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Want to hire the best programmers? Offer growth

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Re: Want to hire the best programmers? Offer growth

#381

Post by puranjay »

Iv wrote: post #374
repomies691 wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The employer-employee relationship is weird and toxic as hell. Doesn't need to be in my experience, both the employee and employer can respect each other even when they don't get along well on personal level. However it is actually quite interesting that it is a relationship that can be weird and toxic, while still providing (economical) value for both parties.

I had some healthy relationships with bosses, but every employer I had who was a decent human ended up being fired by shareholders. And yes, the strength of free market and capitalism is to transform greed and all the behaviors that come with it into a fuel that helps the economy for everyone. It does not transform these into virtues though...

Every time I hear these stories, I'm reminded of this classic Ribbonfarm post:

https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-...

Re: Want to hire the best programmers? Offer growth

#382

Post by repolfx »

kragen wrote: post #307
chrissnell wrote: post #125

It's a little peculiar how this blog post really pushes the inclusiveness angle despite the numbers showing clearly that it is not a big priority for prospective employees. They even go as far as highlighting that the sampled women want inclusiveness 171% more than the sampled men, which sounds pretty strong, but hides the real story when you look at the _actual numbers_. Only 15% of women ranked inclusion as a top p…

It's not a big priority, but it's by far the biggest difference in priorities by gender in the data that they're showing.

Seems like this aligns with my intuitions about what people care about.

"Inclusivity" doesn't mean anything by itself, it's a synonym for diversity, and these terms themselves essentially mean bias in favour of women. Large majorities of both men and women want to be measured on merit, not many want to feel like they got a job or promotion because of their gender. So no surprise it's not popular and indeed, never has been. The trend towards it is because a small minority care about it more than anything else and go on the attack if they don't get it. The silent majority doesn't care.

Re: Want to hire the best programmers? Offer growth

#383

Post by Iv »

puranjay wrote: post #381
Iv wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had some healthy relationships with bosses, but every employer I had who was a decent human ended up being fired by shareholders. And yes, the strength of free market and capitalism is to transform greed and all the behaviors that come with it into a fuel that helps the economy for everyone. It does not transform these into virtues though...

Every time I hear these stories, I'm reminded of this classic Ribbonfarm post: https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-...

That's pretty close to class warfare IMO. I like this passage:

"A Sociopath with an idea recruits just enough Losers to kick off the cycle. As it grows it requires a Clueless layer to turn it into a controlled reaction rather than a runaway explosion. Eventually, as value hits diminishing returns, both the Sociopaths and Losers make their exits, and the Clueless start to dominate. Finally, the hollow brittle shell collapses on itself and anything of value is recycled by the sociopaths according to meta-firm logic."

This realization has stopped me from trying to hire people. I don't think I have the shoulders to be the chief sociopath.

Re: Want to hire the best programmers? Offer growth

#384

Post by repolfx »

cbanek wrote: post #122

> Second, women engineers prioritize growth to an even greater extent than men, and they place particular secondary emphasis on inclusivity and comfort with their work and environment. Woman in tech here. I agree completely, and I'd almost say that saying you want to grow your career in an inclusive environment is saying "I want to grow in a place that will actually value me and promote me." Been in so many places wh…

Lots of talented men don't get promoted either, and it demoralises them too. Promoting the right people is hard - what makes you think it was sexism and not just the normal day to day corporate realities that led to those outcomes?

For what it's worth I've seen a female developer who had both no talent and also lied constantly be promoted, which surprised nobody, because the company was desperate to promote female developers. This sort of thing can cut both ways. Hopefully you're against that and just want a robust, gender-blind promotions process in general.

Re: Want to hire the best programmers? Offer growth

#385

Post by chadash »

logifail wrote: post #86
chadash wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Partially because I enjoy learning and growing my technical skills, partially because I want to move into more leadership roles, but a huge part of it is because I know that if I'm good, I will be paid a massive premium for it." And it's one of the unfair things in life that jobs that pay more often get other benefits as well. Making $40k/year? Chances are you get 2 weeks vacation, inflexible work hours, inferior…

> when someone pays you more, they respect you more The counter-example to that could be that once you're senior enough, you are never 100% on vacation. If enough goes wrong, you will get called back to work.

