Robert Chondro

building (YCX26) || prev. math/cs @ mit

[Robert Chondro @roblukan]

we’re doing something dumb on purpose.

introducing the saffron tour: we fly out to 5 series A+ companies, embed for a week, design ai-native assessments on your codebase, run them on your candidates, and walk you through every result.

zero cost. first five only. ⬇️

[Robert Chondro @roblukan]

engineers cost $600k-$1M in total comp now.

every CEO will soon be asking the same question: why am i paying this much when half my team uses Claude like an autocomplete and the other half ships with 100x efficiency?

[Robert Chondro @roblukan]

@ycombinator @insforge @hanghuang_ congrats on the launch guys!

[Robert Chondro @roblukan]

@ycombinator @NamanyayG super cool product lets go!

[Robert Chondro @roblukan]

@ycombinator @UseAuxos @TheAshtonDaniel @kerry_lu_ @jwoobers excited to see where this goes!

[Robert Chondro @roblukan]

@ycombinator @PLAN0AI @abaratiiii congrats guys!

[Robert Chondro @roblukan]

two reasons we’re doing this:

1. companies like sierra and meta are completely rethinking their own interviews and having teams build a solution in-house. everyone else needs to catch up

2. the only way to build the right product is to be embedded with teams figuring this out in real time

[Robert Chondro @roblukan]

we’re doing something dumb on purpose.

introducing the saffron tour: we fly out to 5 series A+ companies, embed for a week, design ai-native assessments on your codebase, run them on your candidates, and walk you through every result.

zero cost. first five only. ⬇️

[Robert Chondro @roblukan]

you have to be:
- series A+ hiring 25+ engineers in the next 6 months
- using AI tools heavily across your eng org
- already trying to figure ai-native assessments yourself
- in sf, nyc, boston, or another major hub

[Robert Chondro @roblukan]

over one week, on-site, we’ll:
-audit your current hiring process and identify what works
-design custom questions in your domain
-run then on your live candidates
-walk you through all our metrics
-build you an internal evaluation rubric you can use to continually benchmark

[Robert Chondro @roblukan]

@ycombinator @Mochatradeapp @theblackmanda craziest/coolest thing i've seen on my feed yet. congrats guys!

[Robert Chondro @roblukan]

@ycombinator @jleguina0 @MirpuriSamuel congrats guys! always been passionate about this space

[Robert Chondro @roblukan]

@ycombinator @Jeffliu6068Liu @sklin_lite @LiYaoHuang2 congrats guys! coolest thing i've ever seen

[Robert Chondro @roblukan]

@ycombinator @Cherthq love it. congrats guys

[Robert Chondro @roblukan]

@nico_laqua @UseCorgi huge congrats to the corgi team!!

[Robert Chondro @roblukan]

three years ago this question would’ve sounded like nonsense lol

today it’s the most important question in technical hiring

[Robert Chondro @roblukan]

@ycombinator @klaimee_ai @inesboutem @JulsCaton congrats guys! awesome work. this is the right time for something like this

[Robert Chondro @roblukan]

@ycombinator @saudaraAI @edwardharyono_ congrats guys! amazing work

[Robert Chondro @roblukan]

@laurayd @ycombinator @trysaffron @kazumachoji @_mjyao atp leetcode is just a typing test

[Robert Chondro @roblukan]

@MrPenkra @ycombinator @trysaffron @kazumachoji @_mjyao agreed, this is something we think about quite a bit. we added a debrief portion that restricts AI usage so if someone fully outsourced the thinking they can't pass. ai-to-ai is a real risk and we built specifically against it.

[Robert Chondro @roblukan]

@matthew_yekell @ycombinator @trysaffron @kazumachoji @_mjyao the dirty secret of every engineering team is that the gap between a good technical interview and being good on the job has gotten bigger every year smh