Live data from Hacker News

Your “high bar” is wrecking your team

brandonhays.com

1–10 of 39 posts

Re: Your “high bar” is wrecking your team

#4
In my experience this is often fueled by people who have the least understanding of their "high bar" criteria: management and HR who never worked at the companies that they think it is really important to hire from or got the degrees they scan for on a resume. The "high bar" mentality often creates mono-cultures, which can be effective, but usually not resilient, and sometimes toxic.

Re: Your “high bar” is wrecking your team

#6

I always assumed A player meant worked 60-100 hrs per week, but they expected you(not directly) to write 40-50 on your times sheet. And only paid for 30. But, don't worry your changing the world.

> But, don't worry your changing the world

By creating a new innovative way to deliver ads to consumers.

Re: Your “high bar” is wrecking your team

#7
post #5

Because we as humans will never escape the subconscious constraints and biases of a pack ordered society, it's woven into our very being.

Beware of casting a float to a boolean. Yes, every group of humans has some degree of toxic competition and hierarchy, but some much more than others. It makes sense to look at the ones that have less, and ask what they are doing right and how to emulate it.

Re: Your “high bar” is wrecking your team

#8
My boss just dropped the offer salary for a new candidate by 25% because they weren't from a top tier school...I really hope they still accept b/c I _really_ need the help! I know that's a bit different than what the article is talking about but still similar reasoning. They were the strongest performer on every metric we have and for no other reason than the name of the school they did their graduate work at, they are getting a significantly lower offer. Really makes you question the value of the metrics in the first place, doesn't it?!

Re: Your “high bar” is wrecking your team

#9
post #3

Our best devs are consistently people who don’t have CS degrees and have good creativity, patience, curiosity, and who have some code to show that isn’t buzzword-chasing nonsense.

I think it's even less than that. I think the critical element is interest. I think even an average individual can have valuable contributions to a codebase if: a) the requirements, what needs to be achieved and standards of quality are clear b) they are interested in contributing.

That's it. I think the bar for software development is pretty low at the time being (but I'm not in the SF area, so maybe my outlook is myopic and limited to the local scene) and you can improve things noticeably if you just... care... and think things through. A feat quite hard in our days. Heck, some days, I can't make myself care,and sometimes I don't feel like pushing and doing things right no matter how much I wish I could. I _know_ I'm capable, I've done it before, had high focus spurts where I did stuff nobody else could. But I simply don't feel in lately. Sometimes it's hard to even push myself to do usefull things, and I'm pretty severe regarding my performance.

So, caring about the end result, in our days, I think, is in pretty short supply. Much shorter than most people think.

Post reply on HN