When hiring senior engineers, you’re not buying, you’re selling • Hacker News Board

Re: When hiring senior engineers, you’re not buying, you’re selling

#41

Post by dleslie » Sun, Jan 20, 2019, 11:35 PM UTC

mchannon wrote: post #29

tptacek wrote: post #3

A lot of this post seems pretty reasonable. But: In my experience, it’s fairly easy to judge technical skill. A friendly conversation about technical interests and recent projects can often be enough. Bullshit. Sounding credible in technical interviews is a skill, not the same skill as actually being a good programmer, and might even (statistically, in the large) be close to orthogonal to it. We found this out the ha…

When a guy tells you his experience, and you call bullshit, it's hard to tell whether you doubt his sincerity about having the experience at all or whether the experience itself was not representative of your reality. Either way, you're telling us not how it is, but how you are, and that's simply not useful. In "The Last Starfighter", the recruiter/hiring manager Centauri is constantly accused of using "the Excalibur…

I won't apply at, or respond to recruiters representing, those companies that have a reputation for a long and/or torturous hiring process.

While I have no interest in being interrogated with high-stress puzzle solving, it is not the interview process itself that causes my disinterest; it is the understanding, from experience, that how a company treats its potential candidates is often reflective of its general culture.

Re: When hiring senior engineers, you’re not buying, you’re selling

#42

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Jan 20, 2019, 11:35 PM UTC

josh2600 wrote: post #34

tptacek wrote: post #3

A lot of this post seems pretty reasonable. But: In my experience, it’s fairly easy to judge technical skill. A friendly conversation about technical interests and recent projects can often be enough. Bullshit. Sounding credible in technical interviews is a skill, not the same skill as actually being a good programmer, and might even (statistically, in the large) be close to orthogonal to it. We found this out the ha…

Just to add some thoughts here: I’ve interviewed people who were google L7+ (IC) a couple of times who weren’t very good engineers, at least on the work sample stuff. I’ve found that the highest correlation to performance in senior engineers is raw algorithmic skill and willingness to say “I don’t know” when you don’t know. This is not true of hiring devops or sre’s. For those positions, you want the gopher archetype…

[deleted]

Re: When hiring senior engineers, you’re not buying, you’re selling

#43

Post by zzzcpan » Sun, Jan 20, 2019, 11:36 PM UTC

ryanworl wrote: post #13

tptacek wrote: post #3

A lot of this post seems pretty reasonable. But: In my experience, it’s fairly easy to judge technical skill. A friendly conversation about technical interests and recent projects can often be enough. Bullshit. Sounding credible in technical interviews is a skill, not the same skill as actually being a good programmer, and might even (statistically, in the large) be close to orthogonal to it. We found this out the ha…

It does always amaze me that literally what you learn in HR 101 in an undergraduate management curriculum is controversial. The r^2 of a ton of different methods for predicting job performance is something large companies are highly incentivized to get studied by academics (and they do). Spoiler alert: work-sample tests are the only practical and generally tolerated one to use (for software engineers) that is actuall…

> highly incentivized to get studied by academics (and they do)

Why do you think they are incentivized to get studied? If anything, power dynamics in large hierarchical organizations keep away any studying done that can threaten the power. Sometimes studies do happen though, but large organization can never apply the results to anything on their scale. They are more worried where to even get such massive stream of professionals to hire.

Re: When hiring senior engineers, you’re not buying, you’re selling

#44

Post by walshemj » Sun, Jan 20, 2019, 11:36 PM UTC

ryanworl wrote: post #13

tptacek wrote: post #3

A lot of this post seems pretty reasonable. But: In my experience, it’s fairly easy to judge technical skill. A friendly conversation about technical interests and recent projects can often be enough. Bullshit. Sounding credible in technical interviews is a skill, not the same skill as actually being a good programmer, and might even (statistically, in the large) be close to orthogonal to it. We found this out the ha…

It does always amaze me that literally what you learn in HR 101 in an undergraduate management curriculum is controversial. The r^2 of a ton of different methods for predicting job performance is something large companies are highly incentivized to get studied by academics (and they do). Spoiler alert: work-sample tests are the only practical and generally tolerated one to use (for software engineers) that is actuall…

Hr isn't exactly known for rigorous scientific research and I don't recall it being hr that introduced this trend of hazing candidates.

Also have you got any examples of this research that actually proves this correlation I haven't heard of any and I would have as I have spent decades semi involved in IR (industrial relations) in the UK

Re: When hiring senior engineers, you’re not buying, you’re selling

#45

Post by cloogshicer » Sun, Jan 20, 2019, 11:37 PM UTC

jeffrallen wrote: post #28

Ssssh, don't let the secret out. The fewer great workplaces, the better for those of us who happen to have a great workplace and need to recruit!

