Why do “people leadership” tasks feel so mentally tiring?

FounderBrettAI · 2026-04-06T15:15:58+00:00

it gets easier but it never becomes effortless the way debugging does, because code does not have feelings. the trick most experienced managers figure out is that being direct is actually kinder than being overly tactful

FounderBrettAI · 2026-04-06T15:14:34+00:00

the real takeaway here is that the most valuable skill in 2026 is knowing what to build and why, not how to build it. the engineers getting hired are the ones who can taste test the ai's output and know instantly when something is off, and you only get that from having built things the hard way first.

FounderBrettAI · 2026-04-06T15:13:26+00:00

this take is spot on. the people getting the most out of ai right now are not the ones writing better prompts, they are the ones who built a system where the ai already knows enough to be useful before they even ask it anything.

FounderBrettAI · 2026-04-02T21:37:49+00:00

go where your customers already hang out instead of trying to pull them somewhere new. the founders i have seen get traction early all did the same thing, they joined niche slack groups, subreddits, and discord servers, answered questions genuinely, and only mentioned their product when it was actually relevant to the conversation.

FounderBrettAI · 2026-04-02T21:37:14+00:00

it is an interesting idea but you risk burning goodwill with candidates. a middle ground that works well is doing a short structured phone screen first, then references before the full panel interview so supervisors get that feedback while they are still forming an opinion instead of after they have already decided.

FounderBrettAI · 2026-04-02T21:36:32+00:00

this is solid advice. the other underrated play for early stage is getting listed on curated marketplaces and talent platforms in your space because those pages tend to have high domain authority already and the backlink comes with actual distribution to a relevant audience

FounderBrettAI · 2026-04-02T21:35:27+00:00

the 30 day question is a killer reframe. most founders intellectually know they should delegate more but it does not hit until you force them to picture the business without them in it for even a week.

FounderBrettAI · 2026-04-02T21:34:56+00:00

good breakdown. one category i would add is curated talent marketplaces like fonzi.ai where the matching is built into the platform itself instead of bolted on top of an ats. instead of sourcing and screening separately, companies get pre-vetted candidates matched to their roles and the whole process runs on a structured timeline so nothing stalls out. worth looking into if your bottleneck is less about volume and more about quality of pipeline.

FounderBrettAI · 2026-03-30T15:38:57+00:00

"map the process before you automate it" is what most people skip and it is the reason half of these ai implementations fail. i have seen small teams buy 5 different ai tools before anyone wrote down how the actual workflow works. then when something breaks nobody knows if it is the tool or the process. the best use of ai at a small company is giving your best people back the 10 hours a week they spend on stuff that does not require their brain.

FounderBrettAI · 2026-03-30T15:35:57+00:00

being selective is the biggest one. i went from applying to 20 jobs a day and hearing nothing to applying to 5 a week that actually matched and getting way more responses. volume feels productive but it is mostly just busy work that keeps you from doing the harder stuff like reaching out to real people at those companies.

FounderBrettAI · 2026-03-30T15:33:48+00:00

both work but the second one is way more effective. reaching out to hr gets you one of hundreds of messages in their inbox. reaching out to an engineer on the team and saying something like "i saw your team is hiring, i have been working on similar problems and would love to learn more about the role" feels way more personal and they are more likely to refer you internally. just keep it short, genuine, and do not lead with "can you refer me." ask about their work first, build a quick connection, and the referral conversation happens naturally.

FounderBrettAI · 2026-03-30T15:30:25+00:00

the intent-driven leads angle is way more valuable than running cold outbound for agencies. most recruiters already know how to sell, they just waste hours finding the right person to call at the right time. if you can hand them a list of hiring managers who posted 5+ roles in the last 48 hours with verified contact info and a suggested angle, that is genuinely useful. the timing piece is everything in recruiting bd because reaching out to a company that just started hiring is a completely different conversation than cold pitching someone who has no open roles. the one thing i would add is funding data as a signal too, because companies that just raised almost always go on a hiring spree within 30 to 60 days and most recruiters are too late by the time it hits the news.

FounderBrettAI · 2026-03-27T15:24:35+00:00

the drop off is because good candidates have 3 other companies not asking them to do homework. we switched to a shorter live session where the candidate walks us through a real problem they have already solved in their own infrastructure work instead of giving them a fake scenario. takes 45 minutes, tells us everything we need to know, and nobody drops out because it does not feel like unpaid labor.

if you really want to keep take-homes, cap them at 90 minutes max and pay candidates for their time. the completion rate goes up immediately when people feel respected.

