The best candidates are probably the ones already employed, maybe even employed in a cushy 9-5 company making $400K. As an employer, you need to think about what are you offering that's so much better than what they already have in their hand, that would make them willing to walk away from a sure thing and take a risk by joining your company. You gotta give them what they're already making plus a risk premium.
You don't have to pay that risk premium to someone currently unemployed, but what are the odds that you find your senior Founding Engineer from that pool?
It seems impossible to find a right candidate for us and we are indeed looking at an agency for now even if I was fairly against it as a CTO.
It’s most likely a numbers game, but it’s hard to find coders that also have some kind of founders attitude.
Either people who are founders are indeed building something themselves or you get 9-5ers who think they can do startups while having 0 stamina/drive.
This is hard