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Convincing engineers to join your team

triplebyte.com

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Re: Convincing engineers to join your team

#61

Post by kentosi »

ashelmire wrote: post #19

What'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…

I'm pretty sure it's an American thing. Where I'm from it's been a short 1 to 2 hour interviews spread across a week or two. Similar to what you're used to I'm sure.

The downside of the American model is that it's fatiguing having to audition for an entire day. On the plus side, once the day's up you usually know there and then whether you've got the job or not.

Re: Convincing engineers to join your team

#62

Post by jedberg »

> A complaint we hear from Triplebyte candidates is being asked how likely they would be to accept an offer before knowing the actual offer details. The reality is that compensation details are a large factor in where people decide to work and you can't expect someone to know if they want to work for you without giving them that data.

The numerical salary shouldn't be the deciding factor. I want to know if you're interested in the work that you'll be doing and the team you'll be working with. I don't want you to think, "man I wasn't going to go there but they offered a huge salary!".

Of course the salary is relevant, but I want to know that we're just negotiating on the number, and not number+job.

Are you interested in the work that we'll be doing? Yes? Good, is this number high enough to make it worth your while? No? Ok, well that was the highest I could go, so thanks for your time.

Re: Convincing engineers to join your team

#63

Post by jedberg »

wyattk wrote: post #18
throwaway9412 wrote: post #4

Hear that everyone? "As a startup it's hard to compete with Facebook and Google compensation packages, especially for senior engineers" Also, Oracle apparently had a lot of success building out their bare metal (now cloud infrastructure) team by making uncharacteristically (for them) good offers. You can hire good people, if you're willing to pay them. Bullshit doesn't work anymore.

So are you saying that non-salary benefits are bullshit? Besides work flexibility, culture, purpose, and equity, how is a new venture supposed to compete with an entrenched monopolist that is essentially printing money (see: Alphabet)? Sure, equity is a multiplier that can return a huge amount of money with huge risk, but even equity+salary can't come near total comp offered by these juggernauts. I mean, these compan…

> How can a startup compete for talent against these behemoths?

Breath and depth of responsibility, and rapid growth in your responsibilities. I can't pay you as much, but I can put as the lead on our main product, and when you go for your next job, you can point at that and say, "I lead the team that made that happen".

Re: Convincing engineers to join your team

#64

Post by thereare5lights »

jedberg wrote: post #62

> A complaint we hear from Triplebyte candidates is being asked how likely they would be to accept an offer before knowing the actual offer details. The reality is that compensation details are a large factor in where people decide to work and you can't expect someone to know if they want to work for you without giving them that data. The numerical salary shouldn't be the deciding factor. I want to know if you're int…

> The numerical salary shouldn't be the deciding factor.

I don't think people that didn't grow up poor can appreciate how stupid that statement sounds to us.

Re: Convincing engineers to join your team

#65

Post by jonny_eh »

wolco wrote: post #44
jonny_eh wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I consider myself a strong engineer and I've only ever done full day interviews, at least for companies bigger than 30 people. What am I doing wrong?

But they don't that's why they want reassurance full day interviews. First step stop applying and let them come to you directly or get recommended. Do you consider yourself the Brad Pit of enginners or joe blow? Do you think Brad Pitt goes into the cattle call auditions and waits all day for his 5 minute read?

I'm not a Brad Pitt, are you? Is there even such a thing in engineering?

Re: Convincing engineers to join your team

#66

Post by perfmode »

jedberg wrote: post #62

> A complaint we hear from Triplebyte candidates is being asked how likely they would be to accept an offer before knowing the actual offer details. The reality is that compensation details are a large factor in where people decide to work and you can't expect someone to know if they want to work for you without giving them that data. The numerical salary shouldn't be the deciding factor. I want to know if you're int…

these are just things people say to get people to take accept lower salaries. a narrative that serves to suppress wages.

quite frankly i’d like our industry to evolve past mission narratives.

