Turning a Job Opening into a Dream Job for Top Talent • Hacker News Board

Re: Turning a Job Opening into a Dream Job for Top Talent

#61

Post by JoeAltmaier » Sat, Feb 03, 2018, 1:54 PM UTC

humanrebar wrote: post #59

kreetx wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, this post gets a lot of things right IMO. An idea I've had on 10x developers (or whatever the multiplier..) is not that they can code and solve problems this much faster, but in the long term they steer the code base as a whole in a direction such that the impact is that large. (But of course recognizing this, or being able to compare it to the other would-be ways the code could have gone, is a non-trivial ma…

> An idea I've had on 10x developers... in the long term they steer the code base... Agreed. And on the flip side, you can have -10x developers that make all the wrong choices, like inventing and entrenching their own language or crappy framework for reasons of boredom or ego. I suspect that junior developers are less likely to be net-negative to that degree. Perhaps it's one unarticulated reason employers tend to pr…

And sometimes they invent a framework that hits all the right design points, but junior engineers can't read a book about them or take a class about them, so don't understand and badmouth them as crappy and a result of boredom or ego.

Its hard to invent something, and have it get no traction because nobody else wants to move forward.

I've been at two startups that had frameworks that solved all the problems in the product space, efficiently and nearly perfectly. And failed because as the company grew, new Engineers all clamored for something simpler or something they already knew. They outnumbered the designer with their voices and management steered the company off the rails. It's tragic.

Re: Turning a Job Opening into a Dream Job for Top Talent

#62

Post by ldarcyftw » Sat, Feb 03, 2018, 1:57 PM UTC

aianus wrote: post #42

sethammons wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you pay for Medicare after you are eligible for it. My dad just hit Medicare age and was surprised to find out he gets to pay for it.

It's not $8,000 a month though. I'd still take a developer career in the US over Europe any day.

Well, it is a number adp.com (site which helps to manage your retirement/payroll data) tells me.

Re: Turning a Job Opening into a Dream Job for Top Talent

#63

Post by JustSomeNobody » Sat, Feb 03, 2018, 2:00 PM UTC

rsp1984 wrote: post #44

curiouscat321 wrote: post #3

People who espouse remote work seem convinced that it’s the end-all way to work. I don’t care if I have to go into an office. I like offices. What I care about is that you don’t mind if I work from home every once in a while. I care that it’s okay for me to leave early or come late.

My opinion as an employer: Sure, feel free to take your work hours as you like and WFH every once in a while. Just make sure that overall your total hours are what we agreed to in the employment contract.

That problem I worked on all day? I'm still trying to solve it when I'm cooking, showering, washing dishes, etc. I'll solve it before I get to the office tomorrow. How should I track all that time?

Re: Turning a Job Opening into a Dream Job for Top Talent

#64

Post by pqh » Sat, Feb 03, 2018, 2:01 PM UTC

crdoconnor wrote: post #20

sharkdesk wrote: post #6

Lots of good ideas in the article - the key is to really stand out. I take 10 weeks off a year to go travelling - true vacation time, not remote work. I know I can get a 20% raise if I switched companies (I know that because I got an offer), but I stay where I am because i can't imagine going back down to 3 weeks of vacation a year.

It's weird that more companies don't offer more vacation as a perk. Offering 40 days instead of 25 means 15 days of foregone work for the company - 6% fewer days worked a year. But, it looks a lot better than a 6% increase in pay on paper. Moreover, you probably lose much less than that because you'll have better rested, less stressed, probably more productive employees and it will help cut down on employees making t…

Plus I'd argue that more vacation time would mean each employee has a more even spread of the workload. You depend less on individuals, and more on the team.

Re: Turning a Job Opening into a Dream Job for Top Talent

#65

Post by user5994461 » Sat, Feb 03, 2018, 2:02 PM UTC

pmorici wrote: post #36

drinchev wrote: post #9

What is missing in the article is the word "freelance". Most of the time within a startup you can see developers stay in the company for ~1 year. Usually they are more willing to find another job than negotiating a salary bump ( which happens to be also mentally easier, since the first action is passive - just reply to a recruiter ). When I completely switched to freelance gigs, I discovered that I stay in a company…

“Freelance” has very negative connotations I my book. It brings to mind sites like odesk or whatever it is called now where low quality companies look to find 99 cent an hour talent.

