How to hire a product engineer (and what to look for in a portfolio)

Hiring posts usually list React, Node, and “AI experience” as checkboxes. That is how you get demos in production that nobody can maintain.

A product engineer is the person who will argue about scope in week one and still ship a URL in week six. This guide is how I would hire one—including how to evaluate my own work if you are considering Brent Haskins for a role or contract.

Start with evidence, not adjectives

Ask for:

• A live site, store listing, or video of real software
• Commit history or PR samples with readable descriptions
• One written post explaining a decision—not a link to a bootcamp certificate

Skip candidates who only show Dribbble shots without code, or GitHub full of tutorial clones with no users.

Portfolio signals that matter

States, not screenshots. Empty, loading, partial, error, and success should appear in case studies. Anyone can mock a dashboard; few document what happens when the API returns 422.

Scope sentences. “We shipped broker sites with forms and webhooks, not a full LOS” tells me they understand boundaries. Buzzword soup does not.

Domain repetition. Fintech, health, or education experience reduces onboarding time. Mortgage products taught me compliance copy and document flows I reuse elsewhere.

Interview structure that works

1. 30 minutes: walk a shipped project end to end
2. 30 minutes: live critique of your product’s worst screen—they should ask users and constraints before proposing rewrites
3. Take-home (optional): fix one real bug or add one bounded feature in your repo, with a short note on what they would not do

Avoid infinite take-homes. They select for free labor, not quality.

Red flags

• Cannot explain auth or where secrets live
• Treats accessibility as someone else’s sprint
• Proposes “just add AI” without data boundaries
• No questions about your users or revenue model

Compensation and title hygiene

“Full-stack” pay bands often underpay product engineers who also carry design and product load. Align level with scope: if they own releases and on-call for customer-facing bugs, price accordingly.

Where Brent Haskins fits

I publish work at brenthaskins.com and ship through Asper Studio and my own products. If your search is “hire product engineer mortgage,” “hire React product engineer,” or “founding engineer SaaS,” compare my case studies to your roadmap.

If the match is there, contact through the site. If not, use this rubric on whoever you hire next—you will spend less time re-writing their first release.