21–30 of 51 posts
> If 10x engineers truly exist, why do pay scales intra company not cover a 10x spectrum?
The value you produce presents a cap on how much you can earn, not a floor. If you want to capture that value you need leverage, high end SWEs usually don't have that leverage. The statement is wrong anyway, at companies like Google, pay ranges from 200k-10million+.
> Interviews will transition to be more real-world scenarios, perhaps within the customer's actual codebase
Many good companies already do this, it doesn't actually change the interviews that much. All interview questions my company has are taken straight from the codebase - the end result is a standard system design + leetcode style interview because we actually need to solve these problems somewhat regularly.
Other options listed that lengthen the interview process from the current 6-8 hour standard are off the table at any companies targeting top of market talent who won't put up with longer than standard interviews (makes it hard to get companies to compete for the interviewee).
Companies not targeting top of market talent will almost always ape top of market won't adapt because they are not generally tech first and thus simply want to adopt "industry best practices". The organizational incentives to do this are incredibly strong.
Small tech-first startups are usually the only ones who can muster the organization will to do something more original recruiting wise but will necessarily stay a small part of the market.
> Interview performance (at least for those hired) definitely does not correlate with on-the-job performance
Citation needed, every company I've seen try to do a large scale assessment of this has found that interview performance is positively correlated with on-the job performance[0]. (I've seen some actual data + studies, but not sure any of them are fully public). What does the author have to offer against this?
I'd encourage the author to think much more about the incentive structures of the actors involved here and try coming to some new (more interesting) conclusions.
[0] https://rework.withgoogle.com/guides/hiring-use-structured-i....
Why do we need to measure productivity? No one seems to ask that question. To me it seems that trying to measure the individual (people) parts of a system in some quasi-reproducable and transitive way does more harm to the total output of the system than good. Do we measure trust (upon which all business is based)? If we relinquish individual productivity from our “measure all the things so we can improve them” obses…
Many individuals don't like startups because of this risk, most startup only get 1-2 chances to get productivity right. Very few waste time measuring productivity.
Measuring productivity is silly. Measure results. Here's my desired review: Entire team goes around and answers the question: who do you want to leave? Two strikes get another chance. Three strikes and they're gone. Same with the boss. Keep their job or replace em? More than three say replace the level up does a panel with the three. During our last layoff the question for the managers was "if you could drop any head…
This sounds like it might work as a one-time thing, but just imagine the second-order effects. Your annual reviews literally become Survivor, how could you ever prevent backroom alliances?
Why do we need to measure productivity? No one seems to ask that question. To me it seems that trying to measure the individual (people) parts of a system in some quasi-reproducable and transitive way does more harm to the total output of the system than good. Do we measure trust (upon which all business is based)? If we relinquish individual productivity from our “measure all the things so we can improve them” obses…
So would you just fire the entire team if a product does poorly? Many individuals don't like startups because of this risk, most startup only get 1-2 chances to get productivity right. Very few waste time measuring productivity.
If they don't get productivity right from the get-go, they only get 1 chance instead of the "1-2 chances".
That's the risk most individuals don't like about startups, if productivity is not a centerpiece of their operation, the leadership pushes for the only other solution they believe: long hours in inhumane working conditions.
I don't believe there's causation between a start-up productivity and their product success, but I would love to be proven wrong.
Why do we need to measure productivity? No one seems to ask that question. To me it seems that trying to measure the individual (people) parts of a system in some quasi-reproducable and transitive way does more harm to the total output of the system than good. Do we measure trust (upon which all business is based)? If we relinquish individual productivity from our “measure all the things so we can improve them” obses…
Micromanage here, red tape there, metrics-squeeze salary people and blame anything but your management tactics when things go south. I have been fortunate enough to have had some managers who knew better than all this nonsense though.
You just can't argue against results.
Lot of poorly thought out stuff here, I suspect the author is young and lacks real world experience running a business. > If 10x engineers truly exist, why do pay scales intra company not cover a 10x spectrum? The value you produce presents a cap on how much you can earn, not a floor. If you want to capture that value you need leverage, high end SWEs usually don't have that leverage. The statement is wrong anyway, at…
Ugh I can’t find the original source but this concept comes from a 2013 study from Google? Finding old stuff on the internet is hard. https://www.quora.com/Is-there-a-link-between-job-interview-...
Measuring productivity is silly. Measure results. Here's my desired review: Entire team goes around and answers the question: who do you want to leave? Two strikes get another chance. Three strikes and they're gone. Same with the boss. Keep their job or replace em? More than three say replace the level up does a panel with the three. During our last layoff the question for the managers was "if you could drop any head…
>Entire team goes around and answers the question: who do you want to leave? This sounds like it might work as a one-time thing, but just imagine the second-order effects. Your annual reviews literally become Survivor, how could you ever prevent backroom alliances?
Where is the Moneyball for knowledge workers?
Oh it exists. Lines of code, number of commits, number of documents and other such BS uncorrelated with actual work. Imagine how poor management must be to think more lines of code == more revenue.