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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"

#271

Post by littlestymaar »

swiftcoder wrote: post #233
littlestymaar wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except if you put any of the above names in an environment that doesn't suit them, they will likely be mediocre at best, and even damaging at worse. The “best candidate” depends a lot on your existing organization.

> Except if you put any of the above names in an environment that doesn't suit them, they will likely be mediocre at best, and even damaging at worse. In the immortal words of Jobs, "real artists ship". Those names are well known precisely because they have a proven track record of shipping products - very few of those would let a challenging environment get in the way of shipping. That said, as their employer, you m…

> In the immortal words of Jobs, "real artists ship".

Art is an individual endeavor, most of the time engineering isn't.

Management is though, and that's why individuals can make or break a product, iif they are in a management position. And being an excellent engineering manager doesn't even necessarily mean you need to be an excellent engineer, and vice versa.

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

#272

Post by indoordin0saur »

BrandonM wrote: post #173
indoordin0saur wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. The stories of old, where an engineer would grind for a decade then have a nice seven-figure payout to buy a home seem a remote memory. I'm not sure what happened because successful start-ups still exist and it seems like somebody is profiting off of acquisitions and IPOs.

Just to add a counterpoint, I was hired as employee #3 in 2011. In 2020, I was able to sell 5.8% of my stake for $200K (as part of Series C). In 2021, I sold another 4.4% for $500K (Series D on terms too good to refuse). I still hold equity or options in nearly 0.5% of the company (which is still private). My wife and I used about half the proceeds of those sales to buy a house (cash offer) in late 2021. I don’t know…

> employee #3 in 2011

Maybe I'm bitter from getting burned but I don't think this is really counterpoint. Employee #3 you're just shy of being a co-founder and 2011 was an era where equity grants were real and companies weren't yet so clever about handing out Leprechaun gold.

EDIT: Random aside, but I looked up "leprechaun gold" and I guess the trope of a gold-like substance that disappears from your pocket when you're not looking is actually from Harry Potter and not a part of the traditional folklore.

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

#273

Post by endigma »

What’s with the pivot away from the purely speed based testing? I recall getting the ick when I saw it as your primary metric for engineer goodness not too long ago and I don’t see any mention of it anymore on your site. Have you pivoted to something more sane?

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

#274

Post by feoren »

ilc wrote: post #267
feoren wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I work for a sense of value and worth to society, and I would accept being paid less if it meant a greater sense of worth. Think about it this way: I have about 40 productive hours per week (young kids, otherwise it'd be more). I could spend 30 hours at a worthless, pointless job that pays well, making enough money for my family, and then 10 hours volunteering on something I care about that makes a difference; o…

You are trying to derive emotional value from your job. I did that for a long time. I don't anymore. I learned it actually made me worse at the job, and didn't allow me to contribute to the things I DEEPLY care about, because I'm actually just pushing work. It is not an easy lesson. But I'll take the money, and derive my value to society elsewhere. Alot easier that way.

Ask the people who worked at Bell Labs in its heyday, or at NASA during the Apollo program, or who make a modest living earning a salary for a charity or organization they care about -- ask them whether it's a mistake to try to derive emotional value from their jobs. The problem isn't that humans become invested in their work, the problem is that almost all jobs are stupid meaningless bullshit. It might seem like a monumental task trying to reinvent the economy so that most jobs aren't just fucking awful mind-prisons, but it's actually easier than changing human nature. Humans want to care about their work, it's just that the parasitic, psycopathic caste of C-suite "Business Leadership" nepo-babies who currently run the entire economy don't give a shit about what humans want. People in the 1950s were largely proud of their jobs, and not because they were morons, but because their jobs actually mattered, they contributed real things to the company and the world, and they were paid well -- within a factor of 10x what the CEO was paid. None of that is true anymore, and it's not human nature's fault. It's the fault of a small percentage of very specific psycopaths.

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

#275

Post by lelanthran »

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.

> Hits home as we’ve not filled a role for over six months.

Sounds like a you problem, TBH. To be even more honest if, after six months, you haven't yet realised what the problem is, your company has deep self-awareness issues.

It's quite simple: if the candidate you want is not applying for your open position, then that's on you; increase the comp, the benefits, the work environment, anything, until the candidate you want sends you a CV.

You're bidding on an open market for talent. I find it hard to believe that the talent you want does not exist.

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

#276

Post by mrandish »

sokoloff wrote: post #238
bluGill wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, what you need are a, b, and c players- and no d or f players.

