Rethinking Triplebyte • Hacker News Board

Re: Rethinking Triplebyte

#31

Post by kangnkodos » Thu, Jun 17, 2021, 6:17 PM UTC

ammon wrote: post #5

dawnho wrote: post #2

Interesting idea. But it seems like there’s room for abuse - won’t engineers, who are unhappy that they didn’t get an offer, just report companies? Don’t you just become Yelp in that case, full of reviews from salty customers? How are you going to get useful data when you’re worried about that?

This is certainly an issue. As you say, it’s a problem on yelp and glassdoor. It’s why most nightclubs have low yelp ratings (people they exclude give them low scores). There are a few things I think we think we can do: 1) Look at relative data, not raw ratings. Written reviews or raw numerical scores are what show the nightclub effect the most. What we care about is a ranking of companies (showing the better compani…

Addressing ghosting is great! You should add something to Rethinking Triplebyte to indicate you are doing this.

Re: Rethinking Triplebyte

#32

Post by jchiu1106 » Thu, Jun 17, 2021, 6:19 PM UTC

Without passing the minimum bar, how does Triplebyte distinguish itself from other 1000 platforms where people post resumes?

Also, dissing those who have passed the bar as "engineers who like tests" is disrespectful. When they first launched, passing the bar makes you (in their words) a highly qualified engineer, and now passing the bar means nothing except that you only "like tests"...lol

Fundamentally, I think this invalidates Triplebyte's business model. Companies don't really care if someone passes your tests. They still put you through LC type interviews onsite. They simply save a phone screen.

Re: Rethinking Triplebyte

#33

Post by edgyquant » Thu, Jun 17, 2021, 6:20 PM UTC

devoutsalsa wrote: post #26

crooked-v wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll broadly second this. As an experienced dev, what kept Triplebyte on my radar was being able to at least theoretically cut past the initial round of 'can you actually fizzbuzz or are you just lying about it' that most companies need to filter out the people with inexplicably good resumes but no practical skills.

I think my experience sounds like what the article is trying to say… I tried TripleByte and wanted to like it, but mostly it didn’t seem like anything special. The whole concept of getting pre-screened, getting multiple offers, and jumping straight to final interviews just didn’t pan out. The last company I interviewed with basically treated my application like any other pipeline. I had a standard recruiter call, hir…

This wasn’t my experience. Sure they didn’t just make an offer but instead of the usual algorithm test and a second interview my onsites consisted of actually working alongside the founder for a day and then an offer a few days later. I’m totally fine with that what I don’t want is to have to do 2-3 interviews at every company I apply to.

Re: Rethinking Triplebyte

#34

Post by ammon » Thu, Jun 17, 2021, 6:20 PM UTC

Leoeer wrote: post #23

ammon wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, we ARE keeping the quiz (and companies still trust it as much as they did in the past). It's just not mandatory.

this seems like it's just diluting the signaling value of being on the platform? (and seems like it'll quickly create an upper and underclass of quiztakers vs nonquiztakers)

There's some risk of that. But I think that we can make it work. Basically, the model I have is that there are many different ways that an engineer can signal competency to a company and get a job. One way is doing well on our quizzes. But another way is having impressive experience at a good company, or a lot of open source contributions. Any one engineer might be really good, but look bad on one of these metrics (someone who gets stressed and does poorly on tests, or someone who has mostly worked for the government and does not have side projects). This happens a lot. When we ONLY ranked engineers by our assessments, we just missed people. The goal now is to let people show skill in any of these ways.

Re: Rethinking Triplebyte

#35

Post by devoutsalsa » Thu, Jun 17, 2021, 6:21 PM UTC

edgyquant wrote: post #33

devoutsalsa wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think my experience sounds like what the article is trying to say… I tried TripleByte and wanted to like it, but mostly it didn’t seem like anything special. The whole concept of getting pre-screened, getting multiple offers, and jumping straight to final interviews just didn’t pan out. The last company I interviewed with basically treated my application like any other pipeline. I had a standard recruiter call, hir…

This wasn’t my experience. Sure they didn’t just make an offer but instead of the usual algorithm test and a second interview my onsites consisted of actually working alongside the founder for a day and then an offer a few days later. I’m totally fine with that what I don’t want is to have to do 2-3 interviews at every company I apply to.

I’m glad it works for some people!

Re: Rethinking Triplebyte

#36

Post by yangez » Thu, Jun 17, 2021, 6:25 PM UTC

> We want to be the job search platform that puts engineers in control.

I love this, but I'm curious about the incentives here. Triplebyte only makes money from companies, not engineers. In the long run, can engineer-centric intentions override a business model based around companies and recruiters staying happy? I hope so!

Re: Rethinking Triplebyte

#37

Post by htrp » Thu, Jun 17, 2021, 6:27 PM UTC

ammon wrote: post #6

throwaway273575 wrote: post #4

Will this newfound respect for users' privacy be backed up by a contract or some other legally-enforceable commitment, or do we all have to worry about when you decide to pivot again in another couple years?

I hadn’t thought about this from a legal contract perspective. I like the idea of making our commitment enforceable. Do you have ideas of what you'd want in a contract?

Practically, you wouldn't be able to have any type of contract enforceable in court.

It would be a nice touch though.

Re: Rethinking Triplebyte

#38

Post by htrp » Thu, Jun 17, 2021, 6:30 PM UTC

wayoutthere wrote: post #21

crooked-v wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While the constant supply of recruiter contacts and even direct internal company contacts I get is nice, I repeatedly see the sort of basic issues as mentioned in the piece of concealment of or lying about pay (or incredibly broad pay ranges), entirely leaving out information about a job's location even when it's on the other side of the country, trying to offer entirely inappropriate junior positions that I'm never…

On the recruiting side (I’m not a recruiter but a director making a lot of hires), we actually do the opposite all the time — we post relatively senior positions then downlevel whoever we hire to fit their experience level. A lot of people think more highly of themselves than the employment market does. We look at the job posting as a brand marketing — all we’re really trying to do is get you to apply and fill the fu…

Downleveling is a flaming trainwreck in almost every case.

Seems almost like the bait and switch that the OP company is railing against in the blog post.

I'm curious to see how you guys have managed it without disgruntled employees quitting within 18 months.

Re: Rethinking Triplebyte

#39

Post by teachrdan » Thu, Jun 17, 2021, 6:32 PM UTC

yangez wrote: post #36

> We want to be the job search platform that puts engineers in control. I love this, but I'm curious about the incentives here. Triplebyte only makes money from companies, not engineers. In the long run, can engineer-centric intentions override a business model based around companies and recruiters staying happy? I hope so!

This exactly. Their messaging is over the top "we help engineers get leverage over companies!" I have to wonder what Triplebyte is telling the companies who actually pay them all their money.

Triplebyte has always seemed scummy and this obvious--and unacknowledged--contradiction makes me trust them even less.

Re: Rethinking Triplebyte

#40

Post by reillyse » Thu, Jun 17, 2021, 6:33 PM UTC

I see a lot of people in the comments describe triplebyte as a “market leader” and discuss how good they are. I can’t believe how gullible everyone is especially on a startup forum. Let me spell it out to y’all, nobody pivots and changes their entire business model if they are crushing it. So the implication is that triplebyte are not crushing it. So, this probably has gone the same way as lots of other tech startups. They’ve raised a bunch of money spent it all on ads , distorted the market for a while (usually just the advertising market) and now are on the way out. No matter what fluff or spin they put on it, that’s what’s happening.