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INDUSTRY INSIGHTS
12 Lessons About Hiring From AEC’s Top Leaders

How Construction Tech Leaders Build Teams That Drive $100M+ Growth

In this special edition of the Bricks & Bytes Bulletin, we're diving into the hiring strategies of four AEC tech leaders who have built teams that propelled their companies to significant status and beyond. 

Our deep dive reveals a critical pattern: while each leader has unique approaches, they share a systematic focus on mission alignment, industry understanding, and cultural fit that transcends traditional hiring playbooks. These aren't just theories, they're battle-tested strategies that have built teams generating hundreds of millions in revenue.

👇 Inside the full edition:

 We break down how 4 top AEC tech leaders built $100M+ teams — including:

• The hiring framework that helped Kojo scale to 125+ employees in 4 years

• The one interview question that disqualifies 90% of candidates at OpenSpace

• Why Plangrid's CRO avoids ex–Salesforce rep

• The 5 traits Levelset used to build a powerhouse sales team from bartenders and Uber drivers

• And how all four leaders avoided million-dollar hiring mistakes most startups make

The Knowledge Bridge: Maria Davidson's Team-Building Framework at Kojo

Building a construction tech company zero to 125 employees and a $275m valuation in four years doesn't happen by accident. For Kojo CEO Maria Davidson, the foundation was methodically creating what we call a "knowledge bridge" - systematically connecting outsider innovation with insider industry expertise.

The Industry Knowledge Imperative

While many founders try to disrupt construction with technology backgrounds alone, Maria recognized early that success required deep industry knowledge integration:

"I don't want to build what we think is right. I want to build what our customers think is right," Maria emphasizes, highlighting the distinction between innovation for innovation's sake versus customer-driven development.

This philosophy translated into concrete action: creating an industry advisory board from day one and prioritizing hires with direct trade experience. This wasn't just about credibility—it was about building intuitive understanding of customer needs that technology-only founders often miss.

The Values-Abilities-Skills Framework

Looking beyond Maria's Kojo journey, we've observed that the most successful AEC tech companies employ a structured evaluation framework. Maria's approach stands out for its clarity:

While many companies prioritize skills first, this sequencing is purposeful. Values alignment ensures cultural fit, abilities reflect how candidates approach problems, and skills—while important—can often be developed.

The Assignment-Based Hiring Test

Perhaps Maria's most replicable innovation is Kojo's simulation-based hiring process. Rather than relying solely on interviews (which research shows are surprisingly poor predictors of performance), candidates complete written assignments that mirror actual work.

This approach serves multiple functions:

• It reveals how candidates think and communicate

• It demonstrates their level of rigor and attention to detail

• It tests alignment with Kojo's documentation-centric culture

• It provides a mutual preview of the working relationship

Avoiding the "Big Company Transplant" Trap

The most valuable lesson from Maria's experience may be her candid assessment of hiring missteps. The pattern we see repeatedly is what she calls the "big company transplant" trap - assuming executives from larger organizations can simply replicate their success in a startup environment.

This insight calls for a fundamental shift in hiring for growth-stage companies: evaluate candidates not just on what they've built, but on how they built it and with what resources.

Key Lesson: Stage-Appropriate Hiring

The meta-pattern in Maria's approach is understanding that different company stages require different hiring priorities. As Kojo moved through customer growth milestones (1-3 customers → 3-20 → 20-100 → 100-300 → 300+), their hiring focus evolved from finding early adopters to building repeatable processes to systematizing operations.

The critical takeaway: analyze your current customer count and align your hiring strategy to your specific growth stage rather than applying generic hiring templates.

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