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You don't want to hire "the best engineers"

otherbranch.com

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Re: You don't want to hire "the best engineers"

#131

Post by cmrdporcupine »

chaboud wrote: post #56

I was prepared to straight up fight with this author until I actually read what they were saying: 1. Don't hold infeasibly high standards when you're starting up. Time is more precious than than anything (you can't spell "scrappy" without "crappy"). 2. Be more intentional than a lottery-ticket financial plan when it comes to evaluating what traits matter and at what priority order. If everything is a priority, nothin…

Good software is made by motivated people working with a shared vision and with good communication skills. Coding talent and raw CS genius frankly I feel is almost the least part of it, especially since most of these "innovative" startups are mainly gluing together other people's work at this point.

If you don't have people excited about what they're building, talking to each other and liking or at least respecting each other, it's game over.

Re: You don't want to hire "the best engineers"

#133

Post by axpy906 »

whatamidoingyo wrote: post #30
axpy906 wrote: post #12

Seems like the author is a bit frustrated from unrealistic expectations. Hits home as we’ve not filled a role for over six months.

If you don't mind me asking, what's the role?

AI Engineer. Lots of candidates that want to be one but not many with actual experience, is the problem I’ve heard.

Re: You don't want to hire "the best engineers"

#134

Post by tptacek »

chaboud wrote: post #56

I was prepared to straight up fight with this author until I actually read what they were saying: 1. Don't hold infeasibly high standards when you're starting up. Time is more precious than than anything (you can't spell "scrappy" without "crappy"). 2. Be more intentional than a lottery-ticket financial plan when it comes to evaluating what traits matter and at what priority order. If everything is a priority, nothin…

I don't know anything about the story of Otherbranch's business (they launched ~about a year ago†), but Patrick, Erin & I briefly worked on a firm with similar business dynamics (Starfighter, a contingency recruiter based on CTF qualifiers). The prospect of eventually writing posts like this is part of why that business got wound down.

I think the points in this post are mostly all well taken, but I also think a hiring manager looks at this and says "yes, this a vendor talking their book". Most of the relationship between a recruiting firm and a tech company is a disagreement about what the threshold for a viable candidate is!

† https://www.otherbranch.com/shared/blog/rebooting-something-...

Re: You don't want to hire "the best engineers"

#135

Post by mmmmmbop »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #93
adw wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience startups have as much bullshit as FAANG companies, it’s just different bullshit.

Absolutely, I agree. A few years ago I walked away from 10 years at Google hoping to rekindle some excitement in exchange for losing out on money. I hated the way things ran at Google and only lasted there so long because of the money. So far I've mostly found different (often worse) kinds of dysfunction and not really much better velocity. There are broader dysfunctions in our industry.

In hindsight, would you have stayed at Google?

Re: You don't want to hire "the best engineers"

#136

Post by fsckboy »

these discussion are so repetitious, and so many opinions (which are all welcome, they are opinions) seem so personally motivated. I want to read about some contrast, some "I expected this, but I've learned this"

I really only want to hear from people who announce first

"I went to elite schools, but I prefer hiring journeymen" or "the best I've known come from the unlikeliest places"

or

"I'm self taught, but I'm a good worker with some projects to show and talked my way into some great situations, but I realized I had to go back to school, I didn't have the horsepower"

or

Here's how I've learned to knit a team together, here are the types of diversity (of skills, habits, temperaments, experiences, raw iq, or educations) that will make a team successful.

it's boring to read over and over "mine owne education is that of a young prince, and I will only work with yon other princes" or "me learn code with sticks in cave, no code cave, no code with me"

don't simply justify yourself, that's only what survivor-bias or failure bias "teaches"

Re: You don't want to hire "the best engineers"

#138

Post by foobarian »

glimshe wrote: post #116
Centigonal wrote: post #37

There is no such thing as "the best engineers." Some engineers are definitely better than others, but once you pass the bar of "really smart, great work ethic," the tech tree diverges pretty dramatically. Some engineers (like Notch) are amazing at quickly putting out vast quantities of mediocre code, prototyping ideas, maintaining a clear product vision, and bringing something into reality quickly. Other engineers (l…

Sometimes I'm just happy to avoid the worst engineers. They do exist. Bad work ethic, poor foundational skills, hard to work with. I feel that if I can weed them out, I've done 75% of my job as a hiring manager.

So much this. As I've been changing teams at my company (which by and large has awesome people) there is the occasional person in the team that just drags down the rest so much, they are probably a net negative. And it's such a breath of fresh air when the whole team is excellent.

Re: You don't want to hire "the best engineers"

#140

Post by OhMeadhbh »

ospehlivano wrote: post #119
OhMeadhbh wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Um. No. You don't become a senior engineer in 4 months.

Fair point about 4 months, I was thinking longer term there. But the original post was about finding the 'best' engineers, not necessarily senior ones. Either way, you can't know what's best for your situation until they're actually working.

"best" engineers vs "senior" engineers is a valid point. I think a lot of my comments on this thread are of the mode of "best engineer" should also be thought of as "best engineer for this environment / culture." I tend to stay away from people who say things like "top talent" and "10x engineer" and (worst yet) "Unicorn." You can't really make a judgement about an engineer without describing the environment they'll live in.

And also... maybe more importantly... there's a saying (almost a joke) in the military: "You don't go to war with the forces you want, you go to war with the forces you have." (or maybe it was "people" instead of "forces" and no doubt the Air Force replaces "forces" with "very expensive weapon system manufactured by lowest-bid contractors by people who happen to live in districts represented by members of the congressional armed forces committee.") And that might be what we're getting at here.

While it would be great to get the absolute best engineer at day one, it's more likely you're going to get an engineer that requires a fair bit of training and in-the-trenches experience.

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