The Real Cost of a Bad Tech Hire

01/10/2025

You've been there. 

The senior engineer who aced the LeetCode test but can't collaborate. 

The "full-stack developer" who's actually just good at copy-pasting from Stack Overflow. 

The brilliant architect who wants to rewrite your entire codebase on day one.

A bad technical hire doesn't just cost you their salary. Here's what it really costs your company.

The Hidden Costs

Direct Financial Impact

  • Salary + benefits for 3-6 months before termination: €30,000 - €75,000
  • Recruiter fees (if not refunded): €15,000 - €30,000
  • Redundancy package: €5,000 - €20,000
  • Total direct cost: €50,000 - €125,000

Indirect Costs That Actually Hurt More

Team Productivity Loss Your team spends weeks onboarding someone who won't work out. Your senior engineers lose 20-30 hours mentoring. Your tech lead spends another 15 hours managing performance issues. That's 200+ hours of your best people's time wasted. At €100/hour blended rate, that's €20,000 in opportunity cost.

Delayed Product Delivery That feature you needed for the Q2 release? Now it's Q3. Your competitor shipped theirs last month. The revenue impact? Incalculable, but likely €100,000+.

Team Morale Damage Your existing engineers are now doing the bad hire's work plus their own. Burnout risk increases. Two good engineers start interviewing elsewhere. Suddenly you're hiring for three positions instead of maintaining one.

Reputation Risk In Ireland's tight-knit tech community, word travels. That disgruntled ex-employee is now on Glassdoor. Future candidates are reading.

Why This Happens in Ireland's 2025 Market

The Desperation Hire With near-record low unemployment and fierce competition from multinationals offering €120,000+ packages, you feel pressure to move fast. You compromise on the "must-haves" list. You convince yourself cultural fit can be developed.

The Resume Mirage They worked at Google. Amazon. Microsoft. Their LinkedIn looks perfect. But did they ship products or just attend meetings? Were they a senior engineer in title only? The tech giants' hiring bars were different 5 years ago.

The Technical Interview Theater They solved the binary tree problem. They explained SOLID principles. They whiteboarded a microservices architecture. But can they debug a production incident at 3am? Can they mentor a junior? Can they push back on bad product decisions?

How We Solve This at TREQS

We Don't Send Resumes. We Send Intelligence.

For every candidate we shortlist, you receive:

  • Technical Depth Assessment: Not just "knows React" but "built a component library used by 15 teams, understands performance optimisation, mentored 3 juniors"
  • Culture Compatibility Data: Their work style, communication preferences, what they need from management
  • Motivation Mapping: Why they're actually leaving (99% of the time, it's not just money)
  • Red Flag Disclosure: We tell you about the 3 jobs in 2 years, the gaps, the concerns
  • Reference Intelligence: What their tech lead actually said (not the HR-approved version)

We Waste Your Time on Purpose (In the Right Way)

Before we send anyone, we ask you to spend 30 minutes with us talking about:

  • The engineer who thrived in your environment and why
  • The hire that didn't work and what you missed
  • Your team's unwritten rules
  • The technical debt situation they're walking into
  • What "senior" actually means in your context

This conversation saves you 30 hours of interviewing mismatched candidates.

We Have Skin in the Game

Our guarantee: If a placement doesn't work out in the first 6 months, we prioritise a replacement at no additional cost and refund fees if that doesn't work out. Thankfully, it never gets to that stage but we believe in ourselves. It hurts us as much as it hurts you to get it wrong.


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