Ziemowit Radogostowicz

Founder asked: "Can you fix our technical debt?" You have revenue? No? Then you don't have technical debt. You have a product nobody wants. Technical debt is a LUXURY problem. It means: - You have users - You have revenue   - You need to scale If you have 0 users, your problem isn't tech debt. Your problem is: - Wrong market - Wrong problem - Wrong solution - Or all three Stop hiding behind "we need to refactor." Go talk to 10 potential customers instead. Tag a founder who's been "fixing tech debt" for 6 months.

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It's happening: the "Vibe coding cleanup specialist" role is here. A natural consequence of mass-adoption of tools like Lovable and v0 by Vercel, and probably a new market in the making. It may be a great way for software engineers to find new work-streams. I'm not sure if it is a pleasant work to do, but that's another story. For studios like Pixelmatters, for now, this is not attractive as the clients that need this kind of work are often individuals (B2C) and not companies (B2B) and are unlikely to have a significant budget to invest on their MVP. Still, surely an evolution of the industry to keep an eye on.

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One of the most underrated tools in engineering leadership? A terrible drawing. Hear me out: a messy sketch on a napkin, whiteboard, or Excalidraw can do more to align a team than three pages of carefully written documentation. Even if the boxes aren’t straight, even if your handwriting is barely legible. In fact, even more so if it's sloppy. Why? Because when it looks half-baked, it feels like an invitation to collaborate and give feedback. And the effect is two-way. The less you invest in expressing your ideas, the less attached you'll be to the ideas themselves and the more you'll welcome input. It also happens to be the case that most low-fidelity drawing tools are really quick. If someone asks questions or changes my understanding, I'll open it up and start editing. Or start a new one. The artifact is not the point. It's the process. Alignment happens when you work through it together. The next time you find yourself piling words on top of words, try throwing together a quick sketch and working through it with some team members. You might just find a shortcut to the clarity you were seeking.

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The sequence matters: 1. Build with no-code 2. Find paying customers 3. Hit limitations 4. Then hire engineers Not: 1. Search for CTO 2. Spend 6 months pitching technical co-founders 3. Build something nobody wants 4. Wonder why it failed The market doesn't care about your tech stack. It cares if you solve a problem worth paying for.

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I just helped a client find their dream developer in a place their competitors would never think to look. Last month I was doing a demo for a company trying to hire Ruby developers. They'd been posting on job boards for 3 months with zero qualified candidates. I asked them a simple question: "Do you know anyone in the Ruby community?" Turns out their CTO had been active in a LinkedIn group for Ruby developers for years, but they'd never thought to tap into it for recruiting. So we helped them reach out to the group leaders. When the group leader vouched for someone's technical abilities, that recommendation carried serious weight—way more than any resume or coding test could. Three weeks later, they had 5 qualified candidates in their pipeline. Most recruiters are sitting on goldmines and don't even realize it. We've been so focused on employee referrals that we're missing these massive professional communities where people already know and trust each other's work. Let me give you the five types of communities that have generated the best results for our clients.   • LinkedIn professional groups - Find the groups specific to your roles and get to know the leaders. They know everyone's actual capabilities because they've seen people's work in action.   • Industry specific networks - We've had healthcare clients absolutely kill it with communities like NurseDash. These professionals know each other's clinical skills and work styles in ways that go way beyond what you can see on a LinkedIn profile.   • Skill based communities on platforms like Reddit - When someone refers from a machine learning community, they're vouching for proven project experience. They've seen this person's code and watched them solve real problems.   • Geographic and local networks - Members meet face to face, collaborate on regional projects, and cultural fit comes built in because they understand the local business environment.   • Alumni networks from universities and bootcamps - These connections last forever and members understand learning styles and career paths in ways that skill assessments completely miss. Relationship strength matters way more than frequency of contact. You might not have talked to someone in 6 months, but if you worked on a meaningful project together, your recommendation still carries real weight. Most companies limit themselves to employee networks and then wonder why their referral programs fail. The companies winning right now are expanding into these broader professional communities where trust and professional credibility already exist. Bottom line is this: 60% of jobs get filled through networking anyway. Why not make it intentional and tap into communities where people actually know each other's work quality? What communities have been most valuable for your sourcing?

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