Startups: Stop Trying To Hire Ninja-Rockstar Engineers
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Startups: Stop Trying To Hire Ninja-Rockstar Engineers
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Re: Startups: Stop Trying To Hire Ninja-Rockstar Engineers
#2I don't disagree with a lot that's being said here, but:
At that rate, you can give a junior developer a 10% raise every year for 3 years at the end of which you'd have an experienced senior employee
This won't work, because of the "short-termism" that permeates through startup culture. A great many companies have no intention of still being a startup in three years time- they want to be acquired or be absolutely huge (at which point that individual programmer means less). There is a huge (and perhaps damaging) focus on early results, and in that environment waiting for a junior to get to grips with stuff will be seen as a weakness.
Re: Startups: Stop Trying To Hire Ninja-Rockstar Engineers
#3What he should be saying is don't hire pompous pretend-to-know-it-alls. That is something all of us can agree with. But if you've spent the better part of the last two decades learning how to be a good developer and have applied your skills across various technologies, projects, and industries, you deserve the six-figure salary. Why? Because ten mediocre singers cannot sing as well as Aretha Franklin.
Hire nice, competent, hard-working people with the requisite experience/knowledge and pay them what they deserve. If the project needs junior developers, hire junior developers. If it needs senior developers, then hire senior developers. Don't expect junior developers without any guidance to automatically turn into proficient veterans just because they've been doing it for five years. They could be doing the sub-optimal thing for a decade and not know it.
Stop making lists of who/what/why not to hire and just give the promising candidates a chance to prove themselves before/during/after the interviewing process. Also realize that if you make it a company policy to not hire anyone who is "senior", you could be violating federal laws against age-discrimination, depending on how senior is defined. It's no different than saying "must be a former Boy Scout", which immediately disqualifies all females and thus is discriminatory.
Re: Startups: Stop Trying To Hire Ninja-Rockstar Engineers
#4hm. From what I've seen? senior salaries are rather higher than the article mentions, and Jr. salaries are rather lower. (in Silicon Valley) - Junior types are still having a hard time finding work at all, as far as I can tell.
That said, I think that the key is "what skills do you have?" If you are (or have) someone good already, hiring on a apprentice can be a great thing. But you need someone at the company that is good at what you are doing. That could be you, and that could be an employee. But, for instance, I am not going to train up a new accountant. (or for that matter, a new webapp developer.)
Re: Startups: Stop Trying To Hire Ninja-Rockstar Engineers
#5I don't disagree with a lot that's being said here, but: At that rate, you can give a junior developer a 10% raise every year for 3 years at the end of which you'd have an experienced senior employee This won't work, because of the "short-termism" that permeates through startup culture. A great many companies have no intention of still being a startup in three years time- they want to be acquired or be absolutely hug…
Personally, I think "short-term'ism" is a disease that plagues business (if not society as a whole) in America these days. I also think taking more a of a long-term view can be an advantage on many levels, and I have often said that - when we get to a point where we can hire employees - one thing we will do at Fogbeam Labs is focus on hiring younger, less experienced folks and provide training, education, and mentorship... and build a "promote from within" culture where we aim for long-term relationships. Some sort of profit-sharing plan would seem to be a good idea as well.
Then again, we have all sorts of radical "against the grain" ideas. Like, the idea that you don't need to recruit at Stanford and MIT and Harvard to get great people. We believe you can recruit at, say, NCCU[1], UNC-P[2], ECSU[3], etc., - or even WTCC[4] - and find talented people who will not demand the same salaries as the Ivy Leaguers, but will also be hungrier and have a something to prove.
Time will tell...
[1]: http://www.nccu.edu/
[2]: http://www.uncp.edu/
[3]: http://www.ecsu.edu/
(disclaimer: by saying "younger" I don't mean to say that actual age will be a factor... it's just that less-experienced folks tend to be younger by nature. But we would hire a 65 year old who had just undergone some sort of career retraining program, for example, if he/she was qualified. Discriminating by age, color, religion, ethnicity, etc., isn't just illegal, it's bad business. Why narrow down the pool of quality people you're working with?)
Re: Startups: Stop Trying To Hire Ninja-Rockstar Engineers
#6Are they really talking about Ninja-Rockstar engineers, or "only" developers at the 10x end of the Mythical Man Month spectrum?