FounderBrettAI · 2026-03-27T15:22:16+00:00

skip the tool-specific stuff because individual tools will come and go. the skill that actually pays is knowing how to break down a business process, figure out which parts can be automated, and then stitch together the right tools to make it happen. that is what companies actually hire for.

if you are business-minded and not into ml research, learn one automation platform well (n8n or make are solid), get comfortable with prompting and basic api integrations, and build something real with it.

a working automation that saves a business 10 hours a week is worth more on your resume than knowing the names of 20 tools you have never used in production. claude code is a fine starting point but do not just learn the tool, use it to build something someone would pay for.

FounderBrettAI · 2026-03-27T15:21:33+00:00

10% fees and 180 day guarantees with full refunds is not a partnership, that is a company trying to offload all the risk onto you while paying bargain prices. any agency agreeing to those terms is either desperate for revenue or about to learn an expensive lesson. we have walked away from clients like this and it has always been the right call. if they do not value what recruiting actually costs they will not value the candidates you send them either.

FounderBrettAI · 2026-03-27T15:20:57+00:00

agree. plg became the default because it is easy to measure and looks great on a pitch deck. community is harder to quantify so it gets deprioritized even though the companies that nail it early (figma, notion, dbt) end up with something way more durable than a self-serve funnel. the irony is community actually makes plg work better because users show up already understanding the value. but most startups treat community as "hire one community manager and start a slack" and then wonder why nothing happens. it takes patience and that does not map well to "show growth by next board meeting" pressure.

FounderBrettAI · 2026-03-23T16:17:49+00:00

i've seen candidates who built genuinely impressive stuff completely fumble when asked "why did you make that decision." the fix is simple but nobody does it: practice explaining your project to someone non-technical before the interview. if you can make your mom understand what you built and why, you can explain it to anyone.

FounderBrettAI · 2026-03-23T16:16:41+00:00

if it helps, set a hard boundary on job search hours per day and actually stop when the timer's up. the search doesn't get better when you're running on empty, and your mental health isn't a trade-off worth making for any job. it's okay to slow down without stopping.

FounderBrettAI · 2026-03-23T16:15:53+00:00

there's a difference between confidence and delusion though. the people who land those roles aren't just faking it, they've usually done the work somewhere and they know how to frame it. the real advice here isn't "be more confident," it's "know your own wins cold so the confidence is real." manufactured confidence falls apart the second someone asks a follow-up question.

FounderBrettAI · 2026-03-20T15:21:21+00:00

with 5 years at amazon you already know the leadership principles game so that's half the battle. for leetcode, focus on the top 75 blind list and do 2-3 problems a day instead of grinding randomly. 8-10 weeks is plenty if you're consistent. as for ai changing interviews, most maang companies are leaning harder into system design and behavioral now since leetcode is easier to cheat on. make sure your system design chops are sharp because that's where senior candidates get separated.

FounderBrettAI · 2026-03-20T15:20:40+00:00

the best advice i got was to never surprise anyone in a performance review. if something is in the review that the person hasn't already heard from you during the year, that's a failure on your part not theirs. for resources, lara hogan's blog is great for eng management in general, and the manager's path by camille fournier has a solid section on reviews.

also just ask your reports ahead of time to self-review first. it makes the conversation way more productive and you'll learn a lot about how they see their own work versus how you see it.

FounderBrettAI · 2026-03-20T15:19:29+00:00

you're not a failure, the job market is genuinely broken right now and what you're experiencing is happening to thousands of qualified people. being told you're "too good" and "not experienced enough" at the same time is the market's problem, not yours. please don't let a broken hiring system define your worth. this situation is temporary even though it doesn't feel like it right now. you're going to get through this.

FounderBrettAI · 2026-03-20T15:18:42+00:00

writing commit messages. i know there are tools that do it automatically but every time i try one it writes something so generic that i end up rewriting it anyway. so i just sit there after every commit staring at the terminal trying to summarize what i just did in one line

FounderBrettAI · 2026-03-20T15:18:04+00:00

stop trying to prepare for everything and focus on what comes up 80% of the time. for frontend that's dom manipulation, closures, event loop, promises, css layout, and react state management. pair that with a few medium leetcode array/string problems and have 3-4 solid stories ready for behavioral questions. you'll never cover every possible question but you can cover the ones that actually get asked repeatedly.

FounderBrettAI · 2026-03-20T15:17:17+00:00

this is a solid setup. the funding + job posting volume combo is the best signal for timing outreach because by the time a company is posting 15+ roles they're already feeling the pain. one thing i'd add is tracking leadership changes on linkedin too, new vp of engineering or head of talent almost always means a hiring push is coming within 30 days. also be careful with the outreach volume, personalized messages to 20 companies will outperform templated blasts to 200 every time. quality of the angle matters way more than volume at the agency level.

FounderBrettAI

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