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

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

#31

Post by k1w1 »

When I am hiring for Aha! (www.aha.io) one of the key things I am looking for are people who have shown an interest in software development beyond just a day job. The best candidates are those for whom writing code is a passion - something which is done for fun rather than just a way to make ends meet.

This shows up in a resume in lots of different ways. For some people it is a rich Github profile. For others it is that they paid their way through college by building websites or apps.

We primarily hire Ruby on Rails developers who work remotely. Seeing in someone's Github profile that they like to contribute to open source and know how to collaborate with other developers are really important.

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

#32

Post by throwaway95837 »

antisthenes wrote: post #28
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…

Where are you based? Sounds like the type of company I would like to work for, because you figured out the almost lost art of vis-à-vis loyalty.

I am based in new york but not currently hiring

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

#33

Post by throwaway95837 »

beachstartup wrote: post #21
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…

here, i'll paraphrase for you, since i'm a "real world" hiring manager as well, with a business that i keep anonymous/secretive on hn. "a reliable person who can actually, really, like, totally for real drive a problem to resolution and then go spend time with family. if there's an emergency, they pick up their phone and try to help." this is a small percentage of the population, but big enough. it's why we (based in…

I used to be surprised but after witnessing this many times it doesn't surprise me anymore.

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

#34

Post by che_shirecat »

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…

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

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

#35

Post by lscore720 »

che_shirecat wrote: post #34
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…

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

I laughed, I'm pretty sure it's satire. Right?

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

#36

Post by lj3 »

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…

This sounds like the kind of job I'm looking for. The problem is, my resume is filled with those red flags of yours because I used to be that guy with the huge resume who was hungry for "interesting work". Now I'm just a senior dev looking for a steady paycheck away from the rat race. Any tips for how I go about communicating that to potential employers?

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

#37

Post by asher »

I'm at shopkick. We're a mobile app. We hire server, Android and iPhone engineers, but many will move across these platforms. We look for smart generalists. So, although we use Python on our servers, we don't expect server candidates to know Python.

Advice for senior engineers: brush up your practical programming. If you've been in an architect/leadership role, you may be rusty. Make sure you're comfortable on both whiteboard and keyboard.

If you spent the last 5 years writing iPhone apps, we expect you to know iPhone development pretty well. Memory management is the obvious area here.

Be ready to explain the most recent projects on your resume. Think outside the box - if you wrote code to process messages from a black box, how do you think the black box worked? If you consumed JSON messages, how much can you explain of JSON and JSON parsers? Many projects are so narrow in scope that we can't have a meaningful conversation about them, so be prepared to broaden into adjacent areas.

Advice for new grads and early-career engineers: have some solid, non-trivial code on github (or equivalent) and make sure we know about it. Be prepared to discuss it and explain design decisions. Few do this.

This post is my take on the question - what follows is especially subjective and not representative of shopkick:

Don't put stuff on your resume that you don't know. Or, brush up the skills featured on your resume.

Learn a scripting language, especially if you're a server engineer. People who only know Java/C++ are at a big disadvantage if they have to write code in an interview. How big? Turning a 5 minute question into 35 minutes is typical - and it gets worse. One very smart, very experienced man took 45 minutes on such a question. Of course, don't just port Java idioms to Python; learn Python idioms. Good languages are Python/Ruby/Perl. I think a HN reader probably doesn't need to be told this, but just in case. Properly used, scripting languages teach techniques which carry over to compiled languages.

Server engineers should be comfortable with either vi or emacs. And with basic Linux. Personally I find it astounding that a server candidate would be unfamiliar with ls and cat, but it happens.

I hope this is helpful and doesn't sound arrogant.

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

#38

Post by [deleted] »

k1w1 wrote: post #31

When I am hiring for Aha! (www.aha.io) one of the key things I am looking for are people who have shown an interest in software development beyond just a day job. The best candidates are those for whom writing code is a passion - something which is done for fun rather than just a way to make ends meet. This shows up in a resume in lots of different ways. For some people it is a rich Github profile. For others it is t…

[deleted]

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

#39

Post by mattschmulen »

throwaway95837 wrote: post #27
tossaway1 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question was what tech skills will you be hiring for and your answer was essentially I just want a plodder who's not overly smart and won't question my authority. Sound about right?

Tech skills are only one dimension of a multidimensional process that employers like me use to make decisions. I am here to offer contrarian advice that might be helpful to someone early in his career who might be a great programmer but may also be dismayed because he thinks the only path to a successful tech career is devoting your life to your job or going to an ivy league school and I am here to say that is not th…

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.

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

#40

Post by lj3 »

hobonumber1 wrote: post #2

I work at SoundHound as a Senior Software Engineer, and take part in interviewing/hiring. Full-stack JavaScript engineers are still in very short supply. Lots of people claim to know JavaScript but many fall short when working across the stack. When I say full-stack, I mean being responsible for building and managing everything the front-end webserver (NodeJS), Database (Postgres/MySQL), and front-end (usually ReactJ…

> Lots of people claim to know JavaScript but many fall short when working across the stack.

What do you look for in a resume or application that would make you confident that you've found somebody with that experience?

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