The Martin Parable
Martin Williams, VP of Engineering at the hot new startup ShortCell**, stepped out of a meeting with Ruth, the CTO. The executive team has identified a unique strategic opportunity to help propel ShortCell forward but the window is closing. Martin, well aware that his current development team is already at capacity, has to figure out a way to shift some capacity to the new project without major disruption.
“How long would it take to bring on some new engineering talent?”, he asks his head of Talent Acquisition, Ashley, in a Zoom call later that day. He has some budget to throw at the problem and hiring in-house makes the most sense, but timelines could be a problem.
“For an entirely new team? We’re looking at probably at least six months to get it fully staffed. There’s a lot of people looking right now, which is good for us, but that could also mean more work having to weed through candidates,” Ashley replies.
“Plus a few more months for the team to come up to speed…”, Martin trails off.
That’s not going to work, he grumbles to himself.
He tenders a follow-up: “What about staffing agencies?”
“Not unless you want to pay an extra 40% on top of what we’d already be paying any FTE’s; sure they could maybe fill the roles faster, but I don’t think we have the budget for that right now.”
