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!
"secret"
When hiring senior engineers, you’re not buying, you’re selling
281–290 of 694 posts
Re: When hiring senior engineers, you’re not buying, you’re selling
#282A 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…
I kind of agree and kind of dont. I have a super simple inital question I always ask in interviews: Write me a function, in any language, that takes an array (or list) of integers and returns the sum. 90% of people that can do that are decent, and sadly i'd have to say i'm shocked by how many people struggle with this question, or the follow up of "ok interesting implementation, now what can go wrong at runtime?" It'…
>90% of people that can do that are decent
I can't imagine this being an effective qualifier for any but the most junior of devs.
Re: When hiring senior engineers, you’re not buying, you’re selling
#283A 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…
I disagree. If you can’t tell the difference between a smooth talker and strong technical competence you are probably interested in the wrong qualities. I have interviewed enough now to see why some companies cannot figure it out. Ask yourself if you really actually want a senior or a strong junior. It comes down to interest. A good senior got that way because they like solving challenging problems. They are not inte…
I hear what you're saying, but I think you're maybe creating a straw man argument here. A smooth talking engineer isn't one who sounds like a used car salesperson or is just hyped about the latest trendy framework.
There are people who can talk through challenging problems at their former companies and how the problems were solved. They can tell you everything you'd want to hear because it's true. Except…they didn't implement it. Maybe they are best friends with the person who did and understand in detail about the tradeoffs and the neat hacks and the insights learned along the way, but couldn't build it themselves.
Those are the "smooth talkers" of the engineering world. Those are the people you can't catch just through a verbal interview.
On a related note:
> If you can’t tell the difference between a smooth talker and strong technical competence you are probably interested in the wrong qualities. I have interviewed enough now to see why some companies cannot figure it out. Ask yourself if you really actually want a senior or a strong junior.
My dude.
Look at who you're replying to.
Re: When hiring senior engineers, you’re not buying, you’re selling
#284Earlier quoted context omitted.
The difference being that the FAANG-type companies don't pay well enough to make up for the cost of living. Senior engineers seldom want to live in tiny apartments. See if you can prove me wrong: find a 10-acre lot within a half hour commute, with a large single-family home, that is affordable to a senior engineer. Alternately, make it 1 acre, but within a 5-minute commute.
A 10-acre lot is a ludicrous metric, and even 1 acre (for a residence) metric is unrealistic. I doubt most technical types even want the burden of upkeep for an acre+. At that point, the main thing you're buying is isolation.
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Re: When hiring senior engineers, you’re not buying, you’re selling
#285Earlier quoted context omitted.
Heads up, tomorrow is a holiday many places in the US, just do you expect at least a day of delay.
More people are getting the day off but it's still less than half at 45 percent.
Downvote if you want but according to Bloomberg 4 hours ago that's the official stat.
Re: When hiring senior engineers, you’re not buying, you’re selling
#286This is clickbait to sell a book. "Having trouble doing the thing? The problem doing the thing is you. Buy my book for $45, then you can do the thing."
Re: When hiring senior engineers, you’re not buying, you’re selling
#287Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Personally, if I can get to an onsite with another company after a recruiter chat and phone screen, I’m not even going to do a “2 hour” project. In my experience, actually spending the recommended amount of time on one of these take home projects is a losing proposition when there are people who will spend more time on it.
Re: When hiring senior engineers, you’re not buying, you’re selling
#288A 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…
I disagree. If you can’t tell the difference between a smooth talker and strong technical competence you are probably interested in the wrong qualities. I have interviewed enough now to see why some companies cannot figure it out. Ask yourself if you really actually want a senior or a strong junior. It comes down to interest. A good senior got that way because they like solving challenging problems. They are not inte…
This is a good post. Have been in the UK startup environment it was crazy how many companies got funding but didn't had a strong senior in their software department.
Because of this their hiring process was aimed to hire more "strong juniors" even tho they didn't realize it. A strong senior is a person who completely changes how you are even approaching the problem or someone who shows you problems you hadn't seen before. They often see tech in the context of business as well.
As you said, usually, they can't be bothered about learning the new framework of the month or new backend language of the month, but, they have a set of battle proven tools to solve tech problems for businesses.
P.S: I do find it hard to distinguish between bullshit talkers and people who actually get stuff done in the interview process.
Re: When hiring senior engineers, you’re not buying, you’re selling
#289Earlier quoted context omitted.
I couldn't possibly agree more. The current cargo-culted trend of take-home problems is a scourge. If you can't hire almost directly off the results of your challenges, you're wasting time and shouldn't do them at all.
> The current cargo-culted trend of take-home problems is a scourge I hire based on take-home problems. But then again I don't have candidates whiteboard. I give candidates time to produce something in the comfort of their own environment that goes beyond solving puzzles on the fly and is actually a reflection of the work people will do day-to-day.
>I give candidates time to produce something in the comfort of their own environment that goes beyond solving puzzles on the fly and is actually a reflection of the work people will do day-to-day
100% this.I find whiteboarding to be the actual scourge, as it involves unrealistic pressure in an unrealistic scenario. It reminds me of tests that inadvertently just test whether people are good test-takers versus assessing their command of the actual subject matter.
I believe hiring devs who are also good at whiteboarding have a bias--even blindspot--where candidate whiteboarding is concerned. They oddly believe it to be a prerequisite for a job that infrequently or never requires it.
As such, they may miss out on good devs who simply thrive in an environment more akin to reality.
Re: When hiring senior engineers, you’re not buying, you’re selling
#290Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
> The people I talk about aren't even deliberately fake. They really think they're awesome.
I guess you don't have to be good at fooling people when you believe it yourself.
(cf. Theranos)