Who Y Combinator Companies Want

Stockfighter.io ran into similar issues. The candidate that finished the competition we're far above average, but hiring companies still used the same filters and long timing on those candidates as for sketchy unsolicited resumes.

I think the core issue is that hiring a bad programmer is so costly, and there are so many bad programmers in the hiring pool that companies tune their filters to avoid the worst, while thinking they are aiming for the best.

I've seen quite a bit of 'discrimination' against enterprise devs by startups over the past ten years as a recruiter (and JUG president for 15 years), and the data in this piece regarding Java/C# devs failing more interviews than counterparts is at least a little surprising.

I generally attributed the discrimination to be more about dev culture than tech skills, whereas the enterprise dev maybe with a few years at a bank/insurance/pharma company might be too set in the traditionally slow pace in regulated industries or bureaucracies to adapt to the stereotype of a fast-paced startup. I never felt that startup leaders might actually think of them as lesser-skilled, and it wasn't discussed - the feedback on enterprise candidates would often be simply 'not a good fit' before an interview would even occur. I was always a bit uncomfortable with that reaction, as clearly there are many good enterprise devs of high quality regardless of what tools they use.

A couple of things that jump out to me. Up front, I've been a little hard on Triplebyte in some threads here, but this article is great, and I think their heads are in the right place and motivated to solve one of the biggest problems we have in the corporate world (and I'm telling you this as an "enterprise" manager, so it is an issue across the board). Also that's one of my best run-on sentences, maybe ever.

> I don’t want to be too hard on recruiters. Hiring and interviewing are hard, shortcuts must be taken to keep the team sane, and there are legitimate reasons for a company to enforce a specific engineering culture. But from the point of view of programmers applying for jobs, these company preferences are mercurial. Companies don’t advertise their preferences. People who don’t match simply apply, and are rejected (or often never hear back).

This is your opportunity, and it's a tough challenge. Tell them what they need and make them believe it. Of course, be right, as well. Never said it'd be easy, but a huge opportunity.

Preferences are mercurial because nobody knows what they actually need, only what they think they want, and truthfully there's a lot of latitude in the factors that lead to success. There's a real opportunity if you can figure this out and get companies on board with your judgment. I'm not suggesting one size fits all, but I am suggesting most companies don't know what size actually fits them, if I'm sticking with the cliche.

> There’s more demand for product-focused programmers than there is for programmers focused on hard technical problems. [...] And the “Academic Programmer” (hard-problem focused, but without the experience) has half again the demand.

This is another disconnect presenting an opportunity - minimize the whiteboard interview! That's essentially screening for the academic profile, isn't it? Again, enterprise guy here, so I'm guessing none of these companies would want to hire me based on the data presented, but I don't do whiteboard interviews at all, and I'd probably put my focus on the "product programmer" profile. Actually, I love your profile data, I've learned a lot about my own preferences just by reading this.

> (Almost) everyone dislikes enterprise programmers. We don’t agree with this. We’ve seen a bunch of great Java programmers. But it’s what our data shows.

This is really interesting. Again, enterprise bias here, but an enterprise programmer who's managed to get shit done in a big corporate environment should be highly valued. Not only can they program, they can also put up with all of the bullshit that it takes to get things through to production. There is something to be said about a programmer who can essentially handle the politics as well. But if you don't want 'em, I'll take 'em!

Anyhow, great writeup here by the Triplebyte folks. I hope that companies in particular read and make good use of what you've put together. I plan to share this with my management team.

How can bad programmers be improved into hirable ones?