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We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

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Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#331

Post by playing_colours »

boring_twenties wrote: post #283
mitchty wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All else equal, isn't it clearly better to hire someone with no responsibilities outside of work, than someone who has to be out of the office at 5pm every day to deal with their kids? No it isn't clearly better. Note, I'm single but proposing that someone that lives code as being better than someone that stops to smell the roses of life is a bit too much. You're also discriminating for people that may be horrible…

> someone that lives code > programmer that never goes out to socialize. I never said that someone has to live and breathe work, only that they don't have anything _higher priority_ than work. If I have social plans with my friends I'll likely cancel them if there's a bona fide work emergency. If I have family obligations I cannot and will not. > I'd rather meet and make friends OK, and I'd rather ski for an hour or…

I used to be a maximalist like you. Maybe, later in your life, you will also recognise that the world is so much bigger than work, that the years of your only life are seeping through your fingers, and you will not have another one, and you want to experience more of it: close relations, fatherhood, art, crafting, enjoying the flexibility and strength of your healthy body, digging into science, greeting morning somewhere in Iceland...

I also believe it can make you better at work, in ways you currently may not appreciate. Coding more at home can make you a better coder, but it's a diminishing return. At some point you will get more from being good at communications, making better choices, finding compromises, reflecting, seeing the whole picture, avoiding errors caused by constant typing with tired brains.

It's a great pleasure (for me) to work with people in 30s-40s, with children and hobbies: healthier environment, less stress, usually less ego and drama, focus on working smart and thinking twice before typing, less chance to see and clean shitty code, also, very interesting conversations at lunch.

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#332

Post by MS90 »

aketchum wrote: post #247
MS90 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

James Hetfield talked about that as a reason he left. "I kind of got sick of the Bay Area, the attitudes of the people there, a little bit. They talk about how diverse they are, and things like that, and it's fine if you're diverse like them. But showing up with a deer on the bumper doesn't fly in Marin County. My form of eating organic doesn't vibe with theirs." https://www.blabbermouth.net/news/metallica-james-hetf…

> My form of eating organic doesn't vibe with theirs I've never heard this before but I love this quote. In my opinion, hunting responsibly brings one a great appreciation for conservation efforts and increases connection to nature. Especially hunting fowl, where you are walking the whole time and working with a dog that you trained yourself from a pup for this purpose. It gives great appreciation for nature and resp…

And the fact is no matter how hard a farmer or rancher works to ensure their product is "organic" it is still being exposed to human meddling. It will never be as "organic" as an animal that grew up in the middle of the woods with little to no human exposure.

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#333

Post by boring_twenties »

playing_colours wrote: post #331
boring_twenties wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> someone that lives code > programmer that never goes out to socialize. I never said that someone has to live and breathe work, only that they don't have anything _higher priority_ than work. If I have social plans with my friends I'll likely cancel them if there's a bona fide work emergency. If I have family obligations I cannot and will not. > I'd rather meet and make friends OK, and I'd rather ski for an hour or…

I used to be a maximalist like you. Maybe, later in your life, you will also recognise that the world is so much bigger than work, that the years of your only life are seeping through your fingers, and you will not have another one, and you want to experience more of it: close relations, fatherhood, art, crafting, enjoying the flexibility and strength of your healthy body, digging into science, greeting morning somew…

This is well-written, really. But wholly irrelevant. I already gave up most of my career to focus on what I really want. The point is, I'm not demanding to be paid $400k despite that fact, or demanding that a team full of 9-5ers hire me even though I start work *no earlier than noon and take days off with no notice regularly.

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#334

Post by scarface74 »

boring_twenties wrote: post #327
scarface74 wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it going to be enough more to make a difference in my lifestyle?

Obviously. If not, then don't do it. What are we even talking about? Is $400k vs $150k enough?

In the grand scheme of things, how many companies have that range of salaries for the same position?

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#335

Post by playing_colours »

malvosenior wrote: post #297
mitchty wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I never said that someone has to live and breathe work, only that they don't have anything _higher priority_ than work. What exactly does this mean? I prioritize A LOT over work. My back hurts, work can suck it. I get into an accident, again, work takes a hell of a back seat. If a family member is having issues, guess what, work may not be my highest priority. I'm a human, not a robot. > Having kids is a lifestyle…

I don't think that's a fair depiction of why people code on their own time. Some people just love making things, it makes them happy. I'm not young but still find the time to build projects in my spare time because I want to, not because it's training. I'd even go so far as to say I "have" to do that as I get pretty unhappy if I don't have some personal projects going where I can explore ideas and be creative. It's a…

Coding on their own time is perfectly fine, if it's your choice, I also do it sometimes. This is not equal to "they don't have anything _higher priority_ than work".

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#336

Post by loftyai »

brahmwg wrote: post #210
loftyai wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understood the bias on work attire from both sides. It's silly to judge people's abilities based on what they like to wear period. The whole point of casual dressing in Tech was that it made some people perform better, because it took them less time to get dressed in the morning, and they were physically more comfortable at work. But people are different, some people might genuinely code better or perform bet…

On the topic of work attire, one interesting argument/explanation in favor of professional (read: suit) clothing is for the compartmentalization; like Peter Parker becoming spiderman, you only do work in that set of clothing. When the suit is on, you're in work mode. When the suit is removed, you're in non-work mode. This way you don't associate work with your casual clothes. I thought it was an interesting point in…

This is a pretty interesting point of view. I had always thought that it's just something that was passed down as tradition since it seemed that back in the days, men always wore suits, even when they're not at work.

