We learned our hiring philosophy the hard way: by getting it completely wrong.
After Y Combinator in 2016, we did what you're "supposed" to do. We raised capital. We scaled aggressively, hiring specialists and building redundant teams. But instead of creating a finely tuned machine, we created bloat.
And it almost killed the company.
Scaling headcount, scaling problems
We weren't sloppy about hiring. In fact, we were quite intentional. We had a team dedicated to sourcing and interviewing full-time, and they were good. We built processes and hired people we liked and believed in. The assumption was to hire smart people into well-defined roles and the machine will run itself.
But the machine slowed.
Customer complaints kept pouring in. Churn rates increased. Internal conflicts intensified. And eventually, good people began to leave.
I had four layers of management under me, and my line of sight became increasingly blurred. The feedback loop was broken, and we tried to introduce executive syncs to regain visibility. But decisions crawled, and eventually both product development and growth ground to a halt. I was confused at the time… no one was doing anything wrong, yet everything felt broken. Nothing like the early startup days. By the time we realized how deep the problems went, the system was already too close to the cliff.
So we made the hard call. We stopped hiring, reset the team, and decided to start over.
Smaller, faster, profitable
Over the past two years, we've redesigned everything; the product, the go-to-market, our operating system, and most importantly, the team.
We eliminated anything that didn't multiply output, abandoned the Silicon Valley playbooks, and rebuilt from first principles. Our aim wasn't to mimic large company structures but to create something that could outperform them through differentiation. As Fred Brooks noted in The Mythical Man-Month, "Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later." We discovered this principle extends far beyond software development.
Now our product consistently wins trials against established competitors. We're growing faster than we did at triple our current size. The team is more cohesive and effective. And remarkably, we're ten times smaller than our competitors. By design.
Hire when it hurts
Early on, people tell you that adding people can make you slower. You don't get it until you live it. Every hire adds communication overhead. More updates. More stakeholders. More coordination.
Now we ask one question before creating any new role: Is something breaking without this person?
If the answer is no, we wait. If the answer is yes, we act. But only if we are certain this hire will make the entire company sharper, not just plug a hole.
Interview fit vs. battlefield fit
Some people look great on paper. They have the logos on their resume. They use the right jargon. They know to say "we" and send a thoughtful follow-up. We used to give bonus points for that.
Then you drop them into the real work. The playbook is missing. The context is messy. They drown.
Battlefield fit looks different. These people under-promise and over-deliver. Two weeks in, you find yourself thinking, "They're already delivering 5x what the last person did." When things break, they fix them. They don't wait for permission. They propose a path and run. According to various HR industry reports, the cost of a bad hire can reach 30% of the employee's first-year earnings. For us, the cost is higher; it's a drag on the entire system.
We hire for battlefield fit. We care about whether you've done hard things well, under pressure, without a map.
What we actually look for
Trajectory is about whether joining Castle is the logical next step in your career path. This could mean you're early in your career with tremendous potential, or you're coming from a larger company where you've been a director of a specialized function related to our focus, and the next step would be joining a startup in a VP role. The core question is: does Castle feel like the right next move that builds on your past and propels your future?
Specificity is what you have actually done that holds up under scrutiny. Not vague "experience." Not your title. Not that you're "curious to learn" about the core aspects of your future job. We want to see the real work, in real systems, with visible impact. A huge bonus if you're passionate enough to have side projects covering your main focus.
Domain vision is your unique insight into our space. We don't want generic headcount. We want people who understand precisely how their skills would transform Castle in a particular way. You should be able to articulate exactly what you'd change, build, or improve based on your deep understanding of our challenges. When you join, you're not filling a role; you're solving specific problems only you can see.
We want engineers who have owned production infrastructure when it mattered. Designers who have shaped product primitives, not just user flows. Go-to-market leads who have closed meaningful deals and stayed to manage the aftermath. Researchers who ship, not just publish.
As Netflix CEO Reed Hastings put it, "The best thing you can do for employees—a perk better than foosball or free sushi—is hire only 'A' players to work alongside them. Excellent colleagues trump everything else." We believe that. If we don't see sharp judgment, we don't move forward.
We hire like we build
Unlike companies that outsource recruiting to firms who send templated messages, our approach to hiring reflects our brand: high quality, intentional, and deeply knowledgeable. We've done the long interview loops. The multi-round panels. The backchannel deep-dives. It felt thorough, but mostly it just added latency without adding signal.
Now, we hire like we build: with intent and fast feedback. Every touchpoint in our hiring process is designed to showcase who we are.
If your work is compelling, we'll reach out directly. Usually, myself, Sebastian, Antoine, Adam, or someone from leadership will send the note - not a recruiter hitting quotas. We noticed something specific in your work. I read your blog post. Antoine saw the bot detection script you published. Adam noticed your PR to our Node SDK. The first call isn't a screen; it's a working session with someone who understands the technical challenges and can engage meaningfully. In fact, candidates often tell us they enjoyed the conversation so much they wonder when the "interview" will begin, not realizing they've been in it all along.
If there's a spark, we move fast, and if not, we end it cleanly. We don't run playbooks to feel safe. If it's a fit, I get involved personally, often on the second call. If it's clear someone will change our trajectory just by onboarding that single person, we rush to get them into the system before someone else grabs them. If it's not a fit right now, we'll remember you. We're in this for the long haul.
We believe the face of Castle should be authentic from the very first interaction. Our process is designed to be as thoughtful as our product. Hiring is the highest-leverage work there is. A wrong hire is systemic drag. A right hire changes everything. We don't chase headcount. We don't staff to impress investors. We hire when the system is breaking, and only for people who make us faster. Every day you wait is lost momentum.
Top of market pay, by design
We also rethought compensation. We pay at the top of the market. The work here is demanding. The impact on our customers is immense and we don't want to let them down. Your pay should reflect that value.
We look for the top 1% who are genuinely obsessed with the problems we solve. You're not just an "engineer" at Castle; you're a "bot hunter." You're not in "sales"; you're working to help users to stay safe online. The fact that you use code, design, or words to get there is secondary.
Your base pay reflects your market value, in addition to equity. While we maintain a fair compensation ladder, we continuously update it with market data from candidates and feedback from current employees receiving offers from other companies. Our goal is to ensure our compensation is always competitive enough that no one would ever leave Castle solely because of pay.
Your move
Our journey has taught us that hiring isn't about filling seats; it's about finding those rare individuals who multiply our impact. We've built a company where exceptional talent can do their best work. Free from unnecessary bureaucracy and pointless processes.
The companies that win in the AI era don't just scale headcount; they scale judgment, ownership, and impact. Each person we bring on board changes our trajectory meaningfully. We're not interested in becoming bigger just for size's sake; we're focused on becoming better.
If our philosophy resonates with you, we want to hear from you. We're always looking for extraordinary people, regardless of whether we have an open role that matches your background. At Castle, the right person creates their own position.
Reach out directly to me at johan@castle.io if working in our environment sounds fun and rewarding. No need for a polished pitch. Just show us what you've built and how you think. Looking forward to hearing from you!
