A scam on the rise: startup founders milked by fake developers

Was I dreaming?

I sometimes take on consulting and advisory roles within startups, and this was one of them. I was Interims CTO for Berlin-based reverse logistics startup Rebolet, and like all startups, we were in desperate need of developers. My predecessor had plastered job posts all across LinkedIn. "Job posts on LinkedIn don't work with senior developers," I had said.

AN APPLICANT TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE

Yet here I was, with an email sitting in my inbox: an experienced javascript developer was applying to our company. We're not Google. We're not Apple. We were a small pre-revenue company on a mission to eliminate waste by selling returned goods through our omnichannel solution. And still, I am looking at his profile which seems to fit what we were looking for. He had even already accepted my invitation for an interview.

If that sounded too easy - that's because it was.

HOW FOUNDERS ARE BEING TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF

With the ever-growing shortage of developers on the market yet the increasing demand for nerdy hands, paired with a massive influx of capital into the software industry, and finally enabled by remote work becoming the new normal, a new type of scam has emerged. Developers (or wannabe developers) take many jobs simultaneously, get paid high salaries, and try not to get fired for as long as possible.

"I currently have 10 fully remote engineering jobs. The bar is so low, oversight is non-existent, and everyone is so forgiving for under performance I can coast about 4-8 weeks before a given job fires me. Currently on a $1.5M run-rate for comp this year. And the interviewing process is so much faster today, companies are desperate, it takes me 2-3hrs of total effort to land a new job with thousands to chose from."

-- user dreyfan isn't ashamed of his actions on Hacker News

I took a second glance at the candidate's CV. He described himself as a "pixel-perfect" developer. Being a developer myself and knowing that latest since responsive design became a thing, there's no such thing as pixel-perfect implementations on the web - I was a little puzzled.

?

UNCOVERING THE SCAMMER

Furthermore, he placed himself in the beautiful Polish city called Wroc?aw. I'm German, but I have Polish roots - my grandma still lives in Wroc?aw to this day, and I know the city well. It seems he had grown up and studied there. There are many migrants in town, so while his name doesn't ring Polish, it's not a red flag for me right away.

Then something else caught my eye. A few years ago, he had worked at a tiny Swedish startup in the e-commerce space. What a coincidence - I am good friends with the Malm?-based founder. A quick email later, the situation was clear: my candidate had never worked at this company. He was a scammer.

I'm a technical founder, and I know Eastern Europe like my own backyard. I have a vast network in the startup space and have worked with remote developers for almost ten years. I could spot the inconsistencies within his CV right away - but what about founders who struggle with telling the difference between a senior and mid-level developer? How can they avoid being scammed?

I was curious and decided to attend the interview nonetheless. Not surprisingly, despite being born and brought up in Poland, he was pretty surprised when I started speaking Polish to him, and he could not reply. Being asked about his favorite coffee shop in Wroc?aw also didn't yield any results. Before diving into technical questions, I aborted the interview. I had enough.

HOW TO AVOID GETTING SCAMMED

If you want to avoid this sort of scam to happen to you, here are a few simple guidelines:

• Spend an entire day with your new hire to get to know each other. You can spot red flags reasonably quickly.
• During the first month, do a daily 1:1 standup with them. After that, do text-based standups.
• Have a development process and documented todos along with estimations.
• Have developers commit and push their code daily.
• Use time tracking software.

There are things you should NOT to do:

• Don't use screen-grabbing software to spy on your remote employees. Developers, also and especially senior ones, will not tolerate this.
• Don't micromanage a developer's workday.
• Don't get on frequent daily calls or keep Slacking a developer. They massively disturb a developer's flow, and they will not be productive.

As you see from the points above, try gathering information and evaluating a developer's performance passively instead of making them feel controlled. While this helps to detect a scammer, it will also turn down honest workers.

HAVE YOU WITNESSED THIS?

Have you experienced something like this? Comment! Any questions? Write me! Don’t want to get scammed? Hire pre-vetted developers and firms through reliable partners like Trustshoring.