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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

#11

Post by codeonfire »

mindcrime wrote: post #5
untog wrote: post #2

I 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 mentors…

It won't work. you won't do the promote from within step, or you will promote one guy, or you won't pay enough money with the promotions. It will take your employees 2-3 review cycles to learn what's up. At that point your (now experienced) people will leave for places that pay more for experience.

Re: Startups: Stop Trying To Hire Ninja-Rockstar Engineers

#13

Post by enko »

> By hiring junior engineers, and giving them the training and development they need to flourish

If you don't have battle-hardened, experienced, senior programmers around, who's going to train them? Who's going to answer questions about design? Who's going to come over to their desk and teach them how to test X?

Actually, I somehow think I know who the author wants to train all these juniors:

> Avi is the Dean of The Flatiron School, an intensive program to learn Ruby on Rails in New York

Re: Startups: Stop Trying To Hire Ninja-Rockstar Engineers

#14

Post by mindcrime »

codeonfire wrote: post #11
mindcrime wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mentors…

It won't work. you won't do the promote from within step, or you will promote one guy, or you won't pay enough money with the promotions. It will take your employees 2-3 review cycles to learn what's up. At that point your (now experienced) people will leave for places that pay more for experience.

Of course you're never going to be able to keep everybody. That's not the point. But I believe you can build a culture that promotes longer-term relationships and a tighter bond. Maybe we'll never get back to the days of life-long employment followed by a gold-watch and a pension, but I think we can do better than the current system that most firms seem to be using.

Another thing I want us to do, is define a career path that allows technical people to continue to advance in pay and prestige, without forcing them into becoming managers. But that issue will be a long way off for us (heck, we're a pre-funding, bootstrapped startup right now... most hiring/retention issues are quite a ways off for us!)

Re: Startups: Stop Trying To Hire Ninja-Rockstar Engineers

#15

Post by enko »

mindcrime wrote: post #10
SomeCallMeTim wrote: post #6

Are 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.

I guess the question is whether startups, who are usually in intense competition and working against the clock, have the time and energy spare to lead people through that process. I wouldn't have thought so.

A good place for juniors to start would be in normal web shops, not high-pressure startups.

Do you think Tesla Motors grabbed a few engineering grads and shop floor assistants, chucked them in a room and hoped they'd "grow into" knowing how to make an electric car? Of course not - for a startup like that, timely and accurate execution is absolutely critical and they would have hired the best, most experienced people they could get. I don't see why software startups are any different.

Re: Startups: Stop Trying To Hire Ninja-Rockstar Engineers

#16

Post by untog »

lsc wrote: post #8
untog wrote: post #2

I 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.

Sure. I wasn't blaming people for responding to the stimuli around them, but that it's still unhealthy all the same.

Re: Startups: Stop Trying To Hire Ninja-Rockstar Engineers

#17

Post by [deleted] »

doktrin wrote: post #7

There 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.…

[deleted]

Re: Startups: Stop Trying To Hire Ninja-Rockstar Engineers

#18

Post by edwinnathaniel »

Before the discussion goes too far, do keep in mind that the author of the article runs a school/e-Learning company that teaches Web Development to its students.

It is, definitely, in their best interest to have their graduates being hired by popular startups.

The content of the article seems to argue with that goal in mind. Whether the content is true or not, it is yet to be proven: I have not seen a modern statistical data of every single argument in both the article and the discussion here in HN.

Especially when it comes to "10x more productive engineer" since in our field, we haven't done a good job measuring anything at all except some data of failed software projects and how bad workers negatively influence the company (just like any other sector...).

Re: Startups: Stop Trying To Hire Ninja-Rockstar Engineers

#19

Post by mindcrime »

enko wrote: post #15
mindcrime wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I guess the question is whether startups, who are usually in intense competition and working against the clock, have the time and energy spare to lead people through that process. I wouldn't have thought so. A good place for juniors to start would be in normal web shops, not high-pressure startups. Do you think Tesla Motors grabbed a few engineering grads and shop floor assistants, chucked them in a room and hoped th…

Well, if you're talking about employee #1, then yeah, I think you need experience. But my point is to get into the mold of hiring people that can grow into roles, as early in the process as you can. I also tend to think that a good team should have a mix of people with different levels of skill and experience.

Re: Startups: Stop Trying To Hire Ninja-Rockstar Engineers

#20

Post by andrewjshults »

As a side note to the article, it's interesting to contrast the author's RoR school ( http://flatironschool.com/ ) where the goal is to get people from zero to junior level with that of Hacker School ( https://www.hackerschool.com/ ) that wants to take people from average to "ninja-rockstar" level (or at least a better engineer). I don't think that the goal of having more junior level engineers out there is a bad one, but in terms of what the market is currently looking for, I see the advantages of a program like Hacker School in the social proof of being one of the "ninja-rockstars."

I also personally agree with having one strong senior engineering being more advantageous to an early stage startup than a handful of junior ones (but not just from the programming side of things). A good senior engineer is easily worth double the salary of a junior one if they can provide both overall technical direction as well as general team direction and mentorship. Otherwise, a team composed and lead by only junior level people can quickly feel like the inmates are running the asylum for any one you're trying to bring in (junior or senior). The examples given in the article are all of places that have a strong, established tech team. If you're early stage and don't have a strong foundation to build your tech team on top of, getting three junior engineers for the price of one good senior one might not be the deal you think it is.

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