Engineering hiring has changed in a subtle but important way over the past year. It did not come from a new hiring framework or a dramatic market shift. It came from friction. Teams were hiring experienced engineers on paper and still missing expectations once work began. Titles looked right. Outcomes did not always follow.

This is where skills-based hiring started to take hold.

Engineering titles have become broad and inconsistent. Two people with the same title can have very different responsibilities depending on company size, product maturity and technical environment. A Senior Engineer in one organisation may be deeply hands-on with architecture and delivery. In another, the same title may represent a narrower scope with limited ownership.

Hiring teams began to recognise that titles were no longer enough.

What started to matter more was how close an engineer had been to real systems. What they had built. What they had owned. How they handled production constraints, trade-offs and long-term maintainability. Skills-based hiring emerged as a way to bring clarity back into the process.

For engineering leaders, this has changed how roles are defined. Instead of anchoring on a title and a generic job description, teams are increasingly framing roles around capability and scope. What systems will this engineer work on. What decisions will they influence. What does success look like in the first six to twelve months.

This shift has improved alignment early in the hiring process. Engineers engage more meaningfully when a role is described in terms of real problems rather than abstract requirements. It allows them to assess fit honestly and avoids misalignment later.

Interview processes have evolved alongside this. Engineering interviews are moving away from generic competency checks and toward discussions rooted in real scenarios. Teams want to understand how candidates reason, how they approach ambiguity and how they make decisions when constraints are real. These conversations reveal far more about future performance than a title or a checklist ever could.

Skills-based hiring also helps engineering organisations navigate internal parity more effectively. When roles are defined by scope and responsibility, compensation decisions become clearer. Pay aligns to ownership rather than previous job labels, which reduces friction and supports transparency across teams.

For TA leaders working closely with engineering, this shift requires deeper technical understanding and stronger partnership with hiring managers. Interpreting skills, translating engineering needs into clear role definitions and guiding decisions early has become a core part of the function. TA is increasingly involved in shaping what good looks like, not simply executing against a brief.

What we are seeing across engineering recruitment is a move toward precision. Not more complexity, but more accuracy. Hiring decisions grounded in capability lead to stronger teams, smoother onboarding and better long-term outcomes.

Skills-based hiring reflects how engineering work actually happens today. Systems evolve, ownership matters and outcomes are shared. The organisations embracing this approach are building teams that operate with greater clarity and confidence.

At Tides, this is how we approach engineering hiring conversations. Understanding the real skills behind the title allows teams to hire with intent and engineers to commit with confidence.