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

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

#321

Post by dleslie »

ui-explorer12 wrote: post #264
dleslie wrote: post #41

Earlier 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.

I'd rather spend those 4h with my kids, and the gift card would be somewhat insulting.

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

#322

Post by joshuamorton »

masonic wrote: post #306
joshuamorton wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wil…

Muni and Bart do make it possible to get around most of SF Possible? Yes. They serve most attractions in SF. Not feasible to most of SF, not by a long shot. Look at your transit options between southern Sunset and Dogpatch, for example. BART cuts one diagonal swath through the SF core only, and it doesn't even connect directly to Caltrain in SF county. It's hardly the Underground.

> Look at your transit options between southern Sunset and Dogpatch, for example.

L transferring to the KT? It doesn't even require a bus.

>BART cuts one diagonal swath through the SF core only, and it doesn't even connect directly to Caltrain in SF county. It's hardly the Underground.

Indeed, I'm not suggesting transit in SF (or the bay area as a whole) is perfect. Far from it. But compared to anywhere else west of the Mississippi (and most of the places east of it), there's nowhere better.

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

#323

Post by Consultant32452 »

phkahler wrote: post #275
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…

Funny. I agreed with the author. It's relatively easy to gauge technical ability vs those who can pretend. I only use a simple take-home problem when I truly can't tell which type they are. The really great part is that I usually tell a faker from the resume. Maybe I should blog about this.

I feel the same way. Obviously I can't measure false negatives, because they don't get hired, but I can't remember having been duped before. My process is to ask them to describe their role on some projects on their resume and then keep asking them deeper and deeper questions about it until one of us hits the limit of our knowledge. I only ever ask people questions about things they claim to have done. This probably creates some false negatives with really shy people, but it's easy to suss out the bull shitters.

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

#325

Post by mandeepj »

austincheney wrote: post #319
mandeepj wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are things in place to make the job easier? Seniors don’t need easier and this is a huge turnoff. What? It requires a special craft to design simpler components. Most of the people don't even see it. This is where your senior skills will shine when you'll make it work like a charm as compared to the previous state. If you don't see the friction or can't reduce it then please take the first exit out.

I think you are conflating simple and easy. They aren't the same. Simple suggests less code, fewer pieces, and a shorter path between code and solution. Easier suggests least effort and less to look at. Simple isn't easy. The primary difference between simple and easy are decisions. A good senior will spend more energy on considerations for appropriate decisions than the actual work.

Good definition of 'Simple'. Simple and easy may not be the same but there are situations where they are similar.

For e.g. - for production deployment, I could either put the entire office upside down. Fires across the departments. Broken applications. Rollbacks. Or, I can automate all of our QA test cases and have a one-click deployment. No huss or fuss. I'm sure after having this experience, someone will definitely say - well, this was easy.

Anyway, good discussion.

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

#326

Post by pmiller2 »

kelukelugames wrote: post #307
gcampos wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, you are right, is mostly money. But there is other stuff that at the end adds up, specially if you are a Senior Engineer in a FAANG company: * Very few recruiters outreach mentions any kind of compensation expectation. Why would I bother with hours of chat, screening and interview loops if I know only a handful companies offer the same kind of compensation I'm used to receive? * The bar of a Senior position is q…

I've paid off my mortgage and am now more open to working on something more altruistic than selling ads for slightly less pay. The problem is I can't find any interesting without a large paycut.

Really? Are you in the Bay Area? If so, I find it hard to believe there’s not at least one startup within 10 miles of your current employer doing something at least vaguely interesting (or, at least more interesting than selling ads).

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

#327

Post by beerlord »

lsc wrote: post #216

Isn't it just... mostly money? I mean, if you want to hire someone good, who presumably has a good job, you have to pay better than what they are getting now. I think this is probably especially true in Europe; I mean, as far as I know, people get like a 2x-4x raise moving to silicon valley from europe. If you pay more than your local competitors, you will largely have your pick of the candidates. I mean, yes, things…

If I hire a senior Programmer in Bulgaria for $35,000, they can afford the house of their dreams and lead a very good life with holidays to nearby scenic destinations. Any excess profits that the company makes translates into a huge bonus for them. They have the chance to work in a growing company and be revered as the top of their society.

If that same person moves to the US, they are just a cog in a huge machine, and will be unable to afford to buy a house. Not to mention that getting the visa to go there would be very difficult.

Not to mention that when you work for a small corp, you spend all of your time on dubious products changes for the sake of a product manager looking good for an interview panel.

In developing markets there is no such 'bullshit', to be frank. The company delivers a good product to the international market or it dies. If you can find a talented Westerner to lead the team and product design, even better. This kind of leanness is exhilarating to work for as long as the company approach, payments and bonuses are transparent.

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

#328

Post by ricardobeat »

mbell wrote: post #129
warent wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to clarify, when you say "how they would handle similar issues" do you mean talking to a hiring manager about a past project during an interview setting? I don't understand what you're calibrating for...

I'm a bit unclear on your question. I'm assuming a technical person with relevant knowledge performs the technical interview, if that is what you mean.

The interview setting, with someone who might or might not be technically capable, with your job / career / earnings at stake is a very different situation than explaining past projects to a colleague at work.

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

#329

Post by dmichulke »

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…

Unfortunately, often (and maybe more so because I live in Europe) it's also the other way round:

> raw algorithmic skill

It's been ages that I've been asked anything remotely algorithmic. My interviews are mostly about frameworks, how you fit in a team and whether you know / can be "agile".

Not even a Fizzbuzz, much less so quicksort or more special algorithms.

> and willingness to say “I don’t know”

That never got me anything in any interview/company. To be fair, I found a few smart and cool friends because of this, but they themselves don't look as if they've found a good job either.

Being hired (valued?) as a senior engineer is really hard.

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

#330

Post by Aeolun »

souprock wrote: post #219
Aeolun wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think OP might have a wrong idea of what an acre is. That’s really the only way I can imagine the comment making sense.

It makes perfect sense as is. It is almost my experience. A coworker of mine bought 11 acres. (That's one more than 10. These lots go to 11...) He has sheep and goats and chickens, and he can shoot his AR-15 in his yard. Interestingly, he grew up in San Francisco. His current lifestyle is ridiculously incompatible with his city of origin. I settled for a little 0.4 acre lot with a modest 3500 square foot house. (1619…

Meanwhile, here in Tokyo, a 100sqm lot goes for $700.000, an hour away from work.

I can’t help but be a bit jealous, but it was really interesting to hear how different things can be.

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