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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"

#281

Post by TrackerFF »

onesandofgrain wrote: post #8

Companies that say they only want the "the best engineers" or "we only hire A-students" and "top of the cake-engineers" I've usually found to be a breeding-ground for a somewhat toxic work-environment.

Since I can't edit my first reply, I'll also say this:

Many of these shops are strategically preying on the infamous "insecure overachiever" types.

The idea is to work smart and ambitious (but insecure) people to the bone for a short period. 1-3 years. Then when exit opportunities arise, most will leave. Those that stay will have been indoctrinated to think that the toxic culture is normal, or they simply just thrive.

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

#282

Post by VirusNewbie »

alexchantavy wrote: post #266
VirusNewbie wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotal comment here, Netflix had the best interview process of any company I’ve applied to in my ~20 year career. Very challenging, but no tricky questions, it felt collaborative and low pressure (comparatively at least) and everyone seemed like someone I would enjoy as a coworker.

What kind of process was it?

Pretty typical big tech process, just done in a very good way.

I had an initial screening where I had to write some code, write a test case, run it, then discuss how i'd parallelize the algorithm (didn't have to write this part). The code wasn't tricky, but I was glad I had practiced writing code quickly as general interview prep.

After the screen was an algorithmic coding round, but it was enjoyable and nothing that couldn't have been solved with some basic data structures and recursion. The interviewer was talkative and was happy to brainstorm as I talked through my solution, it felt like pair programming where I was driving, not just me being watched while I coded.

Then I did two system design interviews and an "HR" type interview/culture fit one.

I also had a 'practical' coding interview that again was challenging but really just some basic data munging. They gave me some (simplified) data structures and a simple version of a problem Netflix has to deal with, then I had to rearrange the data to the right format.

Again, not tricky, but needed lots of thought, they made me run code, and I was glad I had done practice interviews.

Finally, I was scheduled to the final round of the senior manager team interview, but by then I had accepted an offer for a team I liked at Google.

Google also had a really nice interview process except it took 4x as long.

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

#284

Post by Sammi »

goopypoop wrote: post #217
osullivj wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Do you mean outside their job description?

Anecdotally: People who aren't flexible about their job description are some of the worst people to work with. They always leave the tough unforeseen challenges to their colleagues to handle. Kinda the definition of "not a team player".

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

#285

Post by desolate_muffin »

y-curious wrote: post #109
pjdesno wrote: post #72

I worked for 5 startups before I went back to grad school and then entered academia; it was over a quarter century ago but I think some of the lessons remain valid. The best startup I was at was one where four engineers who knew each other had dropped out of a big company and started with a consulting project, developing the first version of the product for an early customer (a national lab) using FPGAs. Then they go…

Yeah there's a reason that "ideas guys" are memed to death online. It's very easy to have a great idea, the skill is in selling that idea to VCs, customers, friends and family etc.

Well and actually building the thing well enough for them to become/remain customers.

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

#287

Post by ponector »

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?

Should you hire top talent to fix boring bugs? To implement primitive, yet useful features?

Imagine formula 1 team. Should they hire top talent for every position? Like a delivery driver, for example

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

#288

Post by ilc »

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.

Why?

I'm 25+ YOE. 9+ YOE in small companies.

Now, I'll drop a line on ya: I've made several million dollars of mistakes, could easily be 8 figures, though I doubt 9.

Do you want to pay for all that learning someone ELSE paid for, or learn it yourself?

Your call.

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

#289

Post by 010101010101 »

jama211 wrote: post #270
tikhonj wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, with good leadership who knows how to support different people with different motivations, you really don't. But good leaders are even harder to find and hire than good engineers. And they probably won't use Jira. Or tickets.

The worst managers I’ve ever had didn’t use Jira, because they didn’t use much of anything at all, and everyone was confused about when and where their next task would come from. The answer was usually “they’ll message you at any time with a random request and demand a deadline at the same time”. Jira helps turn terrible managers into mediocre ones, it at least forces them to write down what needs to be done and let’…

The best managers I’ve ever had didn’t use Jira, because they didn’t use much of anything at all, and more senior engineers were trusted to manage work streams and run projects without needing to conform to a process demanded by someone not directly committing code.

Jira might turn terrible managers into mediocre ones, but it also turns good managers into mediocre ones too.

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

#290

Post by ilc »

OhMeadhbh wrote: post #34

I always chuckle when I see a posting where the "BUSINESS" founder says something like "looking for a founding engineer to define our tech stack, but we've already decided we're going to use Python 2.8, Solaris, Azure and a custom build of VIM." [Obviously this is a bit of an exaggeration.]

Only mild. They'd be using Arch Linux and Rust.
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