Freelance is a desperate student who is working for free to create his portfolio.

You want to call yourself a "contractor", or better "a "consultant"

Re: Turning a Job Opening into a Dream Job for Top Talent

#66

Post by JoeAltmaier » Sat, Feb 03, 2018, 2:03 PM UTC

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #63

rsp1984 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My opinion as an employer: Sure, feel free to take your work hours as you like and WFH every once in a while. Just make sure that overall your total hours are what we agreed to in the employment contract.

That problem I worked on all day? I'm still trying to solve it when I'm cooking, showering, washing dishes, etc. I'll solve it before I get to the office tomorrow. How should I track all that time?

By adjusting your pay rate.

As a society, we agree on pay for hours. We pay more for folks who bring more, better solutions during those hours. How they do that is beyond the employment agreement's scope.

Short of being a contractor with a fixed-price-on-delivery contract, we'll have to be content with that.

Re: Turning a Job Opening into a Dream Job for Top Talent

#67

Post by humanrebar » Sat, Feb 03, 2018, 2:03 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #61

humanrebar wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> An idea I've had on 10x developers... in the long term they steer the code base... Agreed. And on the flip side, you can have -10x developers that make all the wrong choices, like inventing and entrenching their own language or crappy framework for reasons of boredom or ego. I suspect that junior developers are less likely to be net-negative to that degree. Perhaps it's one unarticulated reason employers tend to pr…

And sometimes they invent a framework that hits all the right design points, but junior engineers can't read a book about them or take a class about them, so don't understand and badmouth them as crappy and a result of boredom or ego. Its hard to invent something, and have it get no traction because nobody else wants to move forward. I've been at two startups that had frameworks that solved all the problems in the pr…

Well, my thought is that, on average, learning people have less organizational impact than experienced people, both in a positive and a negative direction. You get the risk more concentrated in super-senior engineers. Hiring a dozen net-uninformed college grads would do the trick, too, though.

Re: Turning a Job Opening into a Dream Job for Top Talent

#68

Post by kod » Sat, Feb 03, 2018, 2:04 PM UTC

humanrebar wrote: post #54

cs02rm0 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remote work is the only way I'd go now. Having had twins in the last year it's been vital. It doesn't work for everyone, but a way I've seen remote-first companies get around that is to offer to rent a desk in somewhere like WeWork, so you can choose to be around other working people, away from home and then look to hire others in the same city who might opt for a desk there too, at least some of the time. If the art…

> Having had twins in the last year it's been vital. Employers that actually want workplace diversity should really consider how many lifestyles their work culture can accommodate. Some people adopt lots of kids and need more room. Some people love their families and won't move more than a few hours from them. Nearly everybody needs flexible work arrangements from time to time: health problems, ailing family members,…

The problem is that not all humans are decent. The more of them you hire, the more likely one of them is the asshole who will take advantage of flexibility and ruin it for the rest.

Re: Turning a Job Opening into a Dream Job for Top Talent

#69

Post by genezeta » Sat, Feb 03, 2018, 2:04 PM UTC

user5994461 wrote: post #52

That awkward time when you finish reading the article and you realize with the ad at the last paragraph that it was all just advertising for the author's service.

Most, if not all, of Eric Elliot's writing is just an advertisement for himself. Notice also how most of the references he links are his own articles.

Re: Turning a Job Opening into a Dream Job for Top Talent

#70

Post by JoeAltmaier » Sat, Feb 03, 2018, 2:08 PM UTC

humanrebar wrote: post #67

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And sometimes they invent a framework that hits all the right design points, but junior engineers can't read a book about them or take a class about them, so don't understand and badmouth them as crappy and a result of boredom or ego. Its hard to invent something, and have it get no traction because nobody else wants to move forward. I've been at two startups that had frameworks that solved all the problems in the pr…

Well, my thought is that, on average, learning people have less organizational impact than experienced people, both in a positive and a negative direction. You get the risk more concentrated in super-senior engineers. Hiring a dozen net-uninformed college grads would do the trick, too, though.

Its the medium-experience Engineers that pose the risk then, of having enough knowledge to talk, but not enough experience to appreciate the fine points of what they're talking about. They fool management with plausible but wrong arguments. In my experience anyway.

And today, the demographic may be skewed toward just that group.