Has anyone been able to reapply to Triplebyte after an initial rejection? Somewhat relevant question as this is an article by Triplebyte and Harj who I understand is a YC partner. They say you can reapply after 4 months but I can't find how to do that when I login and emails to their support line go unanswered.
Convincing engineers to join your team
51–60 of 165 posts
Re: Convincing engineers to join your team
#52What's with the standard of doing a full day interview? Who does this work for other than fresh graduates? I don't want to spend a whole day (which I have to request off from my current employer) answering probably-silly technical puzzles as the first round interview (the 25 minute phone call doesn't really count since it sounds like just a pitch). Does a full day of whiteboarding really get you better candidates tha…
Wow, well the feeling is mutual, I wouldn't want to hire you! :) A day is nothing for someone looking to leave a current position. Take a day off of work, what's the problem? Seriously. You're leaving anyway. And then it's not like you can't just walk out on the interview at any time (say after the 2nd silly whiteboarding session) if you feel they are wasting your time. The most important part of interviewing is the…
> A day is nothing for someone looking to leave a current position. Take a day off of work, what's the problem? Seriously. You're leaving anyway.
Most people talk to more than one company if they're planning on leaving a job.
I'm not gonna sacrifice a whole day just to check whether the company's suitable.
Re: Convincing engineers to join your team
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wow, well the feeling is mutual, I wouldn't want to hire you! :) A day is nothing for someone looking to leave a current position. Take a day off of work, what's the problem? Seriously. You're leaving anyway. And then it's not like you can't just walk out on the interview at any time (say after the 2nd silly whiteboarding session) if you feel they are wasting your time. The most important part of interviewing is the…
Most developers won't just apply and interview at a single job. I usually interview with 3 or 4 companies when job hunting, and I would hate to have to spend a day at each.
I'll grant you that.
I filter companies at the phone screen. Do you always go for an in-person if invited? I don't. I make sure to take at 15min of phone screen time for my own questions. (I don't do tech phone screens with recruiters -- complete waste of time. Competent companies have a tech phone screen with an engineer, who you can ask questions of.)
And I don't parallelize my job search. I do them serially, in priority order (based on pre-interview assessment), waiting 2 weeks after interview for an offer.
I get it that most people spray and pray, but for well qualified people this is the wrong approach.
This is why companies get away with silly whiteboarding and take home exercises. As a candidate, you have to be more selective than that.
Re: Convincing engineers to join your team
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Have you tried offering other things? as much as employers don't want to pay you more wages, they seem even _less_ inclined to offer anything that isn't wages. respect? pfff. sooner get another 4% out of most employers. install some sound dampening anything to make the working environment nicer? madness, instead the marketing folks will pick some new colors for the walls. fire the toxic asshole who fucks up all the…
I've yet to find an employer that would give me more PTO instead of a pay raise. They'd rather pay an extra 10k between a pay raise and corresponding 401k matching increase, but they won't even consider giving me 5 extra vacation days so I'll have the time to enjoy stuff with the money I already have.
As a founder who is soon to start competing in the hiring market, I probably shouldn't be saying this, but there seems to be a huge arbitrage opportunity here available to smart startups.
Innovating on tired working practices (that most founders themselves would not enjoy in the least) offers an avenue to out-compete large companies for engineers while paying less cash and making your employees happier, more effective, and more loyal.
Please note, I'm not trying to say that startups should underpay employees, but financial reality for most founders does not allow for competing with the giants on salary (or even coming close). Since equity is now viewed dubiously by many, startups need to look for other things they can offer in lieu of 300k/yr that candidates will truly value. Things like flexible schedules (remote or partly remote), generous PTO, and good working conditions are often viewed by engineers as literally priceless. And for good reason. What's the point of tons of cash if you have no free time to spend it and your days consist of stress and drudgery? Sufficient wealth is a necessary component for quality of life, but beyond a certain baseline, other factors become more important.
