Live data from Hacker News

Rebooting (something like) early Triplebyte

otherbranch.com

11–20 of 92 posts

Re: Rebooting (something like) early Triplebyte

#12
I ran the interview team for TripleByte FastTrack early on (I’m not part of or in touch with the otherbranch folks) and I’m excited to see something like it return! The program was good at uncovering different sorts of engineering excellence. We could identify and attest for folks who were particularly fluent coders, or particularly deep systems folks, or particularly excellent debuggers, and then match them with shops that needed the sorts of things those people could do well. If the otherbranch process is like early TripleByte I’d encourage folks to give it a try because they’ll have a shot at landing jobs that are better fits for their skills and interests (in addition to just saving a bunch of time during the search!)

Re: Rebooting (something like) early Triplebyte

#13

The website[1] (not the blog) looks like it was designed using a Bootstrap theme from 10 years ago. It doesn't inspire confidence about the legitimacy of the business. [1] https://www.otherbranch.com/for-engineers

> The website[1] (not the blog) looks like it was designed using a Bootstrap theme from 10 years ago. It doesn't inspire confidence about the legitimacy of the business.

The post is of a somewhat candid, high-information concentration blog post, by a bootstrapped company... and the stereotypical HN response is to criticize them for not using the latest purely stylistic glossy marketing brochure Webrogrammer resume keyword on their Web site? :)

Maybe just like tech companies are still stuck in VC growth investment scam kinds of thinking, where the quality of their software developers didn't matter so much (since Potemkin Villages don't have to be structurally sound), and now companies institutionally have little clue how to hire or even recognize great software developers... So are we stuck in forming opinions of companies based upon our VC scam era criteria?

"You're not investing in the most frivolous image BS, and any good VC scam company knows it's all about what image you present to the marks, so you're not even a legitimate business."

Did we swap the definitions of legitimate and illegitimate?

Re: Rebooting (something like) early Triplebyte

#14
The little test was fun. I scanned it a bit too quick, and was confused when my tests failed with real user input. I did not see the "1-indexed" instruction for user-supplied coordinates while playing against the clock. I guess that's what can happen when you want to hit a target..

Re: Rebooting (something like) early Triplebyte

#15
I mean good for them. I guess before I'd make a profile (either for my employer or myself) I'd want some basic stats:

- How many fully remote jobs paying over $200k base do you have in your pipeline? Basically I have no interest in making a profile to be a sales object to help a startup, I want the company to show value to me first [Now maybe somebody who has no current job is in a different situation]

- My current employer is largely hiring non-US. What countries do you hire out of?

Basically why before I give away hundreds of dollars of my time, what am I getting and how likely? It's not even clear to me to me what types of roles they place (e.g. SREs?)

Lastly I want to throw in a tidbit that it's my personal belief, at the later stages of a long career in tech, that technical skill is really not that important to most employers nor even most roles nor getting promoted (as compared to things like Jira-fu, making your manager look good, handling conflict). As a thought experiment consider otherbranch itself -- other than the interviewers (who could be consultants) how many engineers if any would such a company even need? Seems like it could be wordpress + coderpad + salesforce.

Re: Rebooting (something like) early Triplebyte

#17
I think you really want to let engineers start attempting problems without manual onboarding. Doesn't cost you much, and gets them the dopamine hit before committing anything?

I got job interviews from the original Triplebyte that I almost took just from investigating it as a source to hire engineers!

Re: Rebooting (something like) early Triplebyte

#18

TripleByte changed my (professional) life. Around 2019, I was in a bit of a professional lull but knew just enough coding to be dangerous. I got roped into the TripleByte funnel through a Reddit ad, which eventually culminated in moving out to SF for a YC startup. Several years later, I had a role at FAANG and reached a level of professional $ucce$$ that was orders of magnitude better than where I had been ~4 years p…

I was working construction and doing part time web design before triplebyte, afterwards I was working in SV as a senior engineer. To say it changed my life is an understatement

Re: Rebooting (something like) early Triplebyte

#19
post #17

I think you really want to let engineers start attempting problems without manual onboarding. Doesn't cost you much, and gets them the dopamine hit before committing anything? I got job interviews from the original Triplebyte that I almost took just from investigating it as a source to hire engineers!

That is a rather wild idea, there could be a single service that doesn't care if one is an employer or an employee.

Re: Rebooting (something like) early Triplebyte

#20

TripleByte changed my (professional) life. Around 2019, I was in a bit of a professional lull but knew just enough coding to be dangerous. I got roped into the TripleByte funnel through a Reddit ad, which eventually culminated in moving out to SF for a YC startup. Several years later, I had a role at FAANG and reached a level of professional $ucce$$ that was orders of magnitude better than where I had been ~4 years p…

I went through a bootcamp at the end of 2014, then spent the next three years unable to get a job in tech. I didn’t have a paycheck for those three years.

Triplebyte was my last ditch effort. I failed the online test the first time I took it, came back and then failed their interview. Came back again, got five in person interviews in the Bay Area. Didn’t get offers on the first four (one place even kicked me out halfway through the set of interviews). But I managed to get an offer from the last company, which I then spent the next four years at.

Had I not gone through Triplebyte, I probably would’ve given up on working in tech. Instead, I’m an L5 at Google.

Post reply on HN