April 2, 2026

The VPN Hiring Trap

The VPN Hiring Trap

I was scrolling through TechRadar the other day and saw a headline shouting about a record-low deal on ExpressVPN. Two-year plan. High-value savings. Tempting stuff. And it hit me: this is exactly how too many companies think about hiring.

They treat talent like a subscription service. They look for discounts. They chase the lowest apparent cost. They go bargain hunting for humans. Which is great for VPNs, but catastrophic for building a high performing tech team.

So let’s talk about the real damage caused by “VPN deal thinking” inside hiring, and what to do instead.

The problem with bargain hunting for people

There is nothing wrong with buying discounted VPN plans. They are commodities. Humans are not. Yet I still meet founders and tech leaders who apply the same logic.

I hear things like:

• “Can we find someone cheaper?”
• “We’ll wait to see if a better salary range appears.”
• “We think we can get a senior engineer for a mid-level salary.”

This creates a two-part disaster: you drag out hiring while trying to save pennies, then end up paying in pounds when the wrong person joins or when delivery slips.

The hidden cost nobody budgets for

The actual expense is not the hire. It is everything that surrounds a bad hire: onboarding, missed deadlines, tech debt, team tension and the slow drip of morale erosion.

I’ve seen scale-ups lose six months of runway because they tried to “save” on a critical Infrastructure role. Meanwhile they were spending thousands each week patching issues the right hire would have prevented.

No VPN discount has ever saved a tech leader that much money.

Why high performers don’t respond to discount energy

The top 10 percent in engineering, data, cyber and leadership do not move for minimal salary bumps or vague promises of career progression. They respond to clarity, purpose and confidence from the employer.

When your hiring message screams “we’re optimising for cost”, you instantly lose the strongest candidates. Ironically, you attract exactly the people you were trying to avoid.

It’s not about overpaying. It is about showing that you understand the value of the work and respect the person doing it.

A better framework: Think ROI, not RRP

Here’s the mindset shift I advise founders and CTOs to adopt:

• Define the problem you need solved, not the salary you want to pay.
• Calculate the financial impact of not solving that problem for 3, 6 and 12 months.
• Hire at the level that eliminates that cost fastest.

Great people pay for themselves many times over. Mediocre hires always cost more than they save.

Questions every tech leader should ask before hiring

• “If we hire cheap and wrong, what does the next 12 months look like?”
• “What is the cost of inaction on this role?”
• “Are we optimising for the right thing: speed, quality, or savings?”
• “Are we expecting one person to do the work of three?”

These questions cut through noise faster than any salary benchmarking exercise.

The real competitive advantage

The companies winning right now aren’t the ones with the lowest budgets or the flashiest perks. They are the ones who move decisively, articulate real value and treat hiring like the strategic function it is.

Your VPN can be discounted. Your people cannot. And when you start making decisions from that place, your hiring transforms. Your delivery sharpens. Your culture strengthens. And suddenly, you stop firefighting and start building.

That’s the real deal of the week.

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