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Convincing engineers to join your team

triplebyte.com

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Re: Convincing engineers to join your team

#71

Post by Xyik »

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…

Why shouldn't people optimize for the number? At the end of the day, people change, and being optimistic or excited about the job today doesn't mean they'll feel that way 4 years from now. Money on the other hand, is quantifiable and can be saved up, its a much more flexible resource to optimize for than immediate happiness.

Re: Convincing engineers to join your team

#73

Post by shady-lady »

jedberg wrote: post #69
perfmode wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 bo…

> I want to make sure you're interested in that work

Is the work something so unique that it's not roughly the same as work in multiple other companies?

Is the work going to be such that it's going to continue to be interesting even after the newness/novelty of such work has worn off?

Re: Convincing engineers to join your team

#74

Post by timr »

OmarIsmail wrote: post #56

This 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' advic…

"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."

My experience is that most companies are asking for too much and being downright rude in the way that they do it. Especially from more senior people who have options.

I turned down a number of companies at (or just after) the phone screen stage during my last job search. Usually the pattern was that they'd done one form of preliminary screen, and then wanted to do one (or two, or three...) additional steps before going onsite. One company I remember asked me to do an eight hour programming exercise, after I had finished a phone-based technical screen. I told them it was unreasonable, and that I'd consider it only if I had nothing else to do with an entire day of my time. Never got back to them.

I am a tolerant person, but I am, indeed, too good for that kind of process. Early stage startups especially need to accept the reality that they're not attractive places to work, and behave accordingly. The less reasonable your process, the fewer good candidates will stay in the pipeline. Eventually, you're just intensely screening the people who didn't have better options.

Re: Convincing engineers to join your team

#75

Post by nawitus »

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…

>There's just no good approach.

There's no silver bullet, that's why companies should offer alternative recruitment paths. Some prefer a take-home assignment, some a face-to-face interview etc.

Re: Convincing engineers to join your team

#76

Post by s73v3r_ »

atopuzov wrote: post #8
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.

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,…

" various education ranging from various courses, conferences up to paid tuition at an university (and then actually giving people the time to do it)"

If you can afford that, you can afford more money for salaries.

Re: Convincing engineers to join your team

#77

Post by baumy »

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…

I exclusively work for whoever is willing to pay me the most, at the least inconvenience to my current living situation. I would feel pretty comfortable wagering that I'm in the large majority there.

I may be off base here so apologies if so, but reading between the lines a bit I'm assuming that you are an early hire or possibly a founder of some startup. Very few people, probably nobody, will be as invested in your business as you are (unless you give them a non negligible amount of equity, and they believe there's a good chance that will actually be worth something). It's understandable that that's a difficult/frustrating fact to accept, but it shouldn't be hard to understand. Acknowledging it will lead you to a more effective hiring process.

Re: Convincing engineers to join your team

#78

Post by [deleted] »

OmarIsmail wrote: post #56

This 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' advic…

[deleted]

Re: Convincing engineers to join your team

#79

Post by merlincorey »

throwaway8610 wrote: post #51

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.

When I was going through Triplebyte, I asked a lot of questions.

According to the recruiter I was working with, it could be 4-6 months between "refreshes".

I would say to keep trying to get in touch with them - everyone I interacted with on the Triplebyte team was nothing but helpful.

If you washed out of the process at the initial testing stage, make sure to let them know that you have been working on your skills and you are ready to re-take the test.

Re: Convincing engineers to join your team

#80

Post by paulie_a »

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…

I have never had a full day interview, if it's more than 4 hours for a serious onsite I won't waste my time. They clearly don't appreciate other people's time and are quite frankly wasting theirs. The decision was probably already made before the second cup of coffee anyways.

I absolutely agree with refusing to interview and meet the teammates. All you have to do is rub someone the wrong way for whatever reason, hell they could be in a bad mood because they got cut off on the freeway. Meeting tons of people before an offer is an excellent way to reject great candidates.

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