Why Startups Hiring Senior Developers Can Be a Huge Mistake

Experience is valuable. But for startups? I don’t think so

Mohammad Faisal
3 min readMay 25, 2021

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Interview
Photo by Sora Shimazaki from Pexels.

Running a startup is exciting. You are part of a journey where the destination moves constantly.

Hiring and managing people is even more challenging. A well-organized team is the most important asset for a startup.

In my experience as a founding member of a startup — and after working for multiple startups in the last 3-4 years — I have noticed that the outcome of a team depends more on chemistry than technical strength.

Today, I will share my experience with older programmers and why I think startups should avoid hiring them.

They Have More To Lose

Younger programmers are eager to take risks. They have nothing to lose. They can bet on a promising technology or change to a different tech stack.

But the case is different for older programmers. They have spent their career working on a specific technology. Maybe they are very good at it, but it’s not guaranteed that technology will solve every problem.

In these scenarios, they oppose adopting a new technology because they suddenly go from experts to newbies!

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