Vetting deep tech candidates is incredibly difficult... especially in fields like Machine Learning and Quantum Computing where the academic credentials can look extremely intimidating.
It is easy to get blinded by a resume that lists a Ph.D. from Stanford, three papers in Nature, and a long list of complex physics terms.
But after ten years in the engineering recruitment game, I have learned the hard way that you cannot confuse academic brilliance with practical software engineering competence.
Here is what you actually need to look for when vetting builders for your startup.
First, check their code repositories... not just their list of papers. Look at how they structure their projects, handle dependency management, write test coverage, and document their APIs. Real builders write maintainable code... researchers often write single-file scripts that only run on their local machine.
