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Rethinking Triplebyte

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Re: Rethinking Triplebyte

#121

Post by mike_d »

ammon wrote: post #56
reillyse wrote: post #40

I see a lot of people in the comments describe triplebyte as a “market leader” and discuss how good they are. I can’t believe how gullible everyone is especially on a startup forum. Let me spell it out to y’all, nobody pivots and changes their entire business model if they are crushing it. So the implication is that triplebyte are not crushing it. So, this probably has gone the same way as lots of other tech startups…

Fair comment. I certainly don't think of us as a market leader. LinkedIn is the market leader. Honestly, the last year has been pretty hard for us (COVID and the problems with our model that I talk about in the post). That said, I think a hiring process that puts engineers in control (no ghosting, get data on when a recruiter looks at your application, search ranking by whether companies lie to candidates) is somethi…

If you want to put candidates in control, build a CRM tool. When a recruiter pings me on LinkedIn or emails me, I have a URL I can send them to with an intake form. No more calls wasting my time, I can see the company/role/salary/etc. up front.

The trick here is you need to figure out a business model where you don't take money from employers, because once you do its just the long slide to becoming a shittier LinkedIn.

Re: Rethinking Triplebyte

#122

Post by jo_ »

bigbillheck wrote: post #112

I tried out Triplebyte a few years ago on my last job search and did well enough on the quiz to bypass the technical screen. Long story short I bear no ill-will towards the people at Triplebyte but will not attempt to use them again.

Another voice in the fray, I also did well enough to bypass the technical screen. Interviewed with four companies they recommended. Picked one. Still with them two(-ish) years later and an outspoken advocate.

It's a tricky situation because you have to balance being accepting of people with non-traditional backgrounds while also making sure they can do the basics. I liked that TripleByte could condense DAYS of interviews into a few hours.

In general, long tech screens are hard on people that can't afford to take off a full day, so it's tricky for people already working in crushing jobs that need a change. The TripleByte quiz worked nicely for this.

On the flip side, if their tech screen is filtering people for reasons other than ability, it's removing possibly good candidates who deserve a shot at something.

The new approach is sounding like it's trying to satisfy the latter, which is good for improving inclusivity, but won't be to everyone's liking.

Re: Rethinking Triplebyte

#123

Post by rachofsunshine »

hellcow wrote: post #106
dvt wrote: post #29

I'm personally very excited to see this change by an industry leader! I think that there's a seismic shift waiting to happen w.r.t. engineer hiring. The "old guard" of hazing, quizzing, and gotcha-style interviews are slowly losing ground. The most friction when switching jobs is the interview process -- and the question is why? I've been writing code for a decade+ now, working on startups, for known tech companies,…

For what it's worth on the hiring side, applicants lie (or more charitably, wildly overestimate their own abilities) all the time. Of resumes I see, 50% of them will not show up on time to their interview. Of the 50% that do, 80% cannot pass fizzbuzz. Past companies and open source contributions are not perfect indicators. I've seen people with stellar resumes fail to even know the syntax for an 'if' statement in any…

To put some hard numbers to this: further down this thread, there's a post about how "any engineer" could answer a question the poster thinks is too easy. I looked up the question in our back end and, in fact, barely a third of people who take our quiz get it right (the correct answer isn't even the most common one!).

That's maybe a little unfair (plenty of people who aren't engineers take our quiz out of curiosity), but the basic point here - that companies are frustrated because they keep getting fizzbuzz-incapable applicants - is more-or-less accurate. That has been (and continues to be) a big part of our offering on the other side of our platform: in the same way that we can provide data about company behavior to engineers, we can provide independent verification of an applicant's skills to companies.

Re: Rethinking Triplebyte

#124

Post by heavyset_go »

ammon wrote: post #56
reillyse wrote: post #40

I see a lot of people in the comments describe triplebyte as a “market leader” and discuss how good they are. I can’t believe how gullible everyone is especially on a startup forum. Let me spell it out to y’all, nobody pivots and changes their entire business model if they are crushing it. So the implication is that triplebyte are not crushing it. So, this probably has gone the same way as lots of other tech startups…

Fair comment. I certainly don't think of us as a market leader. LinkedIn is the market leader. Honestly, the last year has been pretty hard for us (COVID and the problems with our model that I talk about in the post). That said, I think a hiring process that puts engineers in control (no ghosting, get data on when a recruiter looks at your application, search ranking by whether companies lie to candidates) is somethi…

> I think a hiring process that puts engineers in control (no ghosting, get data on when a recruiter looks at your application, search ranking by whether companies lie to candidates) is something that should exist. I want to try to build it!

This is a space that unions fill well compared to for-profit recruiting agencies. The organizations give engineers control and leverage in hiring, and can help them up-negotiate. They also allow employers to hire from pools of skilled talent.

Whereas with recruiting agencies, the customers are employers, not the candidates. Incentives are not aligned to give candidates control.

