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Hire for slope, not Y-Intercept

matt-rickard.com

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Re: Hire for slope, not Y-Intercept

#51

Post by ebiester »

I dislike this in that it promotes ageist thinking in many people.

There is a presumption that younger people will have a higher slope. In one sense, it's true. Consider the weightlifting analogy. It is easier to train to deadlift from half your body weight to 1x your body weight, than is is to deadlift 2x your body weight to 2.5x your body weight.

Similarly, capable junior developers become "mid-level" and sometimes "senior" developers in two years. They learn how to build a system. They learn how to be on a team. On good teams, they learn good design principles. Fast forward and take that same developer with 18 years of experience. In the next two years, how much are they stretching?

Or maybe, we can consider the intercept. It takes that developer 2 weeks to become proficient in a new library, and it takes a junior developer of similar general aptitude 2 months. How do you consider growth there? For the more experienced developer, their actual slope is pretty low: they didn't learn any new concepts, they just learned a new syntax. The junior developer has a high slope: they learned entirely new concepts.

So, we will diminish the slope of an experienced developer in most cases.

So, don't use this as an excuse to discriminate against the 60 year old developer because you're "worried about the slope."

Re: Hire for slope, not Y-Intercept

#52

Post by chmod600 »

That's kind of an odd way to look at things, because people are on some kind of curve.

A steep slope today might plateau very soon due to various limitations. The projects that seem great today might bog down in technical debt before release. The project that just launched with great reviews might have operational problems as people start using it.

All of these things will take the shine off the potential you see today, and make a track record with actual results seem appealing.

And it also explains why people stop learning new tech: because they are learning from the mistakes they made earlier, which will make them better at seeing projects through the entire lifecycle.

But if you are trying to impress investors today, then yes, you need a lot of steep slopes that are visible now. And hopefully your company reaches escape velocity before those limiting factors creep in.

Re: Hire for slope, not Y-Intercept

#53

Post by slumdev »

ebiester wrote: post #51

I dislike this in that it promotes ageist thinking in many people. There is a presumption that younger people will have a higher slope. In one sense, it's true. Consider the weightlifting analogy. It is easier to train to deadlift from half your body weight to 1x your body weight, than is