For Managers, CTOs & Tech Leads Building the Right Teams
by Ivaylo Gluhchev
Free PDF · 8 parts · 5 practical appendices
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Every framework comes from real hiring decisions where I was accountable for the outcome. Some were great. Some cost the team six months and a lot of goodwill. I've included both.
How to write a real business case for a hire. How to think about team type and team state before you open a role. How to write a JD that filters candidates without you reading every CV.
What to look for in 60 seconds on a CV. Green flags, red flags, and what AI-inflated CVs look like up close. How to use AI to screen 30–40 CVs consistently without losing your mind.
Matching interview depth to seniority. Why you should tell candidates exactly what's coming. How to run take-home tasks without wasting anyone's time.
The agenda-setting technique that gives you control of the room. Why your job is to get the candidate's best performance, not catch them out.
The signals that actually matter. The "Hell Yes" framework — what it feels like, how to trust it, and what to do when it's absent.
Making the offer personally. How candour is a competitive advantage when closing candidates. Negotiating above-band compensation without losing the person or the budget.
Eight mistakes I've seen (and made) — written plainly, so you can recognise and avoid them.
What changes when every candidate has an AI co-pilot — and every hiring manager does too. How to read AI-assisted work honestly, what skills actually matter now, and how to keep your process fair and fast.
Not filler chapters — real templates and prompts you can copy straight into your next hiring round.
AI Prompt Library
The Brief
Interview Scorecard
Job Description Template
Candidate Levelling
Job descriptions copied from the internet. CVs screened by recruiters with no technical context. Interview panels with no coordination. Offers made under time pressure. New hires who seemed great on paper, struggling three months in. I've lived through all of it — and I've made every one of those mistakes.
Running a growing team and tired of bad hires slowing you down? This guide gives you the systems to hire consistently well.
Scaling from 10 to 100 engineers? Build a hiring pipeline that maintains quality at speed with proven frameworks.
Making your first critical hires? Learn what separates great technical hiring from expensive guesswork.
Engineering leader who's hired (and mis-hired) across startups and scale-ups for over a decade. This playbook distills every painful lesson, every framework that actually worked, and every mistake worth avoiding — so you don't have to learn them the hard way.
I also write about the changing realities of technical hiring on Substack, including practical observations that build on the ideas in this playbook.
Tell me a little about yourself and I'll send your download link — eight parts and five ready-to-use appendices.
Free PDF · 8 parts · 5 practical appendices
New articles and hiring insights. No spam, unsubscribe any time.