Evaluate what candidates have built, not what they can recite. Ask for shipped projects and commit history, give a short practical assignment based on your product, and watch them walk through it in a live session. With AI tools, a non-technical founder can learn enough to judge output without a technical co-founder.
How much technical knowledge do you need?
Less than before. Building software used to require learning a language, its logic and its tools. With AI coding tools, you can describe what you want in plain English and get a working prototype in hours. If the barrier is that low, you need less knowledge than you think to evaluate a developer well.
What should you stop asking, and what should you ask instead?
The classic technical interview tested knowledge: arrays, time complexity, algorithm puzzles. AI can now generate that code in seconds, so it is the wrong test.
What matters is whether someone can build: quickly, efficiently and without things breaking. Whether they can work across domains. How often they have experimented and failed, and what they learned. And whether they have evidence, such as commits, live projects and things they shipped. That evidence tells you more than a whiteboard session.
For live sessions, live coding interviews let you watch a candidate work and ask them to explain choices as they go. See also How Do You Stop Candidates Cheating With AI on Assessments?
How can GetHirePlus help without a technical background?
GetHirePlus helps you decide what to assess based on your JD, screens candidates at scale with AI resume screening, and sends assignments through candidate assessments so you evaluate actual output.
You can also build a community of candidates you may want to hire later, with free learning courses they can take. When you are ready to hire, they already know you.