We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016) • Hacker News Board

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#341

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Dec 12, 2019, 10:09 PM UTC

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…

[deleted]

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#342

Post by playing_colours » Thu, Dec 12, 2019, 10:14 PM UTC

boring_twenties wrote: post #333

playing_colours wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My first point is that you cannot measure the output of a person only by the code, working hours, and coding at home. With experience, you can grow different skills that scale much more than coding - they impact many engineers, many teams. Building right things, building things right have more impact than building things fast. And many of those skills are built by being exposed to real life, connections, taking additional responsibilities.

"they don't have anything _higher priority_ than work" it's too much, man. It is not in the same league with coding at home, it's sacrificing your life for an organisation, shareholders that will never sacrifice their lives for you in return. In fact, they will not even sacrifice potential profit for you, and make you redundant despite your commitment.

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#343

Post by boring_twenties » Thu, Dec 12, 2019, 10:27 PM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #334

boring_twenties wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Why does it matter if it's within the same company or not?

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#344

Post by pseudalopex » Thu, Dec 12, 2019, 10:27 PM UTC

Cymen wrote: post #116

Is contracting on your resume really so bad? I recently made the jump from FTE to contracting because I've always wanted to and it's great. The compensation is higher and I can work the way I want to (put in a ton of effort to get something done, get paid for actual time put in and then move on to the next thing or take a break for a while to play with my two young kids).

Staff augmentation tends to be looked down on. Freelancing tends to be more respected but can make employers nervous about your long term plans.

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#345

Post by playing_colours » Thu, Dec 12, 2019, 10:29 PM UTC

boring_twenties wrote: post #311

playing_colours wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may be clearly better if all you need a bunch of young and fast code typists. What about ability to make balanced pragmatic decisions, not based on fun or hype? What about mature communications, understanding of business? Understanding of technical dept, complexity?

This assumes that everyone over 30 or so is focused on family, which is obviously not the case.

Obviously not everyone. But many people review their priorities at this age. At the same time, you body and your mind start suffering from such dedicated lifestyle: back pain, depression.

You also most likely reach your salary cap in 30s as a coder, so you'll get no ROI on coding more.

Suddenly, physical activities, rest, communications, hobbies make more impact on your work performance.

In the end, it's a matter of personal choice, and the choice is not black and white between work as a meaning of life and leisure skiing till lunch.

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#346

Post by AlchemistCamp » Thu, Dec 12, 2019, 10:35 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #201

Last night on Twitter, someone said "Nearly every entrepreneur I talk so says hiring is their biggest challenge. The world is starving for competent people with a strong work-ethic." This is of course false. The world is not starving for competent people. It's starving for high-status resumes. If those resumes are attached to people who are competent or hard workers, that's a bonus. The high-status resumes without th…

I've been sad more than once that Starfighter was shut down.

What are you working on now and what's your hiring strategy?

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#347

Post by scarface74 » Thu, Dec 12, 2019, 10:35 PM UTC

boring_twenties wrote: post #343

scarface74 wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Why does it matter if it's within the same company or not?

Because if it isn’t, you can make more by going to a company that pays more - not by killing your self working 60 hour weeks and giving up everything else.

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#348

Post by playing_colours » Thu, Dec 12, 2019, 10:36 PM UTC

boring_twenties wrote: post #314

boring_twenties wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'll be happy to know I have nothing to do with hiring of any kind, but just as an individual contributor it seems quite unhealthy to me to work on a team where work is my #1 priority, but everyone else's distant second. I suspect you'd find it quite ridiculous to have to pick up my slack as I have to run at 5pm to practice with my bandmates, at least if you weren't paid correspondingly more for the extra effort. C…

Not sure what the proper way to respond to a deeply nested comment around here is, but @scarface74: Company A will pay me $400k/yr, but only if I make work my top priority Company B will pay me $150k/yr, no matter what Please explain why it's "naive" to choose Company A. I don't need "ownership" in the company to profit from this. I don't see how the company's reaction to my death factors into the decision at all.

First, your A-B situation is not a reality for most of engineers.

Second, if you want to dedicate 10 years of your life to work, make money and retire early - it's a reasonable choice for many. But if it goes into 40s - why do you need money, if you would not be able to enjoy it constantly working? Your money may go straight to doctors and psychotherapists eventually.

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#349

Post by theonionknight » Thu, Dec 12, 2019, 10:41 PM UTC

As a current CS student how should I take this article? Only focus on the most popular languages and disregard anything that doesn’t fit as “trendy”?

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#350

Post by csa » Thu, Dec 12, 2019, 10:42 PM UTC

ritchiea wrote: post #89

throwaway444010 wrote: post #15

> When I've compared notes with folks who attended schools like Utah and Boise State, their education is basically the same as mine. I work at one of the well-known tech companies, and what I’ve noticed among most software engineers and data scientists is that they don’t really care about your background as long as you can do the work. Which is really nice; whenever I interview candidates, I don’t notice much correla…

A professor in my social circle has taught at various schools across North America including Harvard, University of Toronto and a few prominent USA state schools. He says in his experience there's no difference between the intellect and quality of work he sees at the schools he's taught at but the Harvard students are more ambitious and more entitled. In my own personal experience Harvard, Princeton, Stanford types o…

> Harvard could admit sufficiently qualified students from it's applicants several times over the actual count of its freshman class

The key word there being "sufficiently". The academics at Harvard are not unusually difficult (relatively easy in some majors), and I would argue that the content in the coursework is distinctly not what makes Harvard what it is.

If Harvard only accepted their third-tier of admits (i.e., ~4000th to 6000th ranked applicants) for a decade, I imagine that you would find that it will have lost quite a bit of its shine. Not that they still wouldn't produce great people who do great things, just that they would produce much fewer of them. The ambition and capability of the top 30ish percent of each of Harvard's entering classes is a game changer, imho.