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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"

#181

Post by guywithahat »

rachofsunshine wrote: post #130
guywithahat wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only addendum to this I'd add is the best engineers rarely have to go through the hiring process in a meaningful way, it's usually someone recognizes them from a previous job and vouches heavily for them. I say this because if you're going through the hiring process like a chump, I'd leave the ego at the door and not talk about compensation or try to demand remote work on a desirable position.

This is a good addendum. Do you mind if I add it to the post (credited, of course)?

You can use it, and you don't need to credit me, I don't think it's that unique.

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

#182

Post by Centigonal »

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.

Reed Hastings and Erin Meyer talk about this right at the start of No Rules Rules. Netflix had to lay off a big chunk of of their staff because of a funding crunch early in their history. Despite the negative emotional toll that took on everyone, productivity actually improved.

The authors reference a Will Felps experiment[1] that showed that introducing just one pessimistic, lazy, or mean actor into a group of professionals cut the entire group's productivity by 30-40%.

As a result of this lesson, Netflix now only hires "A-players" and is pretty aggressive about letting go of "B-players" and "C-Players."

[1] https://www.thisamericanlife.org/370/transcript

This has been borne out in real-world observational studies, too: https://www.washington.edu/news/2007/02/12/rotten-to-the-cor...

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

#183

Post by wbl »

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?

Because you're solving mediocre problems for terrible pay. If you want to solve the world's toughest problems for terrible pay and can meet the bar, there are other places with a very happy customer, stable careers, and great benefits.

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

#184

Post by rrr_oh_man »

zuppy wrote: post #50
fitzn wrote: post #13

> The best engineers make more than your entire payroll. They have opinions on tech debt and timelines. They have remote jobs, if they want them. They don’t go “oh, well, this is your third company, so I guess I’ll defer to you on all product decisions”. They care about comp, a trait you consider disqualifying. They can care about work-life balance, because they’re not desperate enough to feel the need not to. And ho…

it's more like short term gain vs long term gain. experienced engineers can design an architecture that will allow you to scale cheaper and faster in the future, at the high initial cost. it will be cheaper to maintain, better for security. depends at what point your business is at the moment of hiring and what you plan to do with the product. do you need volume or quality (both variants are right)?

Counterpoint: Experienced engineers will design the architecture that is appropriate for the current state of the business.

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

#185

Post by mixmastamyk »

axpy906 wrote: post #133
whatamidoingyo wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In a new field, one needs to look forward rather than backward.

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

#186

Post by jdefr89 »

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…

Again... You don't need the "best" engineers to develop some crappy derivative app that probably already exists. 99% of the stuff people are trying to build these days requires nothing more then a few competent engineers.

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

#187

Post by the_af »

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…

> 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.

Sure, but I don't think that's the point of the article.

The point of the article is that startups always claim they only hire "the best" (by whatever metric), but they actually don't, because they cannot pay for the best, nor accommodate their needs and opinions.

They actually want "good enough" engineers, not "the best". Again, the precise definition of "best" is not the point; we all agree it varies (though there are some common elements to all the best engineers).

Far from being upset by this, I'm thankful: I know I belong with the "good enough", definitely not the best :)

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

#188

Post by datavirtue »

William_BB wrote: post #83
jackdawed wrote: post #33

I interviewed with an early stage pre-seed startup with a very young team, like 25-27. I was interviewed by someone way more junior than me. According to the recruiter, in 3 months, I've made it the furthest and he told me this startup was churning through top tier candidates left and right. After my interview, I immediately knew why. The team was so junior they didn't know how to evaluate senior talent. They didn't…

This is so interesting to hear. From what I've seen, probably half of recent yc startups have founders below 30. I wonder how senior talent views being interviewed by people who are essentially junior/mid developers. I'm in my 20s with good credentials and have quite a few friends in the startup world. I would never feel comfortable interviewing someone with 10+ years of industry experience.

Ten years is almost no experience if they have been doing enterprise development.

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

#189

Post by osullivj »

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.

One consistent red flag I look for after the hire is a refusal to learn anything outside their own narrowly defined scope.

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

#190

Post by mrandish »

bityard wrote: post #118
guywithahat wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only addendum to this I'd add is the best engineers rarely have to go through the hiring process in a meaningful way, it's usually someone recognizes them from a previous job and vouches heavily for them. I say this because if you're going through the hiring process like a chump, I'd leave the ego at the door and not talk about compensation or try to demand remote work on a desirable position.

Yes. The more experienced you are, the more your network does all of your job searching for you in the background. (Of course, this assumes you are actively building and maintaining your network.)

> this assumes you are actively building and maintaining your network.

Frankly, being a consistent super-star engineer on a team of good engineers, is more important than actively maintaining a network. Experienced founders ask everyone in their small circle of long-time, highly credible, proven associates "who's the best engineer you've ever worked with?" If the answer is interesting, they follow up with "Where are they now?

In my startups, I recruited nearly all of the star engineers this way. In most cases, getting them on board required significant sustained effort. Sometimes just finding them wasn't easy. So - if you're really the engineer on your team who most everyone else would identify as "the best", please don't waste any time maintaining a network. Just keep doing truly great work that others will still be telling stories about over drinks years from now.

If you're not that engineer... then by all means be a reliable, likable, good communicator and maintain your network! Because as a founder, I never had enough high-credibility sightings of "great engineers" in the wild, so I had to mostly build teams out of credible referrals of best "good engineers" and even best "intern or new grad engineers with potential" you've worked with.

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