Hiring your first teammates

Play this lesson

Finding the right person

The studio has decided: Hyper Shards 2 needs a freelance pixel artist for its enemy ships. The Growing the team lesson covered when to hire and how freelancers and employees differ. Now the practical part: how do we find, choose and fairly hire one real person?

One rule first. Hiring means contracts and payments, and work-age laws apply, so a parent leads every hiring step for the company. The whole team helps.

Write a clear job post

A good post helps the right people say yes, and the wrong people skip it:

Fix the post

job-post.txt
Freelance pixel artist: Hyper Shards 2Work: 30 enemy ship sprites, 64x64, by MaySkills: pixel art and simple animationPay: none, but great exposure!Remote, part time, any time zoneApply: portfolio link and 3 short questions

Which line must change before a parent posts this?

  1. Line 2
  2. Line 3
  3. Line 4
  4. Line 5
Show the answer

Line 4

Artists pay their bills with money, not exposure. Our studio always pays for work, and a clear rate up front attracts serious people. The other lines are specific and fair.

Where to look, and portfolios

Ask every applicant for a portfolio, a collection of their best work. Look for the right style (pixel-art ships, not 3D landscapes), finished work in real games, and steady quality rather than one lucky piece. Ask them to talk you through one piece, what they tried first and what they changed, to check it is really theirs.

Interviews and a paid trial

A structured interview asks every candidate the same questions in the same order, and scores the answers against a list written before anyone is interviewed. The US Office of Personnel Management, which advises on government hiring, reports that more structure makes interviews more reliable, better at predicting job performance and less unfair to groups of candidates.

Then a small paid trial task: one ship sprite, the same brief for every finalist, paid at the posted rate, with a written agreement on who owns it. We always pay for work.

Fair hiring

People tend to favour candidates who remind them of themselves. That is a bias, an unfair lean, and the written scoring list is the fix: judge the work and the skills, nothing else.

The law agrees. Many countries forbid discrimination in hiring, for example because of age, sex, race, religion or disability. UK government guidance says a job advert must not suggest you will discriminate, and that phrases like "recent graduate" should only be used when they are real requirements of the job.

Fair or not?

Kai's interview notes
Artist A: trial sprite 6/10, went to our school, really fun to talk to. Artist B: trial sprite 9/10, strong answers, but a lot older than us. Might not fit our vibe?

Who should the team recommend to the parent?

  1. Artist B, because the scores on the same task and questions are higher, and age is not a fair reason
  2. Artist A, because liking someone matters most
  3. Neither. Keep looking until someone more like us applies
Show the answer

Artist B, because the scores on the same task and questions are higher, and age is not a fair reason

Same task, same questions, same scoring list: Artist B did the better work. "Not our vibe" because of age is exactly the bias the list exists to stop, and in many countries age discrimination in hiring is against the law.

Contractor or employee, and the contract

Contractor or employee depends on how the work really happens, not the label. The US tax agency, the IRS, looks at three areas: behavioural control (who decides how the work is done), financial control (who pays for tools, how pay works) and the relationship (benefits, how long, how central the work is). UK guidance looks for signs like quoting prices and sending invoices. Rules differ by country, so an accountant checks.

Every hire signs a contract first, with an IP assignment so the studio owns the work (see Copyright and licenses, Stage 5).

Contractor or not?

Remy's plan for the artist
Works only for us, 9 to 5 every weekday, for two years, on a studio laptop, and we decide how every sprite is drawn. We'll just call it freelance.

Using the IRS's three areas, what should the team do?

  1. Treat it as a likely employee role and have a parent check it with an accountant, because the studio controls the work, the tools and the time
  2. Call it freelance, because the contract says so
  3. Nothing. Status rules only apply to big companies
Show the answer

Treat it as a likely employee role and have a parent check it with an accountant, because the studio controls the work, the tools and the time

The studio would control how the work is done, supply the tools and set the hours for years: that looks like employment. The label in the contract doesn't decide it, and getting it wrong can mean back taxes and fines.

Who does the hiring

Can a 12-year-old hire an artist? Not alone. Job offers and freelance agreements are contracts, which need an adult (the Why a company? lesson explains why). So a parent signs, pays and manages every hire, while you write the brief, review portfolios, join interviews and give feedback.

Laws also limit hiring young people. The ILO's Minimum Age Convention, an international treaty, sets a general minimum age for work of at least 15, with some light work from 13 where national law allows. Countries set their own rules, so a parent checks before the studio pays anyone under 18.

Bolt says: Next: AI tools that help every job in the studio, not just the coding.

Fact-checked 9 October 2026