eight months later, the decision had paid off, with the developer helping the startup generate $60,000 in revenue.
How Did the Founder Hire?
“Just hired my first developer without asking a single DSA question. No formal interview, no ‘reverse this binary tree’ nonsense. Just said: ‘Here's 7 days, paid probation. Build this real client feature. If it's good, you're hired. If not, no hard feelings’,” Kartikey Singh wrote.
“He's still with us 8 months later helping scale to $60k revenue. Sometimes the best hiring process is just... letting people prove they can actually do the job. DSA questions don't build apps. People do,” he added.
What Was Social Media’s Reaction?
Social media users welcomed the unconventional approach. One person commented, “Exactly. The hardest problems are invisible. People who can solve them show up when you let them work.”
Another user said, “That’s really cool, especially since it’s paid. It's way more realistic. I'm definitely going to do this with my company someday.”
A third added, “This is awesome considering I have turned down two clients this week for trying to send me an AI-generated list of questions that contradict their requirements spec. One was too lazy to delete the boilerplate sections where he was supposed to add sensitive data manually. The other wants me to screenshot private GitHub PRs and explain what is happening in them. They all want me to limit my summary response to less than 700 words while describing technologies like Docker, Hosting Migrations, Replit IDE, CI/CD pipelines, several portfolio projects and finally an approach plan for their project. Phew!”
A fourth user wrote, “I've used this exact hiring method for years (to hire contractors). It beats all typical interview-based hiring – it is faster, produces better results, and is way easier for all parties.”
Is This the Future of Hiring Tech Talent?
The response suggests that more founders may start moving away from traditional coding interviews and focus on practical, real-world work to identify the right talent.