Re: Convincing engineers to join your team

#67

Post by jedberg »

thereare5lights wrote: post #64
jedberg wrote: post #62

> A complaint we hear from Triplebyte candidates is being asked how likely they would be to accept an offer before knowing the actual offer details. The reality is that compensation details are a large factor in where people decide to work and you can't expect someone to know if they want to work for you without giving them that data. The numerical salary shouldn't be the deciding factor. I want to know if you're int…

> The numerical salary shouldn't be the deciding factor. I don't think people that didn't grow up poor can appreciate how stupid that statement sounds to us.

You're assuming I didn't grow up poor. You'd be correct in that assumption, but that doesn't mean I can't empathize. I didn't grow up poor, but when it came time to get my first job, I didn't have any money nor any help from my parents, or any fall back options. I had to get a job to afford food and shelter.

I still cared about the work that I'd be doing.

Re: Convincing engineers to join your team

#68

Post by joe_the_user »

dfabulich wrote: post #25
ashelmire wrote: post #19

What'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…

A full day interview is standard. You grant that it's standard, right in the first sentence of your post. But you'll tell anyone who offers you a standard interview to take a hike? This is symptomatic of a broader problem with HN comment threads on "how to interview" articles: for any given approach to interviewing, the top comment will be a middle-brow dismissal saying, "I would never interview at a place that inter…

A full day interview is standard. You grant that it's standard, right in the first sentence of your post. But you'll tell anyone who offers you a standard interview to take a hike?

A full day interview (and reasonable) is standard if a company seriously exploring a candidate. A full day interview before a company is seriously exploring a candidate is also standard but it's a standard for the seriously broken and abusive interview process of many organizations today.

The strong reaction people to several of the processes you name comes when those are the first filter a candidate encounters, a qualified person invests a lot of time in them, and then discovers the organization simply wasn't serious to begin with. and they've essentially cheat the person out of significant time. All this gets worse if you encounter many companies doing this in a single job search.

Re: Convincing engineers to join your team

#69

Post by jedberg »

perfmode wrote: post #66
jedberg wrote: post #62

> A complaint we hear from Triplebyte candidates is being asked how likely they would be to accept an offer before knowing the actual offer details. The reality is that compensation details are a large factor in where people decide to work and you can't expect someone to know if they want to work for you without giving them that data. The numerical salary shouldn't be the deciding factor. I want to know if you're int…

these are just things people say to get people to take accept lower salaries. a narrative that serves to suppress wages. quite frankly i’d like our industry to evolve past mission narratives.

Not at all (at least not in my case). I already know how much I can afford to pay for someone doing that work I'm hoping to hire you to do. I want to make sure you're interested in that work before I tell you that number, only because I don't want that number to be what pushes you over.

Sure, maybe you'll lie and say yes to get the number from me. That's a risk I have to take. But if you say no, at least we didn't bother having you come on board just to be unhappy.

Re: Convincing engineers to join your team

#70

Post by thereare5lights »

jedberg wrote: post #67
thereare5lights wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The numerical salary shouldn't be the deciding factor. I don't think people that didn't grow up poor can appreciate how stupid that statement sounds to us.

You're assuming I didn't grow up poor. You'd be correct in that assumption, but that doesn't mean I can't empathize. I didn't grow up poor, but when it came time to get my first job, I didn't have any money nor any help from my parents, or any fall back options. I had to get a job to afford food and shelter. I still cared about the work that I'd be doing.

> You're assuming I didn't grow up poor.

True, but given the evidence, I considered it highly unlikely that you did.

> I didn't grow up poor, but when it came time to get my first job, I didn't have any money nor any help from my parents, or any fall back options. I had to get a job to afford food and shelter.

It's not about that. It's about how you look at the world and how you view finances because of the way a person grows up. You don't have the same scars that we have.

> I still cared about the work that I'd be doing.

For us, that would be pretty low on the list of things that mattered.

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