I agree with your sentiment, but I don't think this is quite a "counter-example". The fact that someone gives you a lot of responsibility is definitely a sign that they respect you more. But yeah, along with more pay and responsibility comes the expectation that you take the blame when things go wrong. And if they go wrong during your vacation, it's up to you to fix them. This can definitely be true in lower level positions as well, but I agree with the sentiment that this tends to be _more_ true with upper level management.

Re: Want to hire the best programmers? Offer growth

#386

Post by ptero »

wocram wrote: post #111
ptero wrote: post #107

Growth is good, but it means different things to different people. Someone might want more money, another opportunities to attend and present at conferences, third a path to management, fourth a path to "technical expert at large", etc. etc. And mistakes can backfire: offer a management path to a person who wants more technology and he may think "ouch, bureaucracy and PowerPoint ahead". I think a general (and genuine…

What does technical expert at large mean to you? I have some idea from my experience, but it seems like it's usually a nebulous role that nobody asked for.

This, in my experience, often means advising on several ( >3 ) projects with no (or very minimal) explicit technical commitments. And "no explicit commitments" means you get more freedom to attend conferences, close the door for a generic "I am working, please do not disturb" stretches, take vacation when convenient to you and generally be a master of your time.

Getting there may not be easy. IME the best path, especially in larger companies, is to:

1. Be effective and gain wide domain knowledge, so your time is valued and multiple diverse projects want as much of your time as you can spare. This is (relatively) easy.

2. As requests for your time rise, negotiate advisory instead of worker bee roles. Avoid writing code, even when you can do it quickly. Instead architect, mentor, advise, assess, etc. This is tricky. As you transition to advisory roles you need to stay valuable and not turn into one of the folks just hanging around with nothing meaningful to do -- those heads are first on the chopping block. If you stop getting invites to new projects, lean hard on #1 for a while.

Re: Want to hire the best programmers? Offer growth

#387

Post by shados »

somebodythere wrote: post #324
shados wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I detest this sense of entitlement that programmers have I don't agree with all of your post (but do some of it). However at the pace companies are expanding their hiring net, the supply and demand ratios are going to flip sooner or later. The current seller's market isn't going to last and a lot of folks will have a serious reality check.

How do companies expanding their hiring net decrease demand?

They don't? Demand is increasing.

However as the sources for software developer expand (and the barrier for entry goes down, along with more people going into the field), the availability is drastically going to outpace it.

We had a very short period of time where even entry level engineers with no CS degrees had companies begging them to join them, but that's quickly going away, and its slowly creeping up the ladder.

If you're a principal engineer or even "only" a senior one, you're likely still at a point where you have people trying to woo you every single day. That's not gonna last.

Re: Want to hire the best programmers? Offer growth

#388

Post by bigred100 »

distantaidenn wrote: post #292
logifail wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> when someone pays you more, they respect you more The counter-example to that could be that once you're senior enough, you are never 100% on vacation. If enough goes wrong, you will get called back to work.

Definitely. Called back to work from a holiday on a Thai island. CEO was near frothing at the mouth over my absence when shit hit the fan.

Sometimes I wonder how such emotionally immature people become so successful. I know it’s common, but if I knew someone who started throwing a fit over something incredibly minor and predictable (an employee took a vacation) I’d think they were unfit for any leadership role.

Re: Want to hire the best programmers? Offer growth

#389

Post by julius_set »

This article defines great and the best engineers by:

“For the purposes of this article, we’re arbitrarily defining “great” candidates as those scoring between 95th and 98th percentile on our technical interview, and “the best” candidates as those scoring at 98th percentile or above.”

A test that they’ve come up with internally. What makes this company an authority on determining great and best engineers purely on data structures and algorithms style interview questions that most likely a recent grad will be efficient with (for software engineers anyways*).

This article is standing on a house of cards. It’s first principles lack and the assumptions it makes on top of those first principle is highly questionable.

J

Re: Want to hire the best programmers? Offer growth

#390

Post by luminaobscura »

dang wrote: post #361
burfog wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"inclusiveness" is a euphemism. I take it to mean a place where an accidental offense (in the eye of the beholder) will get people fired, where business success isn't the priority, where people will constantly be reminded that the company values some employees less just because of some inborn traits, and where employees will be suspecting each other of having been given unfair advantage instead of earning their posit…

Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar. That's exactly what we don't want here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Why? It reads "Assume good faith." You are doing the opposite.
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