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

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

#141

Post by godelski »

efavdb wrote: post #101
threatofrain wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great talent knows how to scale mediocre talent, but you should do so after building that initial core team.

Why ever hire mediocre talent?

Finding "the best" is very hard. You get such a small glimpse at a person from their resume and the interview process. Then good luck getting them to join you instead of another job that can pay more, give better perks, or whatever. You put in all that time interviewing, spending all that money, and look where you work, is it really all that effective?

If your company requires the best then you most likely have too much complexity. If your company requires the best to continue then your company isn't stable. Even if you got the best, can you keep the best? If you argue that there are enough "the best" then really you're just calling average (or anyone just above average) the best

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

#142

Post by renewiltord »

A mistake most founders make is they want someone as motivated about their company as they are. But things have changed since even 15 years ago. Back then, the machinery for startups wasn't as available, so many people would work for someone else to do something.

As the machinery has become more available, all those highly motivated people would rather compete with you than work with you.

So founder-level motivation is only available if you give something else up: cash (as opposed to delayed equity), large amounts of equity (2% or more), desirable working environment (close to home, remote, etc) or something else they can't get and can't just get by competing instead.

But the most founder-level motivation guys will just start a competitor. That's life.

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

#143

Post by eszed »

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…

I agree. I'd argue for an additional "generalist" category, as well. Generalists won't be famous, like the exceptional specialists in your example, but an excellent generalist will be able to do good work in any situation. They will be highly valued by their teammates - though often not, unfortunately, be much recognized by management.

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

#144

Post by throwway120385 »

gedy wrote: post #105
throwway120385 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your business is going to cease to exist in 4 months, who cares about scalability? Pay the interest when it comes due and when you can afford it. If someone is serious about building a company they will be okay with that.

Sure but then incentivize engineers to hack it out knowing they'll have to deal with the shit show if you become successful. Sorry but most "startup engineers" aren't , and it's basically bad for their careers to implement "the vision" in a throw-away manner.

I don't think it's true that it's bad for your career to do it that way. What happens a lot is we think we have to tell the story of how we gloriously implemented some powerful overkill technical stack in a startup with 4 months of runway to be taken seriously as a Real Engineer.

You can also tell the story of how you worked really hard to engineer a solution that was good enough to carry a startup to viability given the 4 months you had. I would choose the second person over the first person because they have a sense of practicality which is really important. But it can be career limiting to not communicate that in your resume somehow, so I understand how you can think it would be a bad thing. And as always you have to be aware that your employer is in that situation, and so if they don't tell you then you're screwed.

There are a lot of people out there who want to hire practical engineers. It's just a different market and you have to signal differently in your resume.

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

#146

Post by propter_hoc »

aorloff wrote: post #3

The best companies hire relatively green engineers and develop them.

This is the answer

As a startup you don't have Google's money. You don't have Google's employer brand. You don't have Google's work environment.

in fact as a (hopefully) fast-growing startup the only thing you really have to offer is growth. So make it clear how you are going to help the candidate grow their career and experience faster at your startup than at the established company, and offer the best you can do on comp and work environment.

This doesn't mean fresh grads, but more like someone with a bit of experience who's ready to jump into a team lead or architectural lead role.

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

#147

Post by cmrdporcupine »

mmmmmbop wrote: post #135
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Probably. I was going crazy working there, I grew to really dislike it. But from a purely selfish $$ POV, it's likely I would have got caught in one of the rounds of layoffs or been able to take this latest voluntary layoff package.

Unless the frustration led to bad performance reviews, which could have happened.

My mental health would have suffered, but holding on another 1-3 years would have probably led to me being 5 years closer to early retirement.

It was also 2021/2022, when the job market was completely bananas. The temptation to leave and get a decent paying remote job was very high. And at the time I felt Google was doing a very poor job of remote work, at least on the teams I was on. And they made the hybrid in-office unpleasant (floating desks, nobody else there, just a weird vibe).

Hindsight 20/20, etc.

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

#148

Post by w10-1 »

aorloff wrote: post #3

The best companies hire relatively green engineers and develop them.

When JavaSoft spun out of Sun to build Java, they hired recent graduates, many out of CMU: Mark Reinhold, Josh Bloch, Anand Paliswamy (?), David Connelly, et al. The exception was the Swing team, who had done GUI frameworks before (though never in just one year).

Their key virtue (imho): no politics. They hadn't learned to play the game, buy time, pad estimates, defend their technical choices, and so on ad infinitum. Instead they mostly tried to gain the respect of each other.

Granted as the team grew into 2D and the 10K API's of Java 2, some political teams came on board. sigh.

And it wasn't "companies" hiring and developing them. It was 1-2 senior managers with long histories who managed to extract JavaSoft from Sun to get some breathing room.

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

#149

Post by rgbrgb »

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…

100% agree that there's a lot of diversity in what makes the engineers good. My only quibble is with the conclusion: "identify the specific skills for which you need exceptional talent". Any of these people would be great for your company. When you're small, you can be flexible... if you can get any of those archetypal great engineers, get them and adjust your workflow to work productively with them.
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