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We Hire the Best, Just Like Everyone Else

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Re: We Hire the Best, Just Like Everyone Else

#141

Post by lgieron »

jrs235 wrote: post #117
bdavisx wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, me too, midwest huge insurance company. From what I've seen, there are very few people in mid to upper management that think developers are anything more than a cog in the machine (and only 1 who's ever stated that 'publicly') - I'm looking to leave after 11 years - I've given up on it changing.

As stated several times over the years, particularly on HN and by patio11 (edit: or was it Joel on Software? Perhaps both?), work for a profit center not a cost center. The internal software to run insurance companies is a cost center. It is in managements interest to reduce and keep costs down... that's detrimental to what you do. Working on a software product or Saas is a profit center. What you are making is to be…

Not sure it's that simple. For example, in many places banks pay the most. Sure, they pay even more to their earners (traders, dealmakers etc.), but they make so much money on their business in general that they can shell out top dollars even for their digital janitors. Contrast that with places where you work on products such as computer vision-based gizmos, CAD software etc - even though you're bringing in the profit there, the pay is not that great.

Re: We Hire the Best, Just Like Everyone Else

#142

Post by greglindahl »

maxaf wrote: post #127

> The most significant shift we’ve made is requiring every final candidate to work with us for three to eight weeks on a contract basis. Are you fucking kidding me? What am I going to tell my current employer while I "audition" for the mere possibility of a next job? Most working adults in the US don't even get three to eight weeks of discretionary vacation that they aren't already using to spend time with family or,…

Trial employment is a great way to not be able to hire the best. A trial period means uncertainty. Any reasonable candidate will consider that a negative, compared to a competing offer which looks more certain.

Re: We Hire the Best, Just Like Everyone Else

#143

Post by enraged_camel »

ghaff wrote: post #136
maxaf wrote: post #127

> The most significant shift we’ve made is requiring every final candidate to work with us for three to eight weeks on a contract basis. Are you fucking kidding me? What am I going to tell my current employer while I "audition" for the mere possibility of a next job? Most working adults in the US don't even get three to eight weeks of discretionary vacation that they aren't already using to spend time with family or,…

He does go on to say that it's 10-20 hours per week that they can do on nights and weekends for which they are paid. That said, I don't really disagree with your basic point. Under the appropriate circumstances, some limited paid contract work can make sense. For example, for an industry analyst job, we used to ask for writing samples. In retrospect, asking them to write something on a specific topic (and paying for…

So candidates are expected to work evenings and weekends instead of spending that time with their families?

The process seems to strongly favor young and single folks. Then again maybe that's fully intended. The tech industry has a huge ageism problem after all.

Re: We Hire the Best, Just Like Everyone Else

#144

Post by Animats »

Look at the reasons startups failed. "Product didn't work" isn't even on the list. For most appcrap and webcrap, making it work isn't that hard any more.

There are exceptions, where making it work is the hard part. Theranos is poised to fail because they can't make their medical test technology work. Cruise (YC 14) will fail if their autonomous driving doesn't stop crashing. Space-X lives or dies depending on how often their rockets blow up. Those companies need "the best".

Go down the current YC list.[1] Who has a hard problem?

Hard:

- 20n: A computational synthetic biology company

- Industrial Microbes: Upgrade natural gas to chemicals using synthetic biology

- Transcriptic: Access a fully automated cell and molecular biology laboratory, all from the comfort of your web browser

- Raven Tech: We are building the next generation OS (website sucks; all giant images, no info.)

Not hard to implement:

- Cleanly: Laundry & dry-cleaning delivered at the tap of a button

- GiveMeTap: Each bottle purchased gives a person in Africa clean drinking water for 5 years

- EquipmentShare: Rent high quality equipment at the lowest price, guaranteed

- Meadow: Buy medical cannabis delivered from local dispensaries

- Cinder: Notifications when food is done. All in a countertop electric grill.

If you're on the "not hard" list, you're probably better off hiring people who've done something similar but aren't superstars. Otherwise, you'll get overdesigned IT infrastructure, like Soylent. (Soylent does maybe two shopping cart transactions a minute, and boasts about how elaborate their systems are. They're bikeshedding. They're in the food business; IT is a support function.)

[1] http://yclist.com/

Re: We Hire the Best, Just Like Everyone Else

#145

Post by qmalzp »

dominotw wrote: post #131
maxaf wrote: post #127

> The most significant shift we’ve made is requiring every final candidate to work with us for three to eight weeks on a contract basis. Are you fucking kidding me? What am I going to tell my current employer while I "audition" for the mere possibility of a next job? Most working adults in the US don't even get three to eight weeks of discretionary vacation that they aren't already using to spend time with family or,…

So its basically extended interview for like 8 weeks where your every move is being watched/judged. When did it become ok to treat people like shit and humiliate them with these ridiculous "interviews". Seems like we keep coming up one worse idea after another. Shame on everyone who thinks its ok to humiliate people with your idiotic algorithm/whiteboard/big O interviews. This is getting so out of hand. Can we bring…

Am I the only person who thinks algorithmic/big O puzzles are kind of fun? Like they're super high stress when you're interviewing, but basically everything is super high stress when you're interviewing.

