Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Hiring managers, what tech skills will you be hiring for in 2017?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 242 posts

Re: Ask HN: Hiring managers, what tech skills will you be hiring for in 2017?

#181

Post by throwaway95837 »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #90
throwaway95837 wrote: post #18

I am 100% owner of an internet company making 7 figure profits annually. I am extremely secretive of my business, almost to the point that some would consider a pathology. However, I will divulge my hiring strategy, because even if everyone uses my method, there will still be many employees for me to choose from. I look to hire people who just need a job. People who are qualified, but not overly qualified. People I k…

When they get bored after 6 months, they quit and go somewhere else I thought you had 100% retention rate?

Read carefully. "using this hiring strategy has produced a 100% employee retention rate."

Those who left were hired at an earlier time when I thought hiring the top tier Ivy Leaguers was the way to go.

Re: Ask HN: Hiring managers, what tech skills will you be hiring for in 2017?

#182

Post by lj3 »

user5994461 wrote: post #178
lj3 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not necessarily. He says he operates in NY, so he can't pay too cheap. Even the most loyal employee will jump ship if the competing offer is 2x what he's currently making, especially with NY cost of living. What he wants is stability. You'd be surprised how many very smart people put a premium on that sort of thing, especially when they get older.

They won't get 2x offers if they don't have a pedigree and can't handle hard tech interviews. (Which is what he's filtering for). An employee with limited options = A more stable employee

Humbly disagree. 2x offers depends on how little he's paying them to begin with vs how easy it is to switch jobs. You don't need a pedigree or be able to handle hard tech interviews to switch jobs in NYC. You just need to go on a lot of interviews. Eventually, one will say yes.

NYC isn't exactly a place where you have limited options. You want limited options? Try to find a job upstate.

Re: Ask HN: Hiring managers, what tech skills will you be hiring for in 2017?

#183

Post by throwaway95837 »

nkohari wrote: post #122
throwaway95837 wrote: post #18

I am 100% owner of an internet company making 7 figure profits annually. I am extremely secretive of my business, almost to the point that some would consider a pathology. However, I will divulge my hiring strategy, because even if everyone uses my method, there will still be many employees for me to choose from. I look to hire people who just need a job. People who are qualified, but not overly qualified. People I k…

It will also create a company that can't grow past the point where you are the lynchpin. Good leaders find people that will put them out of a job, not lackeys to do whatever they say. If you're happy where you are, then I congratulate you on your success, but when was the last time you took a vacation?

Actually the business mostly runs itself and I usually spend only about 2 hours a week on it. The business has a healthy profit margin so I can afford to over hire and build in redundancies so that even if one person is out sick for a few days, the other person picks up the slack without me having to do anything. Unlike many other companies who overwork their employees, I try to make sure that every employee can easily finish everything by 5pm. Otherwise things build up, problems arise, things don't get done, and I'd have to step in, which I don't want to do.

Re: Ask HN: Hiring managers, what tech skills will you be hiring for in 2017?

#184

Post by throwaway95837 »

mahyarm wrote: post #52
mattschmulen wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why (forgive me for the generalization) blue collar work ethic and blue collar loyalty are so often dismissed in the tech field. Some of the best advice I ever received was 'execute in the seat your in'. Sure there are higher order strategies to work out but grow into it and growth is around growing into the company, not just growing into your specific vertical profession. Kudos on your directness.

The plodders he wants are not well paid either. The people who tend to rise to the top of silicon valley companies tend to be like he describes, and tend to work many many hours.

You don't have to be at the top of a silicon valley company to have a successful tech career. I wouldn't want that for myself. Too high stress, not enough free time. I think that people that rise into those roles truly enjoy the stress and challenges of such a position, and good for them, but it's not something I'd ever want for myself.

Re: Ask HN: Hiring managers, what tech skills will you be hiring for in 2017?

#185

Post by kitd »

reitanqild wrote: post #155
kitd wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree with all of this, apart from Gradle. It has saved my life a few times. Gradle plus the BuildShip plugin [1] for Eclipse is a great combo IMHO. [1] - https://projects.eclipse.org/projects/tools.buildship

It has saved my life a few times. Compared to mvn or ant or something else or compared to not using a build system? Honest question. I'm trying to figure out if I have missed something when I dismissed Gradle last time.

There are a few plugins I have used around packaging and deployment. I found integrating and using them in Gradle much easier than Maven. I just honestly think it presents itself to the developer much better than Maven, esp as I said in conjunction with BuildShip.

I have also done some C++ dev work with Gradle. It's not ideal, but having one build system that handles differing platforms was great.

Re: Ask HN: Hiring managers, what tech skills will you be hiring for in 2017?

