Recruitment Plan — Scaling the Lumora Team Across Two Quarters

Team / department: Whole company (Lumora, a 14-person B2B SaaS startup after a seed round) Plan owner: Priya Nair, Head of People Planning period: Q1-Q2 2026 Last reviewed: 9 January 2026 Next review: 6 February 2026

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1. Hiring goals and context

• What we are trying to achieve: Ship the v2 platform and move from founder-led sales to a repeatable sales motion, both of which need capacity we do not have today.
• Total headcount this period: 7 new hires (5 growth, 2 backfill)
• Total budget: 1.15M fully loaded for the period (salaries, on-costs, and recruiting spend)
• Key constraints: 24 months of runway, so hiring must stay within budget and starts are staggered to what a small team can onboard without losing focus on the v2 ship date.

2. Roles and headcount

Priority	Role	Growth / Backfill	Level	Target start	Salary range	Owner
1	Senior Backend Engineer	Growth	Senior	Feb 2026	120-140K	Marcus Reed (CTO)
2	Account Executive	Growth	Mid	Feb 2026	70K + commission	Dani Olsson (Sales)
3	Product Designer	Backfill	Mid	Mar 2026	90-105K	Marcus Reed (CTO)
4	Backend Engineer	Growth	Mid	Apr 2026	95-110K	Marcus Reed (CTO)
5	Customer Success Manager	Growth	Mid	May 2026	75-85K	Priya Nair
6	Sales Development Rep	Growth	Junior	May 2026	50K + commission	Dani Olsson (Sales)
7	People Operations Coordinator	Backfill	Junior	Jun 2026	55-65K	Priya Nair

3. Hiring timeline

Period	Roles opened	Roles expected to start	Notes
Jan 2026	Senior Backend Engineer, Account Executive	—	Open the two highest-impact roles first
Feb 2026	Product Designer	Senior Backend Engineer, Account Executive	First two starts land
Mar-Apr 2026	Backend Engineer	Product Designer, Backend Engineer	Engineering team doubles by end Q1
May-Jun 2026	CSM, SDR, People Ops	CSM, SDR, People Ops	Go-to-market and support capacity for v2 launch

4. Sourcing channels

Channel	Roles it serves	Owner	Notes / budget
Referrals	All roles	Priya Nair	3K bonus per successful hire; launched as a team campaign in January
Inbound / job boards	All roles	Priya Nair	Two niche boards plus the careers page; 4K for the period
Direct outbound	Senior Backend, Backend	Marcus Reed	LinkedIn sourcing seat; CTO does first outreach himself
Agency	Senior Backend Engineer only	Priya Nair	Backup if the role is not in the offer stage by week 6

5. Interview process and stages

Stage	What it assesses	Who runs it	Target duration
Screen	Must-have skills, motivation, comp, timing	Priya (recruiter)	30 min call
Hiring-manager interview	Role fit and relevant experience	Hiring manager	45 min
Work sample	Can they do the actual work (take-home or live exercise)	Two-person panel	60-90 min
Values / collaboration	How they work across a small team	A peer from another function	45 min
Debrief and decision	Evidence vs scorecard, clear hire / no-hire	Full panel	30 min

6. Scorecard (example: Backend Engineer)

Attribute	What good looks like	Assessed in which stage
Technical depth	Designs and ships reliable services; reasons clearly about trade-offs	Work sample
Pragmatism	Ships the right thing for a startup, not the perfect thing	Hiring-manager interview
Ownership	Takes a problem end to end without being chased	Hiring-manager interview
Collaboration	Communicates clearly and lifts the people around them	Values / collaboration

Scoring scale: 1 = no evidence, 2 = mixed, 3 = clearly meets, 4 = exceeds. Each interviewer records a rating and the evidence behind it before the debrief, so no single voice anchors the room.

7. Budget

Cost line	Amount	Notes
Salaries (period portion, annualised base)	760K	Pro-rated to actual start dates
On-costs (taxes, benefits, equipment)	230K	Estimated at ~30 percent of salary
Recruiting spend (boards, sourcing seat, agency backstop)	130K	Agency only if the senior role stalls
Referral bonuses	21K	Budgeted for up to seven referral hires
Total	1.14M	Within the 1.15M cap

8. Metrics and review

Metric	Target	Actual (end Q1)	Notes
Time-to-hire	Under 40 days	36 days	Engineering loop tightened after the first hire
Offer-acceptance rate	80 percent	75 percent (3 of 4)	One AE candidate declined on base salary
Funnel conversion	Onsite-to-offer above 30 percent	28 percent	Screening was slightly too generous; tightened
Source of hire	Half from referrals	2 of 4 from referrals	Referral campaign is paying off
Cost per hire	Under 18K	14K	Agency not needed; senior role filled via outbound

Review cadence: Priya runs a monthly hiring review with the CTO and Head of Sales to update actuals, unblock any stuck role, and re-rank the roster if the v2 timeline shifts.