When a senior search drags on for months, the problem is often not the market. It is the brief. “Senior backend engineer, Java, AWS” describes thousands of people and tells nobody what good looks like for your team.
Before we source anyone, we write a role scorecard with the hiring manager. It fits on one page, and it changes every conversation that follows.
1. Start with the work, not the title
Describe what this person will own in the first six months: the system, the problem, the decisions they will make. “Move our claims-intake service off the monolith without downtime” is a role. “Senior engineer” is a label.
2. Separate must-haves from nice-to-haves
List the three to five things the person cannot succeed without. Everything else is a nice-to-have. A long must-have list does not raise the bar; it shrinks the pool to people who match keywords.
3. Name the deal-breakers
Deal-breakers save everyone time: time zone overlap, on-call expectations, a stack you will not change, legal requirements such as U.S. work authorization. Write them down before the first interview, not after the fourth.
4. Decide how each requirement is tested
For every must-have, decide how you will know. Some things a work history shows; others need a live technical conversation or a practical exercise. If you cannot say how you would test it, it is not ready to be a requirement.
- Must-haves: three to five, each with how it is tested
- Nice-to-haves: helpful, never decisive
- Deal-breakers: written before sourcing starts
- Constraints: budget, start date, time zone, engagement type
5. Agree on it before sourcing starts
A scorecard only works if the people who will interview have approved it. Agree on it first, and use it to compare every professional against the same standard.
This is the first step of every BragDev search: at the intake call we write the scorecard with you, and your 90 days start that day.
Hiring a senior engineer? Book a free calibration call. We will tell you honestly whether we can run the search, and what the 90-Day Talent Access Membership includes.