I think most significant sized operations are built and succeed or fail based on the quality and leadership of the B players. You just can't find enough A players to build an entire [large] company of them and hopefully the C players contribute in a steady, no-drama fashion, leaving the B players* as the differentiating aspect of your particular company. * - and the focus/determination/consistency with which you part…

> You just can't find enough A players to build an entire [large] company of them

The corollary to this is that too many real super star players can hurt a large company, especially if they're too close to each other. They need to be spaced out and inserted into the right places at the key moments when there are critical challenges they are uniquely suited to solve. Super heroes generally make lousy mayors.

Super heroes are able to conquer insurmountable Cthulu-grade existential threats. But that often involves doing things you wouldn't normally do and can cause collateral damage. Fortunately, such threats are fairly rare. Of course, many people who use the term "A players" are really just referring to "good people" not true super stars.

A wise F500 CEO once told me there were only about 20 such super stars in his >10,000 person organization but he shared it more with a tone of "thank goodness there's only about 20 of them" because identifying them and getting them onto the right problems was a constant challenge. He didn't think the organization needed more of them, it just needed to better manage and direct the energies of ones it had - and by direct, he meant "direct it outward" on a massive, high-value problem - not inward laying waste to the day-to-day structures that keep the org running.

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

#277

Post by j45 »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #228
j45 wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One can always train for knowledge and skills, attitude is much harder.

It is definitely doable if you have a good mentor / role model you admire. I change a lot in my early to mid 20s because one of my uncles took the time to have one on one convos with me to give me feedback on my behavior and why I should do x, y or z instead. It was like I was a completely different person a year later. Senior Software Engineers should not promote bad habits to juniors.

Absolutely can be developed, takes buy in from both sides.

Unfortunately in tech either seniors aren't available as they should be everywhere, and juniors can.. sometimes.. prefer.. shiny object syndrome and re-learn everything from scratch, until they realize they aren't the first and that's a great thing that will help them go much further, quicker.

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

#278

Post by lelanthran »

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.

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

And you haven't had a single candidate that could possibly pick up the missing skills[1]?

==================================================

[1] I don't know what those are. There are two extremes here:

1. PhD level Maths is involved.

2. You require them to have experience in a specific product (anything from a Python library to a framework like HF)

If your requirements are closer to the first extreme, well sure, you're gonna have to wait for someone that has that.

If your requirements are closer to the second extreme, why not just take a candidate? If it takes 2 months to skill up on whatever product you need them to skill up on, right now you would have had that position filled for the last 4 months with your ideal candidate.

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

#279

Post by godelski »

Loudergood wrote: post #245
godelski wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We hire smart people so they can tell us what to do Or from Bell Labs: "How do you manage a bunch of geniuses? You don't" > Companies who generically look for "the best engineers" If you need "the best" then your system is (most likely) too complicated and you're going to have a hard time keeping "the best" as their work becomes frustrating. > The best engineers will tell you why your architecture is wrong, why you…

>These are "I'm thinking out loud" phrases. Not just that, it's also "I want to know what your opinion and reasoning is on this as well" This has often led to some of the most productive conversations of my career.

  > This has often led to some of the most productive conversations of my career.
Same! Often the conversations I've learned the most from are about topics I already think I know a fair amount about but someone mentions some seemingly tiny detail that ends up changing everything. These conversations tend to stick with you long after they're held, as you have to keep updating so many other beliefs lol

Which is to say, collaboration is an incredible tool. You have a lot to gain by knowing others know more than you about certain subjects. This can even come from a very junior person. It's less common, but sometimes they ask a question that they often think are dumb but throws a wrench in everything. (Juniors, speak up. Worst case seniors should use those as teaching moments. Best case, you look like a genius. If seniors get mad, start applying elsewhere (unless you really are holding up a lot of conversations))

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

#280

Post by mac-mc »

tripletpeaks wrote: post #230
mac-mc wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

JIRA is so dysfunctional in many places that people do a good chunk of intra-team planning in spreadsheets and docs instead, and use JIRA sparingly to make everyone faster. I saw this effect live at my previous big tech after they moved to JIRA. JIRA got used way less than Phabricator because of all the friction it introduced and a lot more informal google docs + slack bot usage increased instead. I remember to this…

I think the core error is marrying a communication tool for the people doing the work, to a reporting tool for people who aren’t doing the work. Managers are all about that kind of automatic hyper-legibility (I’m skeptical about that being worth anything like the investment most companies put into it to begin with, but that’s another topic) but all it does is shove important communication into side-channels and make…

I was the manager in this case, and I also hated JIRA with a passion. It's often the managers doing the alternative spreadsheets too and only using JIRA as necessary. I found you didn't need to "hound" developers with Phabricator and part of the hounding was me being hounded further up about it. Tools matter! Developers love automated organization!
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