Tech Due Diligence TEAM-3: Hiring Pipeline and Talent Retention
What This Control Requires
The assessor evaluates the organisation's ability to attract, hire, and retain engineering talent, including the hiring process, employer branding, compensation competitiveness, career development opportunities, and retention rates.
In Plain Language
Your ability to hire and keep good engineers directly determines how fast you can execute. A brilliant product roadmap means nothing if you cannot staff the team to deliver it. In DD, we look at the full talent lifecycle: how long it takes to fill engineering roles, your offer acceptance rate, engineering turnover and its causes, whether compensation is competitive, how strong your employer brand is, the quality of your interview process and candidate experience, and what career growth looks like for engineers who stay. High engineering turnover - above 20% annually - is a significant risk signal. It means continuous knowledge loss, rising recruitment costs, slower delivery during ramp-up periods, and potential cultural instability. When turnover is elevated, we dig into the root causes because they often point to deeper organisational problems.
How to Implement
Build a structured, efficient hiring process. Define clear role descriptions with technical requirements and evaluation criteria. Run a consistent interview process covering coding assessment, system design, and cultural fit. Use evaluation rubrics so different interviewers assess candidates consistently. Target under 30 days from initial screen to offer, and make sure the candidate experience reflects well on your brand. Invest in employer branding that resonates with engineers. Maintain an engineering blog that showcases real technical challenges and how your team solves them. Contribute to open source, speak at conferences and meetups, stay active on developer-oriented platforms, and make sure your Glassdoor and LinkedIn reviews reflect a positive engineering culture. Pay competitively. Benchmark salaries against market data for your location, stage, and tech stack. Remember that compensation is more than base salary - equity, benefits, flexibility (remote work options), and professional development budgets all factor in. Below-market pay is the single most common driver of engineering turnover. Create clear career development paths. Define career ladders with explicit progression criteria for both individual contributor and management tracks. Provide at least annual career development conversations, professional development budgets for conferences and courses, mentoring programmes, and genuine opportunities for technical leadership and ownership. Monitor retention metrics and act on warning signs before it is too late. Track quarterly and annual turnover segmented by team, tenure, and level. Analyse exit interview themes. Run regular pulse surveys on employee satisfaction and management quality. Align your hiring plan with the product roadmap. For each quarter, identify the roles you need to deliver planned capabilities and start recruiting ahead of time. Factor in ramp-up - a new engineer typically takes 2-3 months to reach full productivity.
Evidence Your Auditor Will Request
- Hiring process documentation with timelines and evaluation criteria
- Engineering turnover rate for the past 12-24 months
- Compensation benchmarking data or philosophy documentation
- Career development framework (career ladders, growth opportunities)
- Hiring plan aligned with product roadmap
Common Mistakes
- Engineering turnover above 25% annually with no analysis of root causes
- Hiring process takes 60+ days, losing candidates to faster competitors
- Compensation below market rates, relying on equity that may not materialise
- No career development framework; engineers see no growth path
- No hiring plan; reactive hiring only when someone leaves
Related Controls Across Frameworks
| Framework | Control ID | Relationship |
|---|---|---|
| ISO 27001 | A.6.1 | Related |
Frequently Asked Questions
What engineering turnover rate is acceptable?
Is equity compensation valued in due diligence?
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