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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?

#161

Post by vanderreeah »

teknologist wrote: post #64
dccoolgai wrote: post #6

I hire frontend and mixed web devs. What I'm looking for is a mature understanding of the web platform from devs at all levels. + basic architecture and good practices for mid-level devs. + business and deep architecture for seniors. + for new web platform things like Service Workers, advanced SVG. Could care less about whatever franework is hot this week.

The expression is "could not care less", meaning you're already caring the least possible amount.

You'd have to have been hiding under a rock the past few decades not to know that "could care less" has been linguistic currency for a long time now.

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

#162

Post by tbendixson »

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's funny. I have always suspected employers were looking for this sort of thing. Hence the odd glee in their voice when they hear me talk about spending my hard earned money on discretionary purchases. The more I spend, the longer I stay.

Perhaps the takeaway for all of us is that we all need to be humble and at least pretend we need our jobs, even if we're aggressively saving for an early retirement.

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

#163

Post by bovermyer »

I'll be hiring shortly here for a devops engineer. Here's a few of the things I'm looking for:

* Ansible

* Python

* Go

* PHP

* Docker

* AWS

* GCP

Experience with the above would be nice. What I actually require though is not specific to a particular technology:

* Not a dick

* Ability to reason

* Ability to iterate

* Ability to communicate at multiple levels of abstraction

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

#164

Post by user5994461 »

dhimes wrote: post #160
ryandrake wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know--It looks to me that people have a very, very narrow view of "competence" then. When you define a role so narrowly, with so many requirements and conditions, don't be surprised when you reject 399 out of 400 resumes, and don't call it a shortage of talent.

It seems like generally "competence" is being defined as being in the 95% percentile in tech.

The 80% percentile of applicants is defined as people who can write a program to print numbers from 1 to 10.

Not sure about the 95%. Maybe that's people who can do it without bugs nor expressing that this is a very dumb question unworthy of them xD

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

#165

Post by UK-AL »

mgav wrote: post #124
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…

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?).

I don't think he wants great people. That's the point.

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

#166

Post by dhimes »

IndianAstronaut wrote: post #138
bleachedsleet wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few reasons I can think of off the top of my head: 1) Anything that can be effectively described as "blue collar" will probably be replaced by automation within 3-10 years depending on the job. 2) Creative thinkers should be valued more highly in the tech field than those that can just follow orders blindly. Very few tech fields emulate an assembly line and the ability to think for yourself and develop an alternati…

>Very few tech fields emulate an assembly line and the ability to think for yourself and develop an alternative solution is and should be highly valued A lot of management hates this. Less skilled managers, just want a dev shop where they can build and assemble parts.

It might have something to do with the business you're in. If you are b2b in certain areas, innovation isn't as highly valued as reliability. In fact it can be downright disruptive.

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

#167

Post by ralphc »

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…

What do you use Go for? Do you expect engineers to be up to speed on it or do you allow new hires to pick it up? Is it a tech skill worth getting? (worth as in taking time away from Node/Javascript learning)

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

#168

Post by user5994461 »

UK-AL wrote: post #165
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?).

I don't think he wants great people. That's the point.

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

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

#169

Post by blauditore »

w_t_payne wrote: post #119
jayajay wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because super "smart" people are taught that they will have 2-3 weeks to prepare for their biggest problems. In real life, big problems happen overnight, and you wake up to shitstorms. That said, some brilliant people emerge from Ivy Leagues, too.

Funny. I've spent most of my professional career trying my damndest to ensure that those shitstorms do not happen in the first place. :-) (Not always successfully -- I have to admit -- but I try).

This is a very good argument, and something many devs/managers don't understand well enough.

I've seen a couple of such shitstorms where we had to hack on production systems to get them back to work quickly before thoroughly fixing the actual problem. Almost always, it could have been prevented with proper unit testing, code reviewing and more thought-out deployment processes.

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

#170

Post by web007 »

lj3 wrote: post #140
mullsork wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Though I don't do recruiting myself I have a few friends in tech HR here in Berlin. It is not the total number of developers available that makes the problem, it's the high percentage of incompetence.

That's assuming you're good at spotting competent engineers. Everything I've seen both in this thread and elsewhere tells me companies are horrible at determining engineering competence.

Spotting competence is different from filtering incompetence. I can tell in 15 minutes if someone is clueless, but it takes a long time to establish if a candidate is just above that threshold or truly exceptional.
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