People · AI & Deep Tech

Founder shares story of hiring a 20-year-old engineer

By Startup Enthusiast · 9 April 2026

What they do

Wisprflow.ai builds voice-based AI products

Founder Tanay Kothari hired a 20-year-old engineer with no prior experience after a social media outreach

The young engineer became one of the company's highest-performing team members

Founder Tanay Kothari shared the story of hiring a 20-year-old engineer with no prior experience.
The candidate reached out on X (formerly Twitter) and said he loved Wisprflow's product and wanted to work with the team.
Kothari replied 'Come by in two hours' on a Saturday at 10 AM.
The candidate said 'I'll start now'.
By Sunday morning the candidate had pulled an all-nighter, written thousands of lines of code, and built a fully functioning feature.
The young hire grew into one of the company's highest-performing engineers and earned the respect of the entire team.

The company receives inbound interest from staff engineers at Uber and principal scientists from Meta with 10-20 years of experience.
Kothari said many founders optimise for credentials like education or past employers because it is an easy filter.
Kothari said the best hires are not those with perfect resumes but those who do more than asked.