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Who Y Combinator Companies Want

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Re: Who Y Combinator Companies Want

#451

Post by mquander »

soham wrote: post #448
mquander wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was a Director of Engineering at Box, the engineering team was tasked with hiring 25 engineers in a single quarter. For several quarters. When hiring at that scale, it's hard to hire based on personas and elaborate preferences. I just watched another startup in the same reference class grow at a similar speed, and I don't believe you. Suppose it takes 20 interview loops to hire one very good engineer, and each…

Not sure which part you're referring to, that doesn't work. Average 10% spend by an engineer towards hiring is quite normal, from my experience. Obviously, it's average, so there are some who spend way more than 10%, and there are some who don't spend any. 4 out of 40 hours a week including phone-screens, on-sites and deliberations is easy to get to. I'm sure you know, that a lot of hiring at that scale is systematiz…

I'm sure you know, that a lot of hiring at that scale is systematized and (hence) heavy-lifting is done by non-technical recruiting people.

Right, this is what I'm arguing against. Doing filtering with non-technical people requires a lot of systematization and strange, low-quality filters. I suggest not doing that.

The typical response is that you need to do it because engineer time is too precious, which I disagree with.

Re: Who Y Combinator Companies Want

#452

Post by dennisgorelik »

There is a good reason why startups prefer Product Programmers:

If you focus on product, then you have strong feedback loop in your design and development cycle: you regularly see how users interact with your product and improve.

If your focus is on technology, then there is almost no real feedback and you are likely to optimize something not very valuable.

Re: Who Y Combinator Companies Want

#453

Post by Ocerge »

xacaxulu wrote: post #204
jlarocco wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about Silicon Valley, but in Colorado it's almost never that bad for software jobs. In 12 years I don't recall any jobs with fewer than 15 days. My current job is "unlimited", and I took nearly 25 days one year.

Colorado is culturally much more in tune with work-life balance. Especially in Denver imo. No one brags about working 80 hours a week as that makes you sound like a loser who doesn't ski/hike/bike enough.

Same here in Portland. The companies I've been involved with here tend to take pride in their employees being active. I could see this changing as the Valley types continue to move in, however.

Re: Who Y Combinator Companies Want

#454

Post by baudehlo »

ammon wrote: post #245
cableshaft wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does that jive with the statistic in the article that engineers that have worked at companies like Google, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon pass interviews 30% more of the time. These are all very big companies. If startups are so opposed to big companies, shouldn't having these on your resume be seen as being negative?

Good point. There is a short list of big companies that are taken as positive signals (Google tops the list), while most others are negative. I think that this gets at a contradiction.

And thus it's more about culture than size.

Re: Who Y Combinator Companies Want

#456

Post by aianus »

eropple wrote: post #356
karmacondon wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're a top ten percent programmer who charges $137/hr then this whole discussion probably isn't oriented at you. By definition, most programmers are not in the top ten percent. They make money by sitting down and writing code, not by projecting confidence and machismo. So why shouldn't they prove their abilities and evaluate the company and it's general environment by sitting down and actually coding? I'm very o…

Because you shouldn't work for free . That holds true for writers, that holds true for artists, that holds true for web designers, and that holds true for programmers. And unlike those other professions, the creative has the power in this relationship. What these companies hate admitting but all know is true is that even a mediocre programmer, a sit-down-and-write-code programmer, needs these companies more than the…

Who said anything about working for free? The only work trial I've ever done was paid in full at the same rate as I would be making if I had already been hired.

It was fun, and more profitable than a free boring discussion-based interview.

Re: Who Y Combinator Companies Want

#457

Post by yeukhon »

MCRed wrote: post #309
brianchu wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a CS student and most students I know dislike whiteboarding too (and by extension many, if not most, YC startup employees do too). But I'm pretty okay at them now, having had lots of practice. The key advantage for students I think is the ability to have sustained practice over the course of a month (e.g. > 4 onsites over the course of a month), which most students can afford since their schedules are flexible. A…

IF they have you write code, think twice about taking the job. That's an indicator of a junior engineer conducting an interview in a company that didn't care enough to work out a good process. Seriously. I've been working for startups and starting companies for 26 years, and for half that time I've been building teams. I stopped asking people to code a long time ago. If they can't code it will be obvious by their ans…

I counter this. I am not disputing your observation.

