Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it

news.ycombinator.com

451–460 of 794 posts

Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it

#451
post #48

Having just spent 3 weeks on 4x hour long interviews and completing a day long coding problem along with a "code while I watch" to get to the point that "we're tabling this for a few months" I suspect many of us senior types are just tabling the job seeking process ourselves until we seem to be in actual demand.

“Code while I watch” is the worst.

If it were peer programming, that would be fine. I'm happy with peer programming. We'd trade off, I'd have a look at their style, get a feel for their culture, they could see how I drive and navigate...

But, irrespective of how it's billed, it's always "code while I watch..."

Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it

#452
A bit contra, but this is a bit like asking fish how to catch them and the fish saying, "send more worms!"

I'm pretty senior as an architect in my field and I ask things in interviews like when their last round was, staff size, runway, revenue - basically like I'm an investor, because at this stage of my career that's exactly what I am doing. If that sounds funny, consider that there are LPs participating in seed and A rounds for less than the value or revenue a key hire can deliver. Obviously, I'm not an investor, but consider treating senior talent like somone who is investing in your company and they may open up. You don't have to kiss anyone's ass, and arguably a lot of perks are kind of patronizing above a certain level, so just treat recruiting as a business deal and not a patronage application. A lot of recruiting processes optimize for finding people who don't know what they are worth, and often at the expense of finding the people who really are worth a lot.

Also, this is for finding exceptional talent for near term outcomes in the growth phase of a company. Once your major growth phase is behind you (e.g. an D-F round to get you over the line to an IPO or an acquisition, or you are an institution) I'd recommend moderate and steady hands who can manage and scale jr's, and not a fireteam of tactical operators. Consider whether you just need better mid level managers who can really leverage a team better instead of more experienced IC's. A good IC is gold, but a good manager is a refinery.

Someone who is still an IC after more than a decade in the field is going to be motivated by solving interesting problems that actualize them, so perhaps lead with your hard problems. Someone senior understands organizations and starts with second order thinking, so tip some of your strategy and business model to them to let them apply their experience.

Individuals who are really, really good at something are usually good at it because they were optimizing against a constraint. As in anything, technique is an artifact of constraints, so consider that the very best technical talent is likely going to have an albatross of some sort. Look for minor contradictions, inconsistencies, and rough edges that created a situation where they have to be at least 2x better than anyone else in a specialty just to sit at the table. Their value has to offset their roughness for them to survive, and whether its conscious or not, that's often how they signal it. Many of them are more outdoor cats than indoor cats, as all the strategic sr. indoor cats are already managing directors and SVPs somewhere running people and not machines, so maybe see if you can lure someone out of a successful consulting run with some recognition and respect, and let them meet your execs. Post exit or significant culture change they will attrit out, but it's to mutual benefit.

Just a few ideas, but being attractive isn't a transaction, it's demonstrating that you are growing and how someone can be a part of that trajectory, so really attracting talent is the effect of showing promise.

Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it

#453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you expand on the tax side of that a bit? This is the first time I've heard of using a personal retirement account to pay business expenses without tax penalties, and I'm not finding any relevant hits on Google.

It's a way of setting up a 401(K), that funds a corporation. Kind of a pain in the butt, and not many accountants know of it. There's a lot of fairly strict rules. You can't paint outside the lines. There's a company that specializes in this kind of thing. I don't really want to go into detail, here, but feel free to get in touch (my HN ID has contact info).

Ah, thanks, that helped locate some relevant search results!

For those following along at home, the accounting term seems to be [[ Rollovers as Business Startups (ROBS) ]]. The IRS website has some unusually direct guidance[1][2] on tax compliance risks associated with ROBS.

[1] https://www.irs.gov/retirement-plans/rollovers-as-business-s...

[2] https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-tege/robs_guidelines.pdf

Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it

#454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a giant failure if liquidation preferences are in play. Liquidation preferences help in literally every scenario that is not an IPO. It is very common that a startup exits in an acquisition, and usually when that happens, small common shareholders get a lot less than the "value" of their stock. The liquidation preference protects you (or pays out a bonus) in that case. It has a huge effect on the EV of a sta…

Help who? I’m specifically talking about an employee getting standard common stock. If liquidation preferences are coming into play, you’ve already lost as a common shareholder. But you should never be in that situation to begin with. If a company is struggling or growing slowly, quit and join one that isn’t.

