Interactive builds
How do you hire a creative technologist?
Short answer
Hire on shipped work rather than decks. Ask what they cut from each project and why, check that their builds still run today, and give them the outcome and the constraints rather than a specification. The best interactive work comes from a brief that names the goal and leaves the mechanic open.
by sean garschi · founder of growthr · ny · la · sf
updated 2026-08-19
What to look for
Live links, not case study videos. A case study film can make anything look smooth; a live URL on your own phone on cellular data cannot.
- Work that still runs. Broken links to two-year-old projects say something about how things were built.
- Mobile performance on a mid-range device, tested by you, on data rather than wifi.
- A clear account of what got cut. People who cut nothing shipped something bloated.
- Direct access to whoever writes the code, rather than an account layer between you and the work.
How to write the brief
State the moment, the audience, the constraints, and the outcome. Do not state the mechanic. If you have already decided the mechanic, you are hiring a contractor to execute your idea, which is a legitimate thing to buy but produces different results.
Name the hard constraints explicitly: the date, the budget, the assets that exist, and the approvals required. Constraints improve creative work; discovering them in week three does not.
Related questions
Agency or independent creative technologist?+
Independents are faster and cheaper with less process overhead, and they are a single point of failure. Agencies bring redundancy and account management, which costs real money and adds translation layers.
What should a first conversation cover?+
The date, the budget range, what assets exist, and who signs off. Those four answers determine whether the project is feasible before anything creative is discussed.
More answers on the answers index, or see what I do.
got something to build?
Interactive builds, growth systems, or getting found by both Google and ChatGPT. Tell me what the moment is and when it lands.