What Leo saw at PostHog, 3. Always hiring, and asking every time
PostHog asks the whole company before opening any new role, and says why. Leo saw that step repeated for engineers they were always hiring. By 2025 engineering was one standing opening, and the step was still there: a choice, not an oversight.
We gave Leo PostHog's public handbook exactly as it stood on 31 December 2021, and nothing later.
PostHog had no part in this
We used PostHog's handbook because it is public and openly licensed (MIT, copyright PostHog Inc). PostHog did not take part, and nothing here is PostHog's view of Leo. Every quote below links back to PostHog's own pages and commits.
The claims, and where to check them
| Claim | Where to check it |
|---|---|
| Each new role started as its own request, open to comment from the whole company, before it was published | PostHog's hiring page, 31 Dec 2021 (the page at that commit) |
| The same step was still in the handbook at the start of 2025 | PostHog's hiring page, 31 Dec 2024 |
| By then engineering was listed as one standing "Product Engineers" opening across multiple teams | The same page |
The work as it was
PostHog takes hiring seriously, and says why: "We think carefully about each new role and the complexity it introduces to the organization." So every role began the same way: "For each new role, please open a new issue... Everyone in the company will have the opportunity to give their feedback on the proposed role."
And PostHog was hiring engineers almost all the time.
What Leo saw
Leo joined the hiring page with the forecast and the job boards, and saw a careful, company-wide step repeated for the one role that never really closed.
The way forward
- Redesign: a standing role. For roles hired constantly, keep one role open, checked against the hiring forecast from time to time, instead of a fresh request for each hire.
What happened next
- 2023 and 2024. The step stayed. The hiring tool changed, from Workable to Ashby; the request did not.
- Start of 2025. Still there: "Everyone will have the opportunity to give their feedback on the proposed role before we publish it." And the live roles table now listed engineering as one row: Product Engineers, multiple teams.
So the role became standing on the careers page, while the company-wide request stayed. That reads like a choice, not an oversight. A company that asks everyone before adding a role is protecting something it values, and says so. Leo's card keeps the way it laid out, and leaves the choice where it belongs.
What this does not show
The handbook does not show how often the request is opened for engineering in practice, or how long it takes. It shows a deliberate step that lasted, and the role it was meant for becoming permanent.
Leo learns how a business really runs by reading what its people write and talking with them, lays out the ways the work could go, side by side, and keeps the choice with the people who make it. When they take a path, its card records it, including one Leo did not offer.