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Why Triplebyte Failed

otherbranch.com

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Re: Why Triplebyte Failed

#31

Post by lacker »

It sounds like the core problem is that companies don't really have trouble screening large amounts of incoming low quality resumes. It's annoying and time-consuming for the software engineers, but it's a well-known process and the CEO/CTO/COO/VP who controls the budget can just make the engineering team do it.

The core problem that companies are willing to pay for is "top of funnel". The obviously skilled, experienced software engineer that every company wants. How do you make them interested in your company in the first place? Triplebyte did not really have a cost-effective solution for that, although that's what people wanted most when buying their service.

Re: Why Triplebyte Failed

#33

Post by soneca »

blindriver wrote: post #11

Triplebyte failed because: 1) They were useless friction. As a candidate I could apply directly to the companies I was interested in, and take a phone screen and then on-site. With Triplebyte I had to take their much more time consuming process and get to the same point of either another phone screen or on-site. They added absolutely no benefit to me as a job seeker. Especially during the hiring heydays of 2019-2022…

I always understood the promise of Triplebyte was ”do the first steps of a hiring process with us and skip them for your next dozens of job applications (that are through Triplebyte, obviously)”

Did they never deliver on that promise?

Re: Why Triplebyte Failed

#34

Post by perspectivezoom »

I was Triplebyte's first engineering placement. I still remember going to a random SoMa apartment with Harj and Ammon and Guillaume and coding up tetris in ruby, having no prior experience with game loops. That landed me a job with Flexport in 2016. I doubt that I would have gotten that placement without Triplebyte. So I am quite grateful that they existed, for jumpstarting my early career.

With that said, when it came time to look for a job again a few years later, I did chat with Triplebyte but ultimately took an offer through other contacts that I had built up by then.

Re: Why Triplebyte Failed

#35

Post by Uehreka »

8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote: post #3

It's interesting to see how much "standardized cross-company interview for software eng" has been consistently a cursed problem in the industry. Unlike airline pilots (or I'm certain many other professions), every company in the valley insists on re-interviewing a candidate in their own custom and unique way, instead of trusting some sort of an industry-wide certificate only achievable through a standardized test. Wo…

If you create a standardized test it will be gamed. Even with the small modicum of standardization around interview questions that we currently see, people have published books like Cracking The Code Interview, making it easier for people who don’t have the skills for a particular job to pass interviews at any place that uses standard-ish questions.

Furthermore, as an avowed enemy of “Clean Code”, I don’t want to see standardization because I fear that well-promoted ideas that I think are terrible would become required dogma. I prefer chaos over order that I don’t like.

Re: Why Triplebyte Failed

#36

Post by alephxyz »

blindriver wrote: post #11

Triplebyte failed because: 1) They were useless friction. As a candidate I could apply directly to the companies I was interested in, and take a phone screen and then on-site. With Triplebyte I had to take their much more time consuming process and get to the same point of either another phone screen or on-site. They added absolutely no benefit to me as a job seeker. Especially during the hiring heydays of 2019-2022…

As a junior at the time I found that triplebyte actually removed a lot of friction. Being able to do the screening/tech interview step once instead of for _every_ role you apply to was great. It was also good to be able to give feedback after interviews (e.g. these guys want me to do another technical quiz or are just trying to advertise their Blockchain platform).

Re: Why Triplebyte Failed

#37

Post by saulpw »

listenallyall wrote: post #7
8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote: post #3

It's interesting to see how much "standardized cross-company interview for software eng" has been consistently a cursed problem in the industry. Unlike airline pilots (or I'm certain many other professions), every company in the valley insists on re-interviewing a candidate in their own custom and unique way, instead of trusting some sort of an industry-wide certificate only achievable through a standardized test. Wo…

A standardized test exists for lawyers (two, if you count the LSATs) but law firms still interview potential hires.

Do these firms give them their equivalent of an LSAT or the bar exam? AFAIK it's a "non-technical" interview.

Re: Why Triplebyte Failed

#38

Post by soared »

kenschu wrote: post #22

I'm the founder of a new tech assessment co - I hear "you guys remind me of Triplebyte" at least 1x per week. Clearly they were onto something originally - there's a lot of lingering love among eng leaders. Our thesis is that LLMs unlock a lot in this space - and that we can provide more signal to employers, while giving candidates a better experience. There's a lot of open/difficult questions to doing this well - we…

Feels very similar to when I took a test that asked me questions about my life and then I was auto-denied for a role. Very qualified, I knew many people at the org, ~$150k/yr or something. The recruiter emailed me later that day saying I actually could continue on with the interview process, but I declined.

Re: Why Triplebyte Failed

#39

Post by salade_pissoir »

rachofsunshine wrote: post #25
henryaj wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. Easy to destroy trust.

It absolutely is, and it's something I am very much aware of. I considered including something about that incident (for those of you coming in with less context, they're referring to [1] this) in this article, but I didn't for two reasons. One, I sincerely do not think that was actually fatal (it was, at worst, a symptom of the same forces that forced a pivot). And two, the best thing I could say about it in terms of…

The fact that you chose not to address this incident is exactly everything we need to know about why Triplebyte failed.

Re: Why Triplebyte Failed

#40

Post by rachofsunshine »

racional wrote: post #16
blindriver wrote: post #11

Triplebyte failed because: 1) They were useless friction. As a candidate I could apply directly to the companies I was interested in, and take a phone screen and then on-site. With Triplebyte I had to take their much more time consuming process and get to the same point of either another phone screen or on-site. They added absolutely no benefit to me as a job seeker. Especially during the hiring heydays of 2019-2022…

Interesting that this post gets right to the point with at least plausible, and more to the point: user-focused reasons as to why Triplebyte filed. While the blogpost starts off with -- its "impressive founding pedigree." That's the first thing these people think of in their root cause analysis.

I go into the background because I don't want to assume people are familiar with a specific company that hasn't even existed for a year-plus, and because I wanted to emphasize that these were the mistakes made by smart, serious people doing their best. If people who have done this before, people in whom very smart, very incentivized people are willing to place their trust, can make these mistakes, I sure as hell can, and so can you.

I certainly do NOT intend to say "the founders had cool credentials and that's why they were right about everything". The previous poster to whom you're replying has legitimate criticisms, although I don't think they're correct that those were the reasons for Triplebyte's failure (since we did indeed acquire many candidates with considerable skills, and since the public-profiles incident was a consequence of pivoting, which we did because we couldn't solve bigger problems).

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