Liquidation preferences advantage you compared to common stockholders in any situation that isn't an IPO. In a slightly disappointing acquisition (the most common outcome for a "successful" startup), it saves your butt. If you have double-dipping shares or a higher liquidation preference, you are going to make a lot of money in a bad acquisition situation.

Liquidation preferences are cheap insurance against bad outcomes. Most startups have bad outcomes. However, people getting common stock are hurt by every share with a liquidation preference. It is in your interest, as a startup investor (or employee), to get a liquidation preference if you can.

Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it

#455

> Benefits and salary are good (though salary isn't posted in the ad) Care to put a range on the value of "good"? My experience when searching is that any company claiming "salaries are good" probably isn't even worth my time talking to. Occasionally I'll reply to recruiters if the role looks interesting but it's not uncommon that they can't even match my base, let alone my TC (and I don't even have that great of a T…

> If you want senior devs to apply post that your total comp is somewhere in the 300k-400k range.

Even that's too low for senior folks with the skillset that OP is looking for, particularly if he wants the senior engineer to be mentoring and uplifting the rest of the team. Those skills can easily get $500k+ TC.

Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it

#456
post #403
post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like I said, >In my experience that [code challenges] is pretty much the sole alternative. I would love more options but I can only speak based on my own experiences. I've gone through many interviews and only once have any of them escaped this "false" dichotomy. To me, and I suppose many others, it is not false.

Doesn’t the single example you yourself have experienced actually confirm that it is false?

If we were talking about math theorems, yes. In real world situations like this though it is customary to equate "extremely rare" with "not existent"

Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it

#457
I'm not a true senior (Do you simply try to rush through the code to make it work within the allotted time limit?

Do you put more effort into the design and structure of the code to make it production ready?

What do you do when making the code nice and the 4 hours are up? Do you stop and turn in an incomplete assignment or do you put in more hours of work?

Even if by chance, you killed it and built awesome code in the 4 hours, there's no guarantee that the hiring manager will like the patterns.

I'm all of my online interviews I have never once received specific feedback on what I "failed" to do "right".

So no, I will not waste my time on take home tests unless I get paid for it.

As much as I also dislike algorithms, I can at least research what I did wrong and patch up that weakness. Can't really do that with take home assignments because there are too many variables.

Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it

#458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a way of setting up a 401(K), that funds a corporation. Kind of a pain in the butt, and not many accountants know of it. There's a lot of fairly strict rules. You can't paint outside the lines. There's a company that specializes in this kind of thing. I don't really want to go into detail, here, but feel free to get in touch (my HN ID has contact info).

Ah, thanks, that helped locate some relevant search results! For those following along at home, the accounting term seems to be [[ Rollovers as Business Startups (ROBS) ]]. The IRS website has some unusually direct guidance[1][2] on tax compliance risks associated with ROBS. [1] https://www.irs.gov/retirement-plans/rollovers-as-business-s... [2] https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-tege/robs_guidelines.pdf

Yes, that’s it. It’s a really good idea to use a company that specializes in this stuff. They take care of all the accounting and legal stuff. My own accountant won’t touch that stuff.

Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it

#459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My last search lasted 9 days i think you did disservice to yourself by optimizing for minimizing downtime between jobs. You should've played the field longer and gone for the highest bidder. I am 100% sure you are not getting paid your worth because no FAANG type company finishes the process in 1 week.

That is condescending: you are jumping to a conclusion and implying that the person you are answering makes stupid rash decisions. Without a lot more context you can’t know how sensible their decision is. Even with that context, why should your opinion be listened to, and who are you anyway to tell someone else how to run their life?

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it

#460
post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like I said, >In my experience that [code challenges] is pretty much the sole alternative. I would love more options but I can only speak based on my own experiences. I've gone through many interviews and only once have any of them escaped this "false" dichotomy. To me, and I suppose many others, it is not false.

The take home is a no go because its goal is make me invest my time with no corresponding investment of the other person's time. From a game theory perspective that makes my time disposable to them. I'm used to full day interview rounds and in principle I don't mind doing a 4 hour programming exercise, but only if one of the company's own engineers is there in the room with me talking to me while I work. That way we…

I don't think your premise is accurate because you don't have insight into how much, if any, time the company invests in reviewing take homes.

As a reviewer, I sure spent considerable time reviewing take homes. As an applicant I got extremely thoughtful and detailed reviews.

Conversely, I've interviewed at least as many times in code challenges with unhelpful, absent-minded interviewers.

To me it boils down to sync VS async. I default to async always. Take home is async, code challenge is sync.

Post reply on HN