When I interview people, I start by asking the interviewee to tell me his/her background, then start conversation about things they just told me. If they mention Ansible I expect them to be able to answer a few technical questions regarding Ansible. If the mention they have Python experience, I expect them to be able to read some code and tell me if they spot a bug or if they knew a solution to the problem. I expect some side conversation like "actually there is a bunch thunder methods in Python, etc" (which is actually related to the question). If you just answer the question, that's boring. There is a skill in interview. You need to make the person enjoy talking to you at work. We are not robot.

I don't care if the person can implement heap or not. If you use a tool enough, you need to go beyond syntax. If you can't show me how you would debug the code, the interview would end there. print, dir with print, pdb, interpreter, whatever. Coding question can help eliminate candidates who are strong in communication but with weak technical skill.

Some candidates think they can code, but they cannot structure the code to make the code usable, and that's a red flag. For the position we want, we are not looking for scripting monkey.

If I am hiring a senior position for the team, I expect to have system design conversation. The last thing I ask is whether the interviewee has done any side projects. I don't penalize people for not having a github/bitbucket account, but would be a huge plus during the evaluation.

Anyway, mileage is different for different position.

Re: Who Y Combinator Companies Want

#458

Post by quanticle »

MCRed wrote: post #313
quanticle wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a "Valley" thing. It's a tech. company thing. I've never interviewed in the Bay Area, but pretty much every interview I've had has asked me to write algorithms on a whiteboard. >If someone has years of experience in their field and a strong portfolio Well, the problem is that quite a lot of programmers don't have portfolios outside of work. I certainly don't. I mean, I have a Github, true, but there's not re…

It's not a "Tech company thing" it's a "junior engineer who doesn't know how to interview" thing. It is an indicator of a low quality company. Seriously. This is my opinion after 25 years of interviews. Ask the candidate "Tell me about a project you're passionate about". Find out why. Get them to explain a hard problem they solved. Get them to teach it to you so you understand it. Find the candidate that can do that…

>It's not a "Tech company thing" it's a "junior engineer who doesn't know how to interview" thing. It is an indicator of a low quality company.

I guess Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook and Dropbox are all low quality companies, then.

Re: Who Y Combinator Companies Want

#459

Post by spopejoy »

throwaway456789 wrote: post #428
buckbova wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't expect any job actually programming pays more than that, even if you are literally doing 1 1/2 jobs (60 hrs/wk). Only way to get that kind of pay and work for someone else is as an executive and a higher up VP/CTO/CIO etc. Keep that job and don't spend all that money in one place. You might be one of those folks who can retire while they are (relatively) young.

That's actually the plan... And then maybe join a SV start up because money doesn't matter anymore... Going to be tough to do as an enterprise Java developer though. =P.

Naw, just learn a new language or two when you quit.

Haskell is a particularly good choice. After fighting with Java generics for decades I found it really nice to work with a real type system.

Also, go is trivial for an experienced Java programmer to master.

Re: Who Y Combinator Companies Want

#460

Post by chipsy »

Nadya wrote: post #396
staticautomatic wrote: post #394

It's what your data "show." Not what your data "shows." I am always skeptical of the analytical competence of someone who uses incorrect language to describe their own work.

"Is `data` a singular or plural entity?" is a question you should ask yourself. In this case their data is a collection or mass of data - and is singular . In the blog, using "the data shows that" is the proper way to write the statement.

This may be a British/American English gaffe. Collective nouns in British English are referred to using plurals, e.g. "Apple are planning a new product," vs. the American "Apple is planning a new product."
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