Haha, author here, sorry about that. Can I quote you on that for the book? :P

Re: When hiring senior engineers, you’re not buying, you’re selling

#46

Post by cloogshicer » Sun, Jan 20, 2019, 11:39 PM UTC

dceddia wrote: post #14

I agree with a lot of the points here. One specific pet peeve of mine is job listings that refuse to nail down which specific technologies they're using. Some will say things like "Front-end web development using a framework such as ExtJS, React, Vue, or Angular". Neat - which one? I'm happy to work with 1 or maybe 2 of those. Do you mean that you actually use React but you're fine with people who come from some othe…

Completely agree, I think it's super important for the job description to:

- Be clear about what's required and what isn't

- What the exact stack is that you'll be using in the role

Re: When hiring senior engineers, you’re not buying, you’re selling

#47

Post by dleslie » Sun, Jan 20, 2019, 11:39 PM UTC

nicoburns wrote: post #35

notjesse wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it’s not generally tolerated. You end up optimizing for sub-prime candidates because those are the only ones desperate enough to take 4-6 hours out of their free time for a company that hasn’t even bothered interviewing you, yet. If they want to turn the onsite into one big work sample, by all means, that sounds very effective (and something I’ve seen work well). But in my experience, you’re going to deter qualif…

The best interview I ever had was a 2-hour onsite work sample, followed by 1/2 an hour discussing what I'd come up with. I was offered the job the next day. Surely most people would prefer this to whiteboard tasks?

The best interview I had was a few hours of friendly conversation about the details of my resume.

Then I was hired under probation, as everyone there was, and the understanding was that I could be easily dismissed if it was clear that I wasn't working out.

Re: When hiring senior engineers, you’re not buying, you’re selling

#48

Post by chiefalchemist » Sun, Jan 20, 2019, 11:40 PM UTC

mchannon wrote: post #29

tptacek wrote: post #3

A lot of this post seems pretty reasonable. But: In my experience, it’s fairly easy to judge technical skill. A friendly conversation about technical interests and recent projects can often be enough. Bullshit. Sounding credible in technical interviews is a skill, not the same skill as actually being a good programmer, and might even (statistically, in the large) be close to orthogonal to it. We found this out the ha…

When a guy tells you his experience, and you call bullshit, it's hard to tell whether you doubt his sincerity about having the experience at all or whether the experience itself was not representative of your reality. Either way, you're telling us not how it is, but how you are, and that's simply not useful. In "The Last Starfighter", the recruiter/hiring manager Centauri is constantly accused of using "the Excalibur…

> "Treat me with enough derision and pressure off the bat and I guarantee I'll fail your test even though I do fine at other companies."

If only more companies realized who they are able to hire is a function of how they hire. And it starts with the job / opportunity / role description.

As a side note, it seems to me, all this friction in hiring (senior level talent) makes a good case for developing and promoting from within. I realize it's not that simple. None the less, taking a known and grooming that person isn't rocket science either.

Re: When hiring senior engineers, you’re not buying, you’re selling

#49

Post by andrewflnr » Sun, Jan 20, 2019, 11:42 PM UTC

scarejunba wrote: post #23

p1necone wrote: post #2

The blurred out job posting image is not very well blurred out. I could probably work out what it says if I spent some (tedious) time on it. The point it gets across is very very clear and useful though.

It's not blurred out to hide who it is. It's blurred out so we don't get stuck in the details. It's a UX technique. EDIT: Well...fuck. Don't know how I missed that. He actually says it's to hide the poster.

The author specifically said they blurred it out to hide who it is.

Re: When hiring senior engineers, you’re not buying, you’re selling

#50

Post by tptacek » Sun, Jan 20, 2019, 11:42 PM UTC

notjesse wrote: post #26

ryanworl wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does always amaze me that literally what you learn in HR 101 in an undergraduate management curriculum is controversial. The r^2 of a ton of different methods for predicting job performance is something large companies are highly incentivized to get studied by academics (and they do). Spoiler alert: work-sample tests are the only practical and generally tolerated one to use (for software engineers) that is actuall…

But it’s not generally tolerated. You end up optimizing for sub-prime candidates because those are the only ones desperate enough to take 4-6 hours out of their free time for a company that hasn’t even bothered interviewing you, yet. If they want to turn the onsite into one big work sample, by all means, that sounds very effective (and something I’ve seen work well). But in my experience, you’re going to deter qualif…

Again: this is true of "work sample" tests in their mainstream implementation in our industry (spend 6 hours jumping through a hoop for the privilege of running a standard, nondeterministic interview gauntlet), and those hiring processes are a scourge.

But there's a right way to do it: give work sample challenges and then, at least for the most part, end the technical qualification part of your process there. You spend 4-6 hours at home instead of spending 4-6 hours in front of a whiteboard doing dumb coding challenges.

If I was looking for a job right now, I'd probably refuse to interview anywhere that gave me take-home problems that couldn't promise that a strong result on those problems would take me all the way through technical qualification. But a company that could offer me take-home problems and conclusively make the technical part of the decision on whether to hire me based on those problem would be a strong prospect.