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Who Y Combinator Companies Want

blog.triplebyte.com

31–40 of 56 posts

Re: Who Y Combinator Companies Want

#31
post #7

Slightly surprised -- and a little diappointed -- to see "academic programmer" as the least desirable archetype. Also, not sure these archetypes do a great job of capturing the process-oriented/results-oriented divide that shows up in the opening anecdote (and which I agree is quite real).

Which is interesting to me because if you go through the triplebyte process the impression you'll get is that they are looking for a very academic/textbook CS student who can balance a binary tree on a whiteboard while verbally explaining the operational complexity of an unladen swallow. From my perspective, there is an impedance mismatch between the triplebyte process (heads-down algorithm nerd) and the findings tha…

Agreed.

A cursory glance of glassdoor suggests this as well - balance a binary tree, huffman encoding, bloom filters etc.

https://www.glassdoor.com/Interview/Triplebyte-Interview-Que...

Re: Who Y Combinator Companies Want

#32
post #2

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 thi…

How can bad programmers be improved into hirable ones?

I've been programing for eighteen years now. In that time, I've seen smart-alec kids turn into great leaders. I've seen stupid teenagers turn into responsible adults. I've seen responsible men turn into angry old guys. But I'm still at zero on seeing a bad programmer turning into a good one.

It certainly feels intuitive that it should happen, but that's not what I've seen.

If you are wanting to improve your own skills, I'd just write programs to solve problems you are interested in. Read the Pragmatic Programer and Code Complete.

Re: Who Y Combinator Companies Want

#33
post #13

I can tell you why there is discrimination against Enterprise programmers. Two reasons: Most people who have worked in an enterprise have had at least one bad experience with an incompetent programmer who was just a seat filler. That means that the enterprise isn't a good filter, and even worse, it means that even if you are good, you're willing to suffer working with incompetence. The other factor is that enterprise…

One more reason: enterprise engineers see through the "change the world" and "disrupt" bullshit that startups often attempt to sell to juniors in order to overwork them until their souls are empty, and then expect them to go home and continue working. None of that in most enterprises. "Nine to five", while should not be taken literally, means following an order where there is work and there is life, and those should overlap only very rarely and only when absolutely necessary (no, an app crash or visual glitch is not it).

I see it in my current employer vs my previous employer. While not a small startup by any means, I notice a clear attempt by many ranks to encourage working late and working from home, be it "we'll order pizzas for people that stay here until 20:00" to "we have crazy deadlines that we must!!!! finish now!!!!" nonsense to "we encourage open source but we don't give enough time to developers to handle community issues, and we implicitly expect them to do that on their own time at night or during the weekend". To me, this is very toxic for junior developers who cannot, or do not even know they should, resist it. None of that was there on my previous, enterprise job. Come to work at some hour, do what you do, go home. I try to push this "work from home during after hours" mentality as much as possible, but it's very entrenched.

Regarding sear fillers, while true to some respect for enterprise, I'd say from many conversations I've had with people in the start up world, there exist many fillers there as well, often including founders and other "C"-level executives who only had the talent and know-how to give themselves a fancy title.

Finally, this was posted here in another discussion, but I think it's interesting here as well: https://danluu.com/startup-tradeoffs/

Re: Who Y Combinator Companies Want

#36
post #13

I can tell you why there is discrimination against Enterprise programmers. Two reasons: Most people who have worked in an enterprise have had at least one bad experience with an incompetent programmer who was just a seat filler. That means that the enterprise isn't a good filter, and even worse, it means that even if you are good, you're willing to suffer working with incompetence. The other factor is that enterprise…

Interesting observations. As someone who came from an enterprise Java background and moved into a startup shop, it is tremendously dispiriting and disappointing to see so much disdain for people with backgrounds like mine.

I wouldn't trade my enterprise experience for anything. It gave me a deep appreciation for the craft of software development, and an amazing introduction to complex, well-designed systems (not to mention some terrible ones as well). Without that opportunity to learn process and best practices, I would never have been successful elsewhere in my career.

Of course, you'll always find seat-fillers at big companies, but I think that'd be true no matter where you go. Bad hiring decisions are real, but should not discount or destroy the many great people who grow up in enterprise environments and can make meaningful contributions.

With all due respect to the "move fast, break things" evident in many startups, it leaves behind a big technical mess for the people who help transition the company out of startup phases. I'd bet most would do well to incorporate a few more stodgy enterprise devs earlier in the process to help steer the software toward a sustainable path.

Re: Who Y Combinator Companies Want

#37
post #7

Slightly surprised -- and a little diappointed -- to see "academic programmer" as the least desirable archetype. Also, not sure these archetypes do a great job of capturing the process-oriented/results-oriented divide that shows up in the opening anecdote (and which I agree is quite real).

I think the important part of their "academic programmer" was the "without experience" part. People coming out of academic settings tend to have very significant gaps in skill and experience that need to be addressed before they can be really productive. Sometimes this isn't a smooth process at all.

Re: Who Y Combinator Companies Want

#38
post #6

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…

I'm afraid I'm getting stereotyped as an enterprise dev against my will. I've been on interviews where that was certainly the vibe I got. No matter how much I stress that I'm interviewing while I have a job for the purpose of getting away from that culture, I can't shake that opinion it seems. Trust me I would gladly program in anything other than corporate Java if given a chance. I think I've got the worst of both w…

> Trust me I would gladly program in anything other than corporate Java if given a chance.

You need a side gig or to get involved with an open-source project. Get exposure outside of work then get yourself a more exciting job.

Re: Who Y Combinator Companies Want

#39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is interesting to me because if you go through the triplebyte process the impression you'll get is that they are looking for a very academic/textbook CS student who can balance a binary tree on a whiteboard while verbally explaining the operational complexity of an unladen swallow. From my perspective, there is an impedance mismatch between the triplebyte process (heads-down algorithm nerd) and the findings tha…

I was wondering much the same thing. It seemed inverted. Maybe it's just a filter they use, and they don't actually discriminate against non-academic or highly-technical types if they cannot answer those kinds of questions? Having not got into programming by pursuing CS in university and instead kind of taking the old "hacker" route, that kind of thing always hangs around my neck when job hunting.

I've finished CS at Uni and I can tell you that now a few years down the line, I don't remember stuff. I only remember what I practice everyday, so if I am to pursue changing jobs I'll need to go off and recap what I've done at Uni. Same applies to a friend of mine that has over 15 years of experience, has a Uni degree in CS... and he had to go read Uni stuff that he's done 15 years ago just to go get another gig... his github repo has good projects and 1 project that has been stared for more than 4k times, he has an outstanding stackoverflow account etc but thats not enough... he still goes to companies and ask him to balance binary tries on the whiteboard to prove his worth...

Re: Who Y Combinator Companies Want

#40

If you want to work for a YC company apply directly to the YC company you want to work with. Say who you are, what you know and why you like this company. I also recommend not putting too much weight on arbitrary labels (trial and error programmer? child prodigy?) I've been a happy engineer with a YC company for close to three years now. I have led various teams and contributed to many aspect of the overall product d…

>"I've been a happy engineer with a YC company for close to three years now. I have led various teams and contributed to many aspect of the overall product during my tenure. I have also interviewed more than twenty people and I can assure you, there is no one size fit all when it comes to finding candidates that succeed."

That's refreshing to hear, thanks. Your observations is in stark contrast to their proclamation that:

"If you’re a programmer interested in joining a YC startup, apply to Triplebyte and we’ll match you with the ones you’d be the best fit for."[1]

[1]http://blog.triplebyte.com/

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