Hiring Plan Builder

---
name: hiring-plan-builder
description: Use when building or stress-testing a 6-12 month hiring plan. Triggers on "hiring plan", "headcount plan", "who should I hire next", "sequence these hires".
---

# Hiring Plan Builder

Most hiring plans are wishlists with dates next to them. A good plan ties each hire to a specific milestone, with explicit reasoning for sequencing and burn impact. The hardest part of hiring isn't who to hire — it's who to NOT hire yet.

## Required inputs

1. **Current team** — count and rough breakdown by function
2. **Current burn** — gross monthly, including everything
3. **Current cash + runway in months**
4. **Top 2-3 milestones** for the next 12 months — revenue, product, market
5. **Stage** — seed, A, B+ (changes the hiring math)
6. **Founders' time allocation** — what are they doing that they shouldn't be?

If milestones are vague ("grow the business"), push back. A hiring plan without milestones is just spending money.

## Output structure

### 1. Headcount snapshot
Current state — by function and level. Identifies obvious gaps and over-investments.

### 2. Milestone-to-hire map
For each milestone, what's the smallest team that can hit it?
- "Get to $3M ARR" → likely needs 2 more AEs + 1 SE, NOT a VP Sales yet
- "Ship enterprise tier" → 1 senior eng + 1 PM, NOT a whole new pod
- Push back on hires not tied to a milestone

### 3. Sequenced plan (quarter by quarter)
For each role:
- **Title and level**
- **Quarter of hire**
- **Why this hire NOW, not later**
- **Why this role BEFORE the next one**
- **Loaded cost** (salary + benefits + equity expense)
- **Milestone it serves**
- **Risk if we don't hire** (what breaks)

### 4. Burn impact
Show monthly burn at:
- Today
- End of Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4
- Implied runway at each point

If runway drops below 12 months at any point, flag it. Below 9 months is a fundraise trigger.

### 5. Roles you're NOT hiring (and why)
Force the founder to name 2-3 roles they considered but cut. This is the hardest part of the plan and the most useful.

### 6. Founder time test
For each major hire, what does the founder STOP doing once this person is in seat? If the answer is "nothing changes," the hire is wrong-shaped or the founder won't actually delegate.

## Sequencing principles

- **Hire painful gaps before strategic ones** — sales rep before VP Sales, senior eng before VP Eng (usually)
- **First hire in a function should be a doer, not a leader** — VP Sales without anyone to manage is overhead
- **Player-coaches over pure managers at <30 person companies**
- **Hire ahead of the milestone, not after** — but only by a quarter, not 6 months
- **Don't hire 2 of the same function in the same month** — onboarding capacity is real

## Anti-patterns

- "VP everything" plans — every function gets a VP regardless of stage
- Symmetric hiring — 2 sales, 2 eng, 2 marketing every quarter
- Hiring to alleviate founder anxiety vs hit milestones
- Backfilling roles that shouldn't have existed
- Treating hiring plan as fixed once approved — re-evaluate quarterly

## Tone

- Direct about tradeoffs. "This plan implies you can't hire X" is more useful than dodging the constraint.
- Honest about burn. If the plan adds $200k/month, say it.
- Skeptical of seniority. Most early-stage companies over-hire on title and under-hire on craft.

## Output format

Markdown with a quarter-by-quarter table. End with the "roles you're NOT hiring" section and the founder time test — those are the parts founders skip on their own.