Who Y Combinator Companies Want • Hacker News Board

Re: Who Y Combinator Companies Want

#161

Post by ryandrake » Tue, Dec 08, 2015, 7:49 PM UTC

vonmoltke wrote: post #139

dmoy wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you do a work-hire test for someone who already has a job, and is not allowed to work on another company's stuff?

> The problem you're working on can be fake I'm assuming if it was a fake problem, it wouldn't be something the other company could actually use.

It's not about what they could use. It's about what they own and where it's going. If your employment agreement states that any code you write belongs to your employer and that you're not allowed to share company code with others, then a work-sample test essentially asks candidates to violate their current employment agreement.

Re: Who Y Combinator Companies Want

#162

Post by vskarine » Tue, Dec 08, 2015, 7:49 PM UTC

karmacondon wrote: post #32

When it comes to hiring, I think that the team is more important than the individual. As the beginning of the piece stated, it's not so much about individual characteristics as it is culture/process fit. I think the main takeaway for applicants is not to take interview rejection personally. Even if you do everything "right", you still might not be what they're looking for. Ultimately, I don't think that individual pr…

I totally agree with you. A good, recently published book, to read on this topic is 'Team Genius'.

Re: Who Y Combinator Companies Want

#163

Post by Alex3917 » Tue, Dec 08, 2015, 7:50 PM UTC

ammon wrote: post #143

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The filters that companies and recruiters use mostly trend in a meaningful direction. There are a higher percentage of good programmers among MIT grads than SUNY Potsdam grads. Imagine how mistaken that would sound if you substitute "startup founders" for "programmers." The reason you feel company filters are anything except random noise is personal bias. It's disheartening that your article notices that company pref…

The cost of a real work test is much higher, both to the company, and to the applicant. Some companies take that approach (weebly for one), but it means that some of the best programmer will not apply, and it only makes worse the problem of having to aggressively pre-filter (based on credentials, or something else). You are 100% correct that most research into interviewing has show it to be far less predictive than c…

> No one has done this.

Not for coding specifically, but there have been some studies correlating GPA with career success, and the correlation has been found to be very low. But the reason there are very few studies that look at this is that GPA A) isn't epistemologically meaningful B) isn't a measure in the mathematical sense.

"A grade can be regarded only as an inadequate report of an inaccurate judgment by a biased and variable judge of the extent to which a student has attained an undefined level of mastery of an unknown proportion of an indefinite amount of material." -Paul Dressel

Re: Who Y Combinator Companies Want

#164

Post by darkerside » Tue, Dec 08, 2015, 7:51 PM UTC

throwaway456789 wrote: post #63

I'm an "enterprise" programmer because I write in Java... I'm also older than the average age of a start-up employee (late twenties). I've never written a line of Ruby, and I've never written object oriented JavaScript or used Node.js. However, I'm a really good programmer. I just happen to write the majority of my code in Java. If tomorrow we decided to use a new language, I could pick it up in a few days... I have…

More likely it's just an inability to judge the programming skills of someone writing in a language you are unfamiliar with. My guess is that most YC founders don't write in C# or Java. Whether it behooves them to screen those applicants out is another question.

Re: Who Y Combinator Companies Want

#165

Post by LordHumungous » Tue, Dec 08, 2015, 7:51 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #8

> "We’ve seen that most engineers only have the stomach for a limited number of interviews. Investing time in the wrong companies carries a high opportunity cost." I suspect in addition to not having the "stomach" for an unlimited number of interviews, they don't have the vacation days to burn for them. Let's say you are working already and have 10 days a year vacation (pretty standard). With these ridiculous all-day…

I've made the mistake in the past of overcommitting myself to interviewing with multiple companies at once. The time commitment wasn't the worst part, the real factor I didn't for see is that interviewing is stressful and mentally exhausting. On top of the interview itself, there's the hours of studying you have to put in. It's extremely hard to do while doing your full time job.

Now I have a rule that I will interview with ONE company at a time. Consequently, I am very careful about picking which companies I will interview with.

Re: Who Y Combinator Companies Want

#166

Post by shimon » Tue, Dec 08, 2015, 7:51 PM UTC

throwaway456789 wrote: post #116

sgarman wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a lot of companies want to hire people who also have programming as a hobby. It seems if this was true it would be very unlikely that someone would be a seasoned great programmer who only ever programmed in one language. I'd be curious why this candidate never wanted to try other styles/approaches.

I never understood why that was a prerequisite. I program for 60 hours a week. So what if I don't want to do it on the weekends too.

Unfortunately, tinkering in your off-hours is a key way for programmers to keep their skills current. The industry changes rapidly and the skills that were most marketable over the past 10 years are not the same as those that will be most marketable over the next 10. If you're not changing jobs constantly, the rate of tech change at your workplace is unlikely to be enough to keep your skills marketable. So you need to tinker.

