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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

#261

Post by karmajunkie »

hobs wrote: post #244
bloomer wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It is mostly correct. Unless you sign very carefully worded IP assignment agreement to that effect, even work you get paid for remains under your own copyright. And frankly anyone who would sign that kind of thing on a employment test exercise is... Naive.

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

#263

Post by Agathos »

nothrabannosir wrote: post #61
mchannon wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

He’s implying the author fell victim to a cognitive bias.* he’s not doubting their honesty , he’s just being harsh on the lack of discipline when it comes to battling your own brain’s tendency to lie to you. Avoiding biases is hard and painful work, which goes well with being resolute and non compromising. When this accidentally bleeds through to others, because you’re human and you forgot to throttle back, it can se…

> Apply the “pick one to sound smart” rule. :)

Confirmation bias! :p

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

#264

Post by ui-explorer12 »

dleslie wrote: post #41
mchannon wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 cultu…

Would you do a 4-hr take-home assignment? What if I gave you a $100 amazon gift card?

There's a big difference between making someone jump through countless, one-sided hoops and asking for a little effort. The challenge IME is finding the balance.

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

#265

Post by tptacek »

EpicEng wrote: post #202
tptacek wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the very best people we ever hired was so flustered in his final interview with us (a formality, after work-sample challenges) that he was visibly shaking during it. If we had taken the "numerous axes" on which the was "not a good sign" seriously, we'd have missed that hire --- and, I think, an entire business unit in our firm wouldn't have been started. I generally think software developers (I count myself am…

Of course that happens, but you're taking a real risk in hiring someone who can't get through the interview. I'd rather miss out on a good hire than make a bad one. You only have so many ways to determine whether or not someone is competent.

I don't know what to tell you. We switched to pure work-sample hiring and hired several dozen people that way. We retained all of them. I can't say that about our interview process prior to that: not only were we not picking up the "moneyball" candidates I'm talking about here, but we were also hiring people we (painfully) ended up having to let go.

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

#266

Post by bradlys »

mk89 wrote: post #113
whiskyant wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pay as much as FAANG and trust me, you'll get your senior engineers.

I have to disagree. Money is not always all. Sometimes it's also about expectations, role, office location, other bonuses, etc. When in 2019 you don't let people do home office... Byebye...

Money is not all but FAANG have benefits and work that are comparable or better than most startups/companies. The overall package is just better... It's obvious to the market at large. Only niche audiences are willingly going to choose startups/companies with certain perks. (fully remote work, for instance - it is a niche thing regardless of what people here say)

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

#267

Post by joshuamorton »

masonic wrote: post #232
crazygringo wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So where is it? Where can you live outside of SF that you don't need a car and can live a normal adult lifestyle?

First of all, SF doesn't really qualify. How many live in a neighborhood where their workplace, medical, grocery, and social needs are all walkable to/from? Car-ownership-hostile != "walkable". Using Lyft/Uber isn't "walking". Anyway, as to your question: parts of Sacramento, Auburn, Carson City, Eugene, Bend, and Boise all qualify, and that'slimiting to cities I know firsthand. Other cities that I hear this from oth…

SF has decent public transit. Disliking public transit is fine, but ignoring it is something else entirely. Muni and Bart do make it possible to get around most of SF without walking or using uber/lyft.

And, given where I live, my medical, grocery, and a significant chunk of my social needs are truly within walking distance. The only one that isn't is work, and that would be accessible via public transit if I was willing to compromise on commute times a bit (or if I changed employers/offices).

Carson City has 4 bus routes serving 150 square miles, San Francisco has close to 100 serving less than 50. Those aren't remotely comparable.

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

#268

Post by eecsninja »

tracer4201 wrote: post #260
dhjsnana83 wrote: post #169

There is a lot of complaining about hiring processes these days. I think both algorithmic questions and work samples have an important role. Algorithmic questions are presented with a time lot, you get an idea of how the candidate thinks through problems. These questions I think reflect general intelligence. Work samples reflect effort and experience, which is also important. People like to complain about one or the…

>I think both algorithmic questions and work samples have an important role. I'm a senior engineer at one of the top tech companies. I hold the opinion the interview processed is heavily biased towards college grads or kids who are fresh on algorithms. I think this helps us hire mostly kids who are book smart but aren't necessarily great (or even "good") employees... I'll do some hand waving here and define good as s…

> I think this helps us hire mostly kids who are book smart but aren't necessarily great (or even "good") employees... I'll do some hand waving here and define good as some combination of being driven and motivated, being able to work independently, and actually caring about what they're doing.

Absolutely. I'm at FAANG, been here almost a decade. I've met many fellow engineers who lack basic problem solving skills, curiosity to learn more about the environment they're developing in (e.g. Linux), and diligence to do a good job. School doesn't teach you those things, nor does conventional whiteboard interviewing select for these qualities.

I spent way too much time/energy on my last team covering for other people who were more senior than me.

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

#269

Post by fma »

kronin wrote: post #243
jack_h wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 move…

Times do change, but it doesn't mean you need to know every single detailed implementation. If the standard practice was plain text, and then became hash...the architect dictates that passwords needs to be hashed. They don't necessarily need to know how to code it.

In my company my 'enterprise architect' oversees at least 40 applications in my space in various languages and platforms (and he works in other spaces too so I can't give an exact number). I need him to give a good direction on what apps are needed, how apps talk to each other and certain detailed design. He also pitches to management and the business to defend how/why we do certain things.

Last thing he would be required to do is remember to write basic code (though I would hope he can do a swag).

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

#270

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

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…

Most software architects aren't working at a level of abstraction that's as much higher as that. They're making decisions like "we should use this framework" or "we ought to have 3 9s of reliability", which can't be meaningfully analyzed without knowing the details of how the coding will be done.
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