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

hiringengineersbook.com

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

#241

Post by blihp »

joshuamorton wrote: post #120
dleslie wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probationary periods are industry standard here in British Columbia.

Fair enough. It's to some extent a cultural thing (there's no need for explicit probation in the US since most employment is at will), but I too wouldn't necessarily like a probationary period, even though I don't foresee it actually being an issue.

In the US there often is a formal probationary period at larger companies which mainly accomplishes one thing: reduce the HR red tape if a new hire isn't working out. During the probationary period it's generally easier to make a case (i.e. little or no documentation needed) that 'they're not working out' and HR will be OK with it vs. after the probationary period, you typically have to 'document' them out of the company.

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

#242

Post by scarface74 »

draw_down wrote: post #167
scarface74 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are other places in the US that are hiring senior developers outside of Silicon Valley and the FAANG companies. There are major metropolitan areas in the US where you can start a company, get good senior engineers and not have to pay the wages that FAANG companies pay.

Well, feel free to name names then if that’s the case.

You really think that the only place software engineers work in the entire US is Silicon Valley?

All of these cities have a better salary/cost of living trade off than SV.

https://www.matrixres.com/salary-surveys

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

#243

Post by kronin »

jack_h wrote: post #233
kronin wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you design something that needs to be implemented in code if you yourself can't write code? If you can't produce in the trenches, what makes you qualified to dictate what those that are in the trenches are doing?

This reply applies to several here. I know a few architects (as in for buildings and civil structures) who wouldn't be able to pour a foundation, frame a wall, or run plumbing properly. They're working at a different level of abstraction and are concerned with different problems. Or to put it another way, if you can code does that mean you should be able to design a CPU, even a very basic one? After all, how can you…

If an architect that hasn't coded in 5 years or more dictates technological decisions to you, when they are out of touch of current best practices, how do you bridge that gap?

Building codes change. Architects are required to design buildings according to the new codes. There is no such thing in software.

When I first started in industry, storing plaintext passwords in the database was what everyone did. We have moved on from that. I've worked on j2ee web apps, where the EJB tier absolutely had to be on a separate server or servers. Times have moved on from there. I've met very few "software architects" that have kept current without writing code at least 5-10% of their job.

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

#244

Post by hobs »

bloomer wrote: post #237
mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’ll get hit with a DMCA takedown notice if you do that.. most companies protect interview questions they ask and solutions to them quite severely.

There is no way to copyright someone else's work. Whoever produced the solution owns the copyright.

That is probably incorrect in the United States if it is "Work made for hire".

https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ09.pdf

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

#246

Post by BurningFrog »

paulie_a wrote: post #207
BurningFrog wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you've never been around real bullshit artists it's hard to imagine, but there are people who can talk the talk so well and say all the right things, and yet their actual programming is terrible. There are also the opposite. Folks who are not great at verbalizing programming principles, but do deliver solid code in reality. In summary, hiring is hell...

Bullshit artists are honestly easy to spot. They are easy to trip up because they think they are good at fooling people. If they said all the right things, the questions were probably low quality. I would throw a zinger in to see if they can react to it. I honestly expect a candidate to say, "I am not familiar" or "I'm not sure I'd have to look that up" once during an interview.

Well... There are different kinds.

The people I talk about aren't even deliberately fake. They really think they're awesome. They can say all the right things. They're charismatic and sound real smart. They have great anecdotes, dripping with wisdom.

It's just that their work is mediocre at best.

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

#247

Post by digianarchist »

matthewowen wrote: post #124
csnewb wrote: post #104

That's hilarious and so true. Last year I interviewed for a senior back-end engineering position at a well known mid-sized company in the Bay Area. They put me through 2 technical phone screens and a 6 hour onsite interview, grilling me in detail about system design, domain knowledge, personal experience, and of course doing endless exercises of writing solutions to algorithmic problems on a whiteboard. I really felt…

"senior engineer for team y" is a position that's constantly been hired for at most growth companies. The fact that they're still hiring for it probably doesn't mean much.

Exactly. We are hiring constantly for several positions: junior, senior, lead. We don’t want to saturate job boards so we artificially limit listings.

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

#248

Post by zzzcpan »

jack_h wrote: post #233
kronin wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you design something that needs to be implemented in code if you yourself can't write code? If you can't produce in the trenches, what makes you qualified to dictate what those that are in the trenches are doing?

This reply applies to several here. I know a few architects (as in for buildings and civil structures) who wouldn't be able to pour a foundation, frame a wall, or run plumbing properly. They're working at a different level of abstraction and are concerned with different problems. Or to put it another way, if you can code does that mean you should be able to design a CPU, even a very basic one? After all, how can you…

> Or to put it another way, if you can code does that mean you should be able to design a CPU, even a very basic one? After all, how can you write a program if you don't understand how it works at the instruction, transistor, etc level?

You'd be surprised, but this is what computer engineering actually is. From p-n junctions and transistors and all the way to distributed systems.

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

#249

Post by curuinor »

xapata wrote: post #225
burlesona wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand what you’re saying but I think you’re underestimating how many people like city life. I work in SF and most of the people here are here specifically because they DONT want to live on ten acres in some rural place, they love that the city is walkable and dense and interesting. For most folks the issue of living in condos or apartments it’s an issue at all until they reach a certain family size. At that po…

> Actually for many people they feel trapped because they’d like a LITTLE more space, ie. the Victorian townhome, but they specifically DO NOT want a car or a yard and do not want to leave the historic, walkable city. At that point you’re really screwed because outside of SF there is basically nothing else walkable west of the Mississippi. So there’s nowhere to go. There are a few other big cities on the west coast,…

LA is world-famous for being non-walkable (even as it simultaneously is getting much better for walkability, hilariously). Seattle just isn't walkable compared to SF.

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

#250

Post by confidantlake »

mbell wrote: post #68
akerl_ wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happens to every candidate who gets flustered by the questioning and seems to bow out earlier than their technical depth? How do you hire people who are more technical in a subject area than your current staff, if your test bottoms out at the depth of the current interviewer in the room?

> What happens to every candidate who gets flustered by the questioning and seems to bow out earlier than their technical depth? I'm not sure I get this question - I'm not talking about a white-boarding exercise. I'm just talking to the candidate about a technical project they have worked on in the past, the pain points, how they resolved them, etc. If that results in the candidate being flustered it's not a good sig…

I have an anxiety disorder, so in depth conversation with a stranger is going to cause me to be flustered. If you asked me to give the answer in writing I could. If you asked me to code on a whiteboard I could. If you asked me to do a takehome I could. But a verbal conversation with a stranger judging me in an interview setting is the worst out of all possible options for me.
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