Note: if you want to work on fun security, encryption, devops, and ux challenges, and enjoy your life at the same time, and R.intersection(["FP", "TypeScript", "Security", "Kubernetes", "Go", "Rails"], YOUR_SKILLS).length >= 2-or-3, and you can do 2-3 days per week onsite in SF (with some flexibility for remote stints) please send me a résumé: dane [at] envkey.com
Re: Convincing engineers to join your team
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have you tried offering other things? Like work from home, work remotely, more interesting work, various education ranging from various courses, conferences up to paid tuition at an university (and then actually giving people the time to do it)?. And please don't say you have snacks, have better working environments not snacks. As a startup you mostly expect people to work 10+h a day. It's not always about the money,…
I can do about twice as much work if I work 'fewer' hours. Actually it's not about the number of hours, but the expectation that I should be working at some time or for some number of hours. My best work happens in spurts of a few hours a day, or less frequently, a binge of 20 hours over a 2-3 days (after which I need to take a step back). So a company who can offer me this kind of flexibility, to work when and how I…
This. Unless I am figuratively on fire and flying through work, somewhere around the 4-6 hour mark I hit a slowdown patch and my quality/concentration goes through the floor.
I do six days of 4-6s for my current position and feel as effective as any of my co-workers, if not more-so.
Re: Convincing engineers to join your team
#56This is a great post and founders/hiring managers/junior recruiters are advised to listen to them. After a continual refinement of our own process over many years we've landed on almost this exact process near completely independently. This is a standard for a reason. You will save yourself A LOT of headaches if you incorporate this feedback into your own hiring processes.
I also highly recommend Marco Rodgers' advice http://firstround.com/review/my-lessons-from-interviewing-40...
For people that are "too good for this process" - well, in my experience those are the ones that aren't a good fit for most organizations. You're self selecting out and limiting your own options. For some people that's totally fine, but for most I don't think that's good advice.
Re: Convincing engineers to join your team
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Have you tried offering other things? as much as employers don't want to pay you more wages, they seem even _less_ inclined to offer anything that isn't wages. respect? pfff. sooner get another 4% out of most employers. install some sound dampening anything to make the working environment nicer? madness, instead the marketing folks will pick some new colors for the walls. fire the toxic asshole who fucks up all the…
I've yet to find an employer that would give me more PTO instead of a pay raise. They'd rather pay an extra 10k between a pay raise and corresponding 401k matching increase, but they won't even consider giving me 5 extra vacation days so I'll have the time to enjoy stuff with the money I already have.
Agreed, I keep trying to go the opposite of "three times as much pay for twice as much work". I want half as much pay for 60% as much work. Zero companies are interested in that, which is why I work freelance right now.
Re: Convincing engineers to join your team
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wow, well the feeling is mutual, I wouldn't want to hire you! :) A day is nothing for someone looking to leave a current position. Take a day off of work, what's the problem? Seriously. You're leaving anyway. And then it's not like you can't just walk out on the interview at any time (say after the 2nd silly whiteboarding session) if you feel they are wasting your time. The most important part of interviewing is the…
Because it's not necessarily one day off work, it's one day off work for every potential job.
But that's only a downside for people who might fail your interview and/or be looking for alternative employment. Why would you care about inconveniencing some disloyal guy who you don't want to hire? ;)
Re: Convincing engineers to join your team
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most developers won't just apply and interview at a single job. I usually interview with 3 or 4 companies when job hunting, and I would hate to have to spend a day at each.
I'll grant you that. I filter companies at the phone screen. Do you always go for an in-person if invited? I don't. I make sure to take at 15min of phone screen time for my own questions. (I don't do tech phone screens with recruiters -- complete waste of time. Competent companies have a tech phone screen with an engineer, who you can ask questions of.) And I don't parallelize my job search. I do them serially, in pr…
Also, given how searching for another job is not looked upon kindly by your current employer, having to hide multiple days' absences just leads to stress over losing your current income.
Re: Convincing engineers to join your team
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most developers won't just apply and interview at a single job. I usually interview with 3 or 4 companies when job hunting, and I would hate to have to spend a day at each.
I'll grant you that. I filter companies at the phone screen. Do you always go for an in-person if invited? I don't. I make sure to take at 15min of phone screen time for my own questions. (I don't do tech phone screens with recruiters -- complete waste of time. Competent companies have a tech phone screen with an engineer, who you can ask questions of.) And I don't parallelize my job search. I do them serially, in pr…
I have the luxury of not needing to spray and pray. Even though recently the number has been fairly low, the PHP-tagged jobs on the monthly Who's Hiring that are open to remote would net me at least 3 or 4 jobs that interest me.
Stack Overflow would add several more. From a list of ~10 I can trim it down to 2 or 3 "I want to work there" companies.