Most job descriptions are terrible because they describe a role, not a person. At BlueDot, before we write any JD, we first sketch exactly who would thrive here - warts and all.

We do this for everything. Before designing a course, building a tool, or even writing a blogpost, we draft an ['ideal customer profile' (ICP)](https://longform.asmartbear.com/icp-ideal-customer-persona/) to ensure we're building for real humans, not imaginary users.

In the spirit of [working in public](https://bluedot.org/blog/working-in-public), here's the unfiltered ICP for our new Tech Lead role. If this sounds like you, we'd love to hear from you! [Apply here](https://bluedot.org/join-us/tech-lead).

## Who they are

> Meet Carol, a senior engineer at a Series B startup that’s losing its way. Multiple years experience, previously built 0-to-1 at a failed startup and has multiple side projects others are using. Could make £200k+ at FAANG but chooses impact over money.
> 
> “I'm tired of building things nobody cares about. I want to ship things that matter, fast, with people who give a shit.” – Carol, probably

- **Outcome obsessed, not code precious.** Will happily torch 3 months of work if something better emerges. Measures success by user impact, not lines shipped
- **Post-failure wisdom.** Has startup scar tissue. Been sold dreams that evaporated. Now has pattern recognition for what's real vs what's venture theatre
- **Full-stack ownership.** Talks to users, analyses data, mocks designs, writes docs. Allergic to "that's not my job"
- **Speed fundamentalist** - Ships to real users fast. Viscerally hates bureaucracy, long meetings, permission-seeking culture

### What They Want

- **Real users, real impact.** "I want to ship something on Monday and see 1000 people use it by Friday"
- **Clear line to survival.** Not another pre-PMF prayer circle. Evidence of traction, revenue, or at minimum a brutally honest path to it.
- **Mission that matters.** Not another ad-tech optimisation tool or crypto dashboard that makes the world slightly worse.
- **Speedy by default.** Where "let's just try it" beats "let's have another meeting about it"

### What They'll Trade

- **Will grind when it matters** - Happy to pull long hours for launches, crises, or breakthrough moments. Not for theatre
- **Will learn anything useful** - New stack? Fine. New domain? Fine. As long as it's not resume-driven development
- **Will work with ambiguity** - But not chaos. There's a difference between startup scrappiness and headless chicken syndrome

### Red flags they’ve run from

- "We need someone who can execute our vision" (translation: code monkey)
- "We're still figuring out what we're building" (after Series A)
- "We're disrupting [insert industry] with blockchain”
- Excessive process before product-market fit
- More PMs than engineers
- Leadership that's never shipped anything themselves
- More than 2 hours of meetings per day

### **How to Spot Them**

- GitHub shows personal projects with actual users that solve real problems
- Uses phrases like "shipped", "users loved", "we learned" instead of "implemented", "designed", "architected"
- Has opinions about product decisions, not just technical ones
- Writing pragmatic engineering blogs, not academic CS theory
- Contributes to open-source projects with strong user communities


We're hiring for a Tech Lead. Meet Carol, our ideal candidate.

Li-Lian Ang • September 2, 2025