Just fire them u know it's the right decision
Ask HN: How to handle a senior hire turning out to be junior?
221–230 of 231 posts
Re: Ask HN: How to handle a senior hire turning out to be junior?
#222You fucked up, but most likely you are playing with vc money so who gives a fuck? Pay him, keep him. Chances are you will fold in a year or two so at least you make someones life a bit better for a while. You not saving the world or anything like that, so just syphoon as much of the idiots vcs moneys to normal people lives. That is the goal with start ups right?
Surprises me this is not the top voted answer. After years in this industry, I have zero empathy for startups and VCs, and all the empathy of the world for employees. Keep him.
I have zero empathy for them too, but this is still just stupid even assuming that this company is VC funded (most aren't).
Most of us do not go to work to warm the seat in exchange for paycheck and poor performers are devastating for morale. It's difficult enough to manage how people perceive themselves with relation to others and their compensation and you do absolutely no favors to anyone with making this even more complicated by having a visibly incompetent employee being over-compensated.
Re: Ask HN: How to handle a senior hire turning out to be junior?
#223In my humble opinion, the best approach depends on your specific circumstances, the employee's willingness to learn, and your company's culture. It's a complex situation, but with open communication, a commitment to support, and a clear plan, you may be able to salvage the situation and help this employee develop into a valuable asset for your team.
Re: Ask HN: How to handle a senior hire turning out to be junior?
#224Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is not true. It’s impossible to fire an employee for performance reason after the probation period in Germany. If an employee cannot deliver on the tasks assigned, they need to be assigned easier tasks. In order to risk your job you have to actively work against solving your skill gap, e.g. declining offers of upskilling.
First, let's be fair, Germany really is an awful example if you're going to then try to apply it to the rest of Europe. > It’s impossible to fire an employee for performance reason after the probation period in Germany. This is untrue. It's true that Kündigungsschutzgesetz does set a really high bar. You can get rid of them if they aren't delivering on assigned tasks, but you need to show that they are able (and are…
I agree on the statement that Germany really is an awful example. Period. :)
Re: Ask HN: How to handle a senior hire turning out to be junior?
#225Being a small company, you could have hired them on trial & part time for a month or so, evaluate their skills before taking them in as a permanent full timer.
Re: Ask HN: How to handle a senior hire turning out to be junior?
#226We had one of these. Excellent interview, couldn't even handle explorer.exe on the other side. We fired them within the week. No one felt bad about it. Just do it and move on. The longer you drag it out, the worse it will get.
Out of curiosity, did you ever figure out the disconnect that caused: > Excellent interview to turn into > couldn't even handle explorer.exe. I had to deal with a similar situation. The size and scale of my employer at the time meant the employee stuck around for multiple years. They never got worse but sure never got better. In our case, the problem was that our interview questions were based on algorithmic knowledg…
Exactly the problem with whiteboarding and the likes of Leetcode being so widespread. If getting a job becomes a complex skillset on its own largely disjoint from actual realities of day-to-day work you don't select the person best at doing the job - you select the person best at doing interviews.
Ironically speaking, the person in question could handle all the interviews with new candidates if he's so good at interviewing.
Re: Ask HN: How to handle a senior hire turning out to be junior?
#227[dead]
Re: Ask HN: How to handle a senior hire turning out to be junior?
#228Earlier quoted context omitted.
We don't have those in America. Mostly because your healthcare is tied to your job, so nobody would risk taking a probationary role that could land them out of work and without healthcare at the end of it...
I don't follow (not from the US, please excuse my ignorance). I was told that, with some exceptions, in the US every job is permanently "on probation" ("at will employment"). As in, you can get fired from one day to the other, no severance and no reason needed (as long as it's not discrimination based on sex, religion, etc). Is my understanding incomplete?
> I was told that, with some exceptions, in the US every job is permanently "on probation" ("at will employment").
This is sort-of true. Employment law in the U.S. is by state, and there are only a handful of states that are truly at-will with no exceptions at all (and even in those there are federal exceptions for thew 'protected categories' - race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, national origin, disability that can be reasonably accommodated, etc.). Montana is not employment-at-will at all - you have a probationary period and can only be fired for cause there after that.
America has a thing called the 'Uniform Commercial Code' which is basically templates for business and employment law that states can voluntarily pick and choose from (Louisiana, where the law is based on French legal tradition, uses it the least). But even with the UCC there is actually a lot of variation in state laws on stuff like this.
In my experience outside of Montana having an explicit probationary period is rare in the U.S. You are seeing why in this thread. Your employer may be able to legally fire you at any time, but the social expectation is that they will get the hire right and not fire you for being a mismatch unless they absolutely have to.
Re: Ask HN: How to handle a senior hire turning out to be junior?
#229Don't take it personally.
Fire away and move on.
Time you dedicate asking around is wasted money for your company.
Learn from your mistakes and try to avoid a bad hire in the future.
Re: Ask HN: How to handle a senior hire turning out to be junior?
#230Please do let them go asap. I have seen this before in my career, and as a junior software engineer (at least that was my title when I got hired) I was furious when I had to clean up after the "senior" engineer so many times because of their incompetence. My teammates were all frustrated equally, but we were working as a flat hierarchy team so there was no boss to report this to...
Eventually the "senior" left the company himself, but it took 2 years. That was 2 years of frustration for everyone in the team because we felt it was so unfair when somebody got paid more than us but caused so many blocks because of their incompetency.