Note - This is from my perspective and learnings as a founding engineer. This is my personal take on how to build tech teams for the future. Not affiliated with any company or my current employer.

Hacker and Architect - The Duality in Startups

I have been struggling with this duality for a while now. On one hand, I admire the hacker ethos but on the other hand, I see the value in architects - designing systems that are robust, scalable, and maintainable.

Usually the hiring discussions of any decently stable company is around people who can think long term, reason scalability and bring order and plan to the system.

A small startup just need to get things done, often in “ambitious” time. Just a bunch of folks trying to build something from nothing. In these settings, are hackers more valuable than architects?

The Duality

The Hacker Ethos

Hackers love chaos and hate authority. They bring incredible problem solving to the table. They will get your incredible demo out in a day.

The mindset they have -

  • Speed over perfection.
  • Ship first, fix later.

They make “impossible” things happen because they don’t recognize impossibility as a category.

But left unchecked - their duct-tape solutions rot quickly, their shortcuts plant landmines, and their hacks strangle the company at scale.

The Architect Mindset

Architects see systems, dependencies, and constraints. They bring clarity to chaos.

Their mindset -

  • Plan first and then execute.
  • Focus on creating minimal technical debt
  • The system must survive its builders

But left unchecked - Over planners kill momentum. They over-think and delay execution.

Conclusion

You need both.

We need hackers to create momentum and get the ball rolling but we need architects to make it sustainable and long-lasting.

Every great company has engineers who can both hack and architect. They are fluid in their thinking about this.

The only thing to watch out for while hiring is to stay away from midwidts who can neither hack nor architect. They are the bane of startups.

That’s it. Everything else is overhead.

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