Hiring a developer as a small indie studio in 2025 • Hacker News Board

Re: Hiring a developer as a small indie studio in 2025

#111

Post by ramon156 » Wed, Nov 12, 2025, 10:15 AM UTC

I wish we stopped playing games during hiring processes. I get you're trying to weed out the bad ones (can't take pressure, not pro-active, can't ask questions, etc.), but the entire process sucks on both ends.

Let's say we care about the potential employee's needs, most people want to feel like they're making a difference at work and build something that matters. I have never had a job interview where I was able to discuss this topic. It's just "are you good enough to work for us?" while the entire company is falling apart in the background.

Do you actually want to improve your company, or are you just looking to share more workload? Because those are two different things. I'm not looking to join your bike-shedding business

Re: Hiring a developer as a small indie studio in 2025

#112

Post by thegrim33 » Wed, Nov 12, 2025, 6:34 PM UTC

"Unfortunately, this time, we had 46 late applicants we didn’t even look at"

You couldn't even do the INITIAL / quick triage for those 46? You couldn't even just spend 20 seconds on each to see if they were remotely qualified to be considered or not? It would have taken one person 15 minutes. You instead just threw away all those applications without even glancing at them? In addition, these were applications that people got in before the deadline, before you closed the application process, they applied correctly, and you just threw them away without even glancing at them?

Re: Hiring a developer as a small indie studio in 2025

#113

Post by superze » Thu, Nov 13, 2025, 11:03 AM UTC

yakshaving_jgt wrote: post #69

lone-cloud wrote: post #40

This sounds like an incredibly toxic hiring process and not a company I'd ever want to work for. So you apply for a job and in response they (maybe) email you back asking for your expected salary (great way to filter out anyone worth hiring btw) and if you're cheap enough they then ask you to do work on a take home assignment. Everyone here thinks that this is okay and they want to be interviewed this way? "Since we…

> great way to filter out anyone worth hiring btw This seems to imply that there is a significant causal link between a developer’s salary and the quality and quantity of their output, and I just don’t think that’s true in the general case.

That’s a ridiculous take. Well-paid developers tend to care much more about the quality of their work than those barely making a living from it.

The one who doesn't have a lot of skills or any deep knowledge will also be in self doubt and is much more likely gonna accept a lower offer, but a high skilled one will take it as an insult.

Re: Hiring a developer as a small indie studio in 2025

#114

Post by yakshaving_jgt » Thu, Nov 13, 2025, 11:16 AM UTC

superze wrote: post #113

yakshaving_jgt wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> great way to filter out anyone worth hiring btw This seems to imply that there is a significant causal link between a developer’s salary and the quality and quantity of their output, and I just don’t think that’s true in the general case.

That’s a ridiculous take. Well-paid developers tend to care much more about the quality of their work than those barely making a living from it. The one who doesn't have a lot of skills or any deep knowledge will also be in self doubt and is much more likely gonna accept a lower offer, but a high skilled one will take it as an insult.

My anecdote is based on several years of experience and dozens of programmers hired. I’ve seen mediocre developers command high sums, and exceptional developers take more meagre remuneration, and everything in between.

You might characterise it as ridiculous, but you haven’t changed my mind on this.