Re: Rethinking Triplebyte

#125

Post by wittycardio »

dvt wrote: post #29

I'm personally very excited to see this change by an industry leader! I think that there's a seismic shift waiting to happen w.r.t. engineer hiring. The "old guard" of hazing, quizzing, and gotcha-style interviews are slowly losing ground. The most friction when switching jobs is the interview process -- and the question is why? I've been writing code for a decade+ now, working on startups, for known tech companies,…

You think literal geniuses can't solve sligtly challenging algorithm questions ?

Re: Rethinking Triplebyte

#126

Post by ammon »

ninetax wrote: post #92

I'd love to work with Triplebyte (as someone who's running a hiring process), but a while back they removed their option to work on contingency, and it's a difficult sell to fork over $X,000k for another source of engineers when it would just be one of 10 sources we already work with. Maybe I'm wrong here, but it gives me the impression that Triplebyte doesn't believe in it's ability to get candidates into jobs. If c…

The main problem we had with the contingency model is that it resulted in companies using us for a few of their "hardest" hires, rather than as a bread-and-butter part of their recruiting. For example, almost no one wants to pay a contingency fee on junior or remote hires (because they are perceived as 'easier'). This made our platform kind of suck for junior and remote engineers. The subscription model is more of a commitment from a company (I understand why some companies don't choose to use us.) But it means that once a company signs up, they want to make as many hires as possible through us.

Re: Rethinking Triplebyte

#127

Post by [deleted] »

ammon wrote: post #56
reillyse wrote: post #40

I see a lot of people in the comments describe triplebyte as a “market leader” and discuss how good they are. I can’t believe how gullible everyone is especially on a startup forum. Let me spell it out to y’all, nobody pivots and changes their entire business model if they are crushing it. So the implication is that triplebyte are not crushing it. So, this probably has gone the same way as lots of other tech startups…

Fair comment. I certainly don't think of us as a market leader. LinkedIn is the market leader. Honestly, the last year has been pretty hard for us (COVID and the problems with our model that I talk about in the post). That said, I think a hiring process that puts engineers in control (no ghosting, get data on when a recruiter looks at your application, search ranking by whether companies lie to candidates) is somethi…

[deleted]

Re: Rethinking Triplebyte

#128

Post by tdeck »

ammon wrote: post #56
reillyse wrote: post #40

I see a lot of people in the comments describe triplebyte as a “market leader” and discuss how good they are. I can’t believe how gullible everyone is especially on a startup forum. Let me spell it out to y’all, nobody pivots and changes their entire business model if they are crushing it. So the implication is that triplebyte are not crushing it. So, this probably has gone the same way as lots of other tech startups…

Fair comment. I certainly don't think of us as a market leader. LinkedIn is the market leader. Honestly, the last year has been pretty hard for us (COVID and the problems with our model that I talk about in the post). That said, I think a hiring process that puts engineers in control (no ghosting, get data on when a recruiter looks at your application, search ranking by whether companies lie to candidates) is somethi…

A small bit of feedback here. I tried TripleByte a couple of years ago and the experience was really polished. I passed the interview and got great detailed feedback which I really appreciated.

However, I dropped out completely because TripleByte wouldn't let me see companies without entering in a desired comp number. My recruiter at triplebyte said I could just put in "$1 or $1,000,000" to get past it, but that just feels like the same kind of corporate HR bullshit that people have complained about for years. Just Google "recruiter won't proceed without desired salary" and you'll understand how many folks dislike that question.

The experience made me feel that Triplebyte wasn't interested in putting me in control of the process at all if they have such a user hostile requirement and require me to work around it by putting in fake numbers. I understand that many people will have no problem providing this info, but I prefer to see what companies offer me because it tells me how they value me and the position they're hiring for.

Re: Rethinking Triplebyte

#129

Post by sergiotapia »

908B64B197 wrote: post #100
Terretta wrote: post #65

A benefit of Triplebyte to big enterprises not mentioned in Triplebyte’s discussion here: acting as engineering assessment proxy for engineering hiring managers stuck with pathologically risk averse enterprise HR departments. Often enterprise HR is paranoid of honestly evaluating anyone for anything, to the point that many HR teams tell one another and engineering hiring managers that it’s “illegal” to assess candida…

> If you think about joining a dev team where no one checked if any candidate could FizzBuzz, you can imagine the workplace environment that can end up with. That sounds hilarious How could a dev team not be able to write 5 lines?

It is hilarious but man, you would be really surprised how people choke on this. It's weird. People with 10+ years writing software can't do this sometimes.

Re: Rethinking Triplebyte

#130

Post by driverdan »

Terretta wrote: post #65

A benefit of Triplebyte to big enterprises not mentioned in Triplebyte’s discussion here: acting as engineering assessment proxy for engineering hiring managers stuck with pathologically risk averse enterprise HR departments. Often enterprise HR is paranoid of honestly evaluating anyone for anything, to the point that many HR teams tell one another and engineering hiring managers that it’s “illegal” to assess candida…

> many HR teams tell one another and engineering hiring managers that it’s “illegal” to assess candidate abilities on the way in the door, at all

From the position of a candidate this sounds like a poorly run company I'd have no interest in working for. I wouldn't want to interview with them.

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