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#337

Post by loftyai »

Kalium wrote: post #229
loftyai wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understood the bias on work attire from both sides. It's silly to judge people's abilities based on what they like to wear period. The whole point of casual dressing in Tech was that it made some people perform better, because it took them less time to get dressed in the morning, and they were physically more comfortable at work. But people are different, some people might genuinely code better or perform bet…

Like a lot of things, it started as comfort and quickly became a vehicle for social signaling of group membership, status, and conformity.

Yeah, very true. But it's kind of sad that people like me, who still dress according to comfort get grouped in with the status and conformity faction.

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#338

Post by klodolph »

traderjane wrote: post #249
klodolph wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But why shouldn't t-shirt be the status quo culture of the office? Any response to this question shorter than a hundred pages is going to do a disservice. Because you asked: Because people are judged unequally for wearing a T-shirt. Because this fails to delineate between work attire (and spaces, modes) and personal attire (spaces, modes). The delineation is important. Because attire communicates, among other thing…

> Because the T-shirt is a symbol of Silicon Valley technology culture, privilege, and entitlement which I reject. Why is this that solid of a fact to you? If you had to imagine the best way to scale a workforce, and you were worried about artificial barriers, why is not the suit which reeks of gate-keeping? How is it the t-shirt, which just about every young American owns, the culprit of privilege and entitlement? I…

> Why is this that solid of a fact to you?

It’s not.

> That is why I question why you are so confident that it's the t-shirt that's so elite.

I don’t say that, at least not in that sense.

> In such mixed dynamics, you're never going to find it's the programmers who wear suits and the executive class look like young teenagers in hoodies. Who has the power here?

This conversation loses too much insight when we flatten things down into a single more power / less power dimension.

I will say that the programmers I see wearing T-shirts are earning $100k+, and they can work remotely, have a flexible schedule, and often ditch meetings which they don’t feel like attending. They go to a café and order coffee from a barista who wears a uniform and may not dye their hair an “unnatural” color, who earns $25k and doesn’t learn their work schedule until the last minute.

The suit, at least, if you wear it every day, can communicate “this is kind of uncomfortable and ridiculous, and as soon as permissible, I will take it off.” I can understand why some people would see it as a conceit, at the same time, to the people who must wear suits, it is generally annoying or inconvenient more than anything else.

> In such mixed dynamics, you're never going to find it's the programmers who wear suits and the executive class look like young teenagers in hoodies. Who has the power here?

“Never” is certainly too strong an assertion here, I’m going to interpret it as hyperbole because there are plenty of exceptions.

Some alternative comparisons that are very informative are to compare different departments within an institution. In tech companies, take a tour of where the developers sit, the QA department (if it’s not contracted out!), customer support, sales, marketing, communications, and HR.

There are also strong regional differences at play here. West coast casual attire is fairly unusual even compared to other parts of the US.

So I’ve come to have a pretty dark opinion of the T-shirt dress code. To me, it symbolizes the entitlement of the west-coast tech elite.

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#339

Post by jefftk »

close04 wrote: post #317
jefftk wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But showing you care about the interview matters and flip-flops don't send that message I'm not looking for candidates to show that they care about the interview, or that they have put effort into preparing for it. I'm looking for them to show that they can take a verbal description of a problem and turn it into something concrete enough that they can solve, that they can think about algorithms, that they can code.

> I'm not looking for candidates to show that they care I'm sure gut-punching you also doesn't change the fact that they can think about algorithms and code. But it does say something about them as people and their character. Showing they put effort in preparing for the interview suggests they put effort in preparing [period]. I've seen plenty of exceptionally qualified people that were a net loss for any team due th…

I think gut-punching your interviewer is a strong negative signal about how it would be like to work with you, but wearing informal clothing is not much of a signal at all. There are just so many different reasons someone might be dressed that way: they could be the kind of person who doesn't put effort into things, they could think dressing up for an interview is cheating, they could not care about clothes in general, they could have been going off of advice to "wear something comfortable".

Similarly, if the candidate brings their own water bottle vs asks for a drink you could say that this is good because it shows them being prepared, but I think all of this is just too noisy to read anything into.

(I do think in other fields things are different. I'm just talking about programming here.)

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#340

Post by loftyai »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #184
loftyai wrote: post #178

Does anyone else find it out that the people (recruiters) in charge of finding good tech talent often have no experience in programming themselves? So, my question is how do they know if someone is a good programmer? If all they do is read the resume, then we know, based on other people's comments here, that it's clearly not good enough of a method to find the best talent. So, if this is the case, why do we keep rely…

Recruiters generally don’t evaluate programming ability. They pattern match on keywords in the resume and act as a very crude crap filter.

But it's 2019 about to be 2020. Surely people can easily automate this aspect of recruiting?
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