Because you can hire a junior engineer close to that end of the spectrum. It's just harder to know whether they are really that good without seeing a track record.
From the article:
>The rationale you'll typically hear is along the lines of "a great developer is 10x as productive as a mediocre one." That might be true, but it is an impractical startup hiring strategy.
So...they grant that "it might be true," but recommend that, instead of hiring someone on the 10x end of the productivity spectrum, you should instead hire ten "cheaper" developers? At the bargain of $70k/year each instead of an expensive $107k per year for one of them?
Oh, and don't forget to throw in the cost of a more experienced lead to manage those 10 junior programmers, because they won't manage themselves.
Someone isn't really thinking about the math here. Or they like to spend their Series-A funding like it's going out of style.
Don't get me wrong; there's a place for junior programmers in a start-up, after you've gotten enough 10x programmers. There are lots of programming tasks that don't need the 10x programmer and frankly are a waste of his or her time.
But there are also a lot of tasks (depending on the start-up) that require a 10x programmer (or better). Past a certain level of complexity, 1x programmers will never be able to solve a problem well. Even if you had ten of them. [1]
What people don't realize is that the 10x programmer isn't a rock star/ninja -- as Joel said a while agao, you're not actually hiring the top 1%. [2] The best developers all just have jobs and aren't looking most of the time.
Re: Startups: Stop Trying To Hire Ninja-Rockstar Engineers
#7There are certainly some important take-aways in this article.
What certainly hit home was the reference to high turnover. In my experience, attracting and retaining (perceived) top 1% developers is no small feat. It's damaging to a project when a "rockstar" developer builds out a product set in her chosen (often bleeding edge) framework / language, and then departs at the sign of another "fun" opportunity elsewhere. No one needs to sign an oath of loyalty in blood or commit to a project for life, but fickle engineers - no matter how talented - can be a net loss to a team.
Insofar as the salary requirements are concerned, the numbers are a little off. Top developers in this area (DC) command north of $120k, with junior developers starting at anywhere from $50-60. Regardless, however, I tend to regard salary (within reason) as an appropriate investment.
Lastly, as he mentioned - not all teams are equipped to handle & mentor junior engineers. This requires a formalized and real commitment, which unless executed properly - will result in un-productive junior hires. Like the author, I believe that mentoring and training junior staff (and interns) is a fully achievable goal, but one that requires planning and forethought.
Re: Startups: Stop Trying To Hire Ninja-Rockstar Engineers
#8I don't disagree with a lot that's being said here, but: At that rate, you can give a junior developer a 10% raise every year for 3 years at the end of which you'd have an experienced senior employee This won't work, because of the "short-termism" that permeates through startup culture. A great many companies have no intention of still being a startup in three years time- they want to be acquired or be absolutely hug…
Eh, but there is a reason for this "short-termism" - people want to exit before the current favorable business cycle ends. Business cycles are famously quick and famously dramatic here in silicon valley.
Re: Startups: Stop Trying To Hire Ninja-Rockstar Engineers
#9What he should be saying is don't hire pompous pretend-to-know-it-alls. That is something all of us can agree with. But if you've spent the better part of the last two decades learning how to be a good developer and have applied your skills across various technologies, projects, and industries, you deserve the six-figure salary. Why? Because ten mediocre singers cannot sing as well as Aretha Franklin. Hire nice, comp…
... but Aretha Franklin only gets paid IF she performed, she doesn't have bi-weekly paycheck.
Apples vs Oranges...
But I agree with the rest :)
Re: Startups: Stop Trying To Hire Ninja-Rockstar Engineers
#10Are they really talking about Ninja-Rockstar engineers, or "only" developers at the 10x end of the Mythical Man Month spectrum? Because you can hire a junior engineer close to that end of the spectrum. It's just harder to know whether they are really that good without seeing a track record. From the article: >The rationale you'll typically hear is along the lines of "a great developer is 10x as productive as a medioc…
The best developers all just have jobs and aren't looking most of the time.
Sounds like another good reason to focus on hiring recent grads, career changers, etc., to me. You just have to figure out a way to predict - better than chance - which ones will become great developers. Whether or not that's doable is, I suppose, an open question.