#186

Post by mk4p »

throwaway95837 wrote: post #41
che_shirecat wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this post reeks of wishful thinking and general bullsh*t. "100% owner", "7 figures", "100% retention rate" - some really lazy hyperbole...

If only I had taken the advice in life I dismissed so quickly out of disbelief, just like you're doing now, I'd be where I am so much faster.

Advice such as?

Re: Ask HN: Hiring managers, what tech skills will you be hiring for in 2017?

#187

Post by awinter-py »

ryandrake wrote: post #93

Interesting. Lots of picky responses here--people prepared to wait it out and go through tons of candidates looking for perfection: Need this language. And that platform. Must know such and such database. And DevOps. Front end and backend. Full stack. And these four key abilities. And passion. Prepare for the interview. Be ready to explain this and that. Be good at whiteboard coding. Went through 400 candidates. If y…

I've seen a lot of disagreement about whether you should 'hire for your stack', i.e. hire narrowly for your team's current work and tools.

I briefly ran hiring for a team with a core skillset that I thought was pretty general (python/web), but a lot of the python resumes I got turned out to be 'I used it in college', 'haven't used it recently', or django-focused devs who were uncomfortable with anything non-django.

I'm not sure what that means other than that I'm bad at sourcing. Seems like 'aiming at my stack' was the wrong way into this, but I'm not sure how else to filter resumes.

Re: Ask HN: Hiring managers, what tech skills will you be hiring for in 2017?

#188

Post by awinter-py »

VLM wrote: post #146
mgav wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmmm. Your "who knows how to take orders without question" requirement (paragraph 3) would discourage every great person I've ever met, while weakening your overall enterprise (what if the Titanic's jr. officers had respectfully asked questions about going full speed at night in waters known to have icebergs?).

Manage your boss by not screwing up their OODA loop. Open your mouth at the Observe stage no matter if they want you to or not, don't distract them at the O and D stages, and make the best as fast as possible of their Act stage. Slowing down or sabotaging their O,D, or worst of all, A, makes you look like a problem and slows the loop cycle time making the likelihood of future bad O or D even higher while also pushing…

That model may work for fighter aces but it doesn't work for the office. In any project that takes more than a day you spend most of your time in the 'Act' stage and get a ton of new information before you finish executing.

Technical managers have to be sensitive to new information, * especially * when it ruins their spec.

Re: Ask HN: Hiring managers, what tech skills will you be hiring for in 2017?

#189

Post by damosneeze »

xor1 wrote: post #152
damosneeze wrote: post #44

I work at Real World React. We specialize in training engineers on front-end web development, specifically React, Redux, RxJS, and related technologies. We've trained engineers from Twilio, OpenTable, NerdWallet, Tesla, Esurance, and many more. We are based in SF. Since we also do private consulting and project-based work in addition to our workshops, we have recently got to talking with our clients about helping the…

Do you have any recommendations for picking up strong Javascript foundations? Asking as an iOS dev who has barely worked with it.

* Video: Practical JavaScript. I haven't gone through this myself but I've heard good things. https://watchandcode.com/p/practical-javascript

* Comprehensive lesson-based: FreeCodeCamp. An easier, piecemeal option with plenty of hints and guides. Disclosure: My business partner is the CTO of FCC https://www.freecodecamp.com/

* Video: JavaScript30 by Wes Bos. 30 Vanilla JS Challenges. Wes is a fantastic teacher and this is his newest series. I haven't gone through it myself but I've taken his other lessons and been pleased, so I feel somewhat confident in recommending this. https://javascript30.com/

* You don't know JS: A series of free lessons on JS https://github.com/getify/You-Dont-Know-JS

* $ Book: O'Reilly JS Pocket Reference. If you already know how to program, this can help you understand JS in a very short amount of time. Obviously you will need to practice to really get it, but this helped me to understand a lot of things very quickly. Great for train commute or downtime reading: https://www.amazon.com/JavaScript-Pocket-Reference-Activate-...

Re: Ask HN: Hiring managers, what tech skills will you be hiring for in 2017?

#190

Post by UK-AL »

lj3 wrote: post #174
user5994461 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he wants cheap people. Everything he is looking for is hinting at cheap.

Not necessarily. He says he operates in NY, so he can't pay too cheap. Even the most loyal employee will jump ship if the competing offer is 2x what he's currently making, especially with NY cost of living. What he wants is stability. You'd be surprised how many very smart people put a premium on that sort of thing, especially when they get older.

In this situation the employer has stable option, you'll stick around no matter the crap.

From perspective the employee it isn't stable. Sounds like he'd get rid of you, if you disagree with anything.

Post reply on HN