This is one reason why people 40+ with kids tend to migrate into management. Their technical skills are getting rusty and having kids decimates your ability to take on major tinkering projects that help you learn new skills. However, their people skills are evergreen and even sharpened by their experience as parents.

Re: Who Y Combinator Companies Want

#167

Post by squozzer » Tue, Dec 08, 2015, 7:51 PM UTC

throwaway456789 wrote: post #63

I'm an "enterprise" programmer because I write in Java... I'm also older than the average age of a start-up employee (late twenties). I've never written a line of Ruby, and I've never written object oriented JavaScript or used Node.js. However, I'm a really good programmer. I just happen to write the majority of my code in Java. If tomorrow we decided to use a new language, I could pick it up in a few days... I have…

I work in an enterprise environment though my skill set is mostly on the admin side. Ageism may play a part in the bias against enterprise workers, but other factors exist as well - whether justified or not.

1) Over-specialization - the vogue for startups is to hire full-stack engineers, which to me reads as a desire to have one person perform the work of three. The constraints of a startup environment may justify such desires.

2) Risk-aversion - many of us in enterprise environments groan about all of the meetings, deferments of decisions to superiors / domain experts, and other risk-avoidance strategies, but in the end we like our butts covered just like everyone else.

3) Tolerance / preference for a certain amount of friction - some might call this a lack of urgency or an excess of complacency. Consider the problem of selecting a platform for your new project. In most enterprise environments, the decision has already been made for you - what is on the approved product / vendor list? Another is how to get a person who reports to a different chain of command to do their job.

All of these factors and others seem to exist at odds with the startup culture, which is a general term for the composite self-image of a startup's founders. Generally, they see themselves as pirates who plunder market share from the lumbering galleons of large enterprises, at least until they sell.

Re: Who Y Combinator Companies Want

#168

Post by sillysaurus3 » Tue, Dec 08, 2015, 7:51 PM UTC

ammon wrote: post #143

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The filters that companies and recruiters use mostly trend in a meaningful direction. There are a higher percentage of good programmers among MIT grads than SUNY Potsdam grads. Imagine how mistaken that would sound if you substitute "startup founders" for "programmers." The reason you feel company filters are anything except random noise is personal bias. It's disheartening that your article notices that company pref…

The cost of a real work test is much higher, both to the company, and to the applicant. Some companies take that approach (weebly for one), but it means that some of the best programmer will not apply, and it only makes worse the problem of having to aggressively pre-filter (based on credentials, or something else). You are 100% correct that most research into interviewing has show it to be far less predictive than c…

The best programmers do apply. Whatever you think a work-hire test is, that wasn't it. A work-hire test attracts the best programmers. It doesn't repel them. It's a chance to demonstrate their skill. It's also far better: anything is better than the fake contests they're currently forced to endure. Which would you prefer? Spend a couple hours remotely fixing some bugs and adding a feature on a fake iOS app, or spend all day playing "dodge the bias" for a hit rate of ~60% at the cost of a vacation day?

Why do you think the programmer from your article didn't get a job when you "sat back to watch him get a job"? You didn't tune your test to what the company was looking for.

Any YC founders who are reading this: Refuse to talk to Triplebyte until they set up a work hire test for your company. Force them to do it, and force them to work with you to tune the test to the work you need. You will get a 100% hit rate. And you'll notice something else: Your retention rate will go way, way up. Want to not deal with firing people? Get them to show you they can do the work. Nothing else matters.

The test needs to be set up so that the candidate can demonstrate they can do exactly the same things all other employees do on a day-to-day basis, or it's not a work-hire test.

Re: Who Y Combinator Companies Want

#169

Post by eosrei » Tue, Dec 08, 2015, 7:52 PM UTC

throwaway456789 wrote: post #116

sgarman wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a lot of companies want to hire people who also have programming as a hobby. It seems if this was true it would be very unlikely that someone would be a seasoned great programmer who only ever programmed in one language. I'd be curious why this candidate never wanted to try other styles/approaches.

I never understood why that was a prerequisite. I program for 60 hours a week. So what if I don't want to do it on the weekends too.

60? Isn't that already your weekends?

Re: Who Y Combinator Companies Want

#170

Post by taurath » Tue, Dec 08, 2015, 7:54 PM UTC

bjacks wrote: post #76

I'd really like to know what it is about a resume or in an interview that makes someone seem like more of a 'product programmer'. Is it the particular things they have worked on at other jobs, i.e. their experience, or is it the way they talk about what they want to build? I'd be really interested to hear how I can make myself sound like more of a product programmer.

As someone who describes themselves as such and has had good success - demonstrate that you care more deeply about the success of the product than "technology" itself. Code is a tool to solve those problems - focus on what has worked and not worked in coding, rather than what is cool and exciting. Its more of a mindset thing than anything - spend enough time actually being interested in business problems rather than CS problems.