In each issue of the New Tech Newsletter we feature a Spotlight Q&A with founders, angels, New Tech alumni presenters, and other people or companies in our community we believe you’d like to learn about. Reach out if you’d like to recommend a startup, founder, angel, accelerator, or New Tech alumni presenter for us to spotlight for the PNW tech community!
In this week’s spotlight we’re highlighting New Tech Presenter, Joshua Ahmed, Founder of RealEngineers.
Why did you create this product? What is your passion around the problem your product is solving?
I created RealEngineers because I’ve lived both sides of the broken hiring process — as an engineer and as a hiring manager. I saw talented people get overlooked not because they lacked skills, but because they couldn’t compress years of real engineering into four resume bullet points. I believe engineers should be judged by the content of their work — not how well they write resumes. My passion is solving that misalignment and building a fairer system where deep skill is seen and valued.
What is the problem you’re solving and why is your solution the best way to solve it?
We’re solving the problem that resumes and traditional hiring platforms filter out great engineering talent because they lack context. Most hiring systems reward formatting, keywords, and pedigree — not the quality of someone’s actual work. RealEngineers lets engineers upload the real projects they’ve built and uses AI to surface the most relevant insights to each job, instantly. It’s the first system that scales what a technically savvy hiring manager would do manually — actually look at the work — and makes that insight available in seconds, not hours.
What is one of the greatest lessons you’ve learned from being a Founder/CEO?
The greatest lesson I’ve learned is that clarity and authenticity beat certainty. People don’t need you to have all the answers — but they do need to know what you stand for, what you’re chasing, and why it matters. If you keep chasing the truth, even when it’s inconvenient, you earn trust. That kind of grounded honesty attracts the right teammates, early adopters, and investors — and keeps you steady when everything else is chaotic.
What is the one piece of advice you would share today with your younger self before you started your company?
Don’t wait for permission. The most powerful momentum comes from starting — even before you feel ready. You don’t need to prove you’re qualified to solve the problem if you’ve lived it and deeply understand it. That’s your qualification.
What is something interesting and unexpected that people would be surprised to learn about you?
Despite building an AI-driven platform, I come from a defense background and used to work on projects where sharing the wrong detail could literally send you to prison. That experience taught me that there’s still a ton engineers can safely talk about — the logic, the decisions, the process — and that’s what makes them valuable. RealEngineers is built on that idea: that your real thinking is what makes you hireable.
Reach out if you’d like to recommend a startup, founder, angel, accelerator, or New Tech alumni presenter for us to spotlight for the PNW tech community!