Re: We Hire the Best, Just Like Everyone Else

#146

Post by OpenDrapery »

jrs235 wrote: post #117
bdavisx wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, me too, midwest huge insurance company. From what I've seen, there are very few people in mid to upper management that think developers are anything more than a cog in the machine (and only 1 who's ever stated that 'publicly') - I'm looking to leave after 11 years - I've given up on it changing.

As stated several times over the years, particularly on HN and by patio11 (edit: or was it Joel on Software? Perhaps both?), work for a profit center not a cost center. The internal software to run insurance companies is a cost center. It is in managements interest to reduce and keep costs down... that's detrimental to what you do. Working on a software product or Saas is a profit center. What you are making is to be…

In addition to my previous comment, I'd like to hear people's thoughts on the "consulting" gig. It seems to rule here. You know the routine. Consulting shop places an individual at a client site and charges the client $100 an hour, and then turns around and gives the consultant less than half of it. I can see the argument of the consulting firm viewing their people both as profit centers and cost centers.

Why are they even called "consulting" firms? They are really just contracting agencies. And why are they so prevalent in the midwest and the insurance/banking/healthcare segments? Is it so that employers don't have to lay people off? Do they record the costs differently on their books versus full time employees? It just seems so obviously not in the interest of a company to use them with regards to culture, turnover, cost.

Re: We Hire the Best, Just Like Everyone Else

#147

Post by mooreds »

sgift wrote: post #102
mooreds wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it isn't common because it is expensive . People would rather hire someone who has made mistakes on someone else's dime (another word for it is "experience").

You are right, that is the third component, but hiring is also very expensive, especially if you have a low quote of acceptance and have to interview many candidates for each position.

Good point. Not sure which is more expensive, and it obviously depends on your problem space and the stakes involved (i.e. crud apps vs financials vs health care).

Re: We Hire the Best, Just Like Everyone Else

#148

Post by dasboth »

cableshaft wrote: post #134
dominotw wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So its basically extended interview for like 8 weeks where your every move is being watched/judged. When did it become ok to treat people like shit and humiliate them with these ridiculous "interviews". Seems like we keep coming up one worse idea after another. Shame on everyone who thinks its ok to humiliate people with your idiotic algorithm/whiteboard/big O interviews. This is getting so out of hand. Can we bring…

That's pretty much every job though. You're generally watched and judged more closely when you first start out anywhere, and it relaxes after you've proven yourself. Even if it's not happening overtly, you can bet it's happening. And not just from your boss, but from coworkers as well.

That's true, and some companies are quite liberal with their ability to sack people at a week's notice during their probation period.

Re: We Hire the Best, Just Like Everyone Else

#149

Post by andrewstuart »

The concept of "The Best" is meaningless anyway.

When someone says "We Hire The Best", ask them to quantify precisely what "The Best" means. They can't. They weasel around and avoid answering. And that is because they can't define in a tangible way what "The Best" is. And if you can't define it then how do you know you found it?

Assuming you can define "The Best", an even bigger problem is working out a provable mechanism for measuring - in a quantifiable way - whether someone meets the criteria for being "The Best".

And the final absolute ripper problem is that the more you strive for "The Best", the less likely tou are to find anyone so you'll spend months interviewing and hiring no-one until the boss decides to pull the budget for that position because you didn't hire someone and anyway the commercial opportunity that validated the hire is now evaporated because we couldn't get the code written.

My term for this is "Voodoo Recruiting" in which there are rituals and dances and songs and meetings and processes and tests but it's all just a magic show because in the end the decision is not scientific, it's a magical outcome based just on personal likes and biases. In Voodoo Recruiting a company forms a set of beliefs about its recruiting processes and practices that become sacred and magical - such as "everyone has to do our test, and it actually tells us something meaningful about the candidates and we know how to interpret the results in a meaningful way".

Here's a few posts I wrote on the topic:

I sent one of the best developers I know to a job interview, he was rejected. http://fourlightyears.blogspot.com.au/2014/12/i-sent-one-of-...

Employers don't want great developers, they want what they want. http://fourlightyears.blogspot.com.au/2014/12/employers-dont...

Is your developer recruiting process just stroking your company ego? http://fourlightyears.blogspot.com.au/2014/12/is-your-poor-d...

Re: We Hire the Best, Just Like Everyone Else

#150

Post by glenntzke »

maxaf wrote: post #127

> The most significant shift we’ve made is requiring every final candidate to work with us for three to eight weeks on a contract basis. Are you fucking kidding me? What am I going to tell my current employer while I "audition" for the mere possibility of a next job? Most working adults in the US don't even get three to eight weeks of discretionary vacation that they aren't already using to spend time with family or,…

This is ok in an industry where there are far more jobs available than workers. I'd say it's fine in any software hotbed like NYC or SF where there's really no excuse to be unemployed as a software developer unless you are so willingly or incompetent.

Privilege is working both ways here: the developer has their pick of the crop and so does a highly successful and desirable employer.

Edit: I want to point out that I think it's only acceptable in a region where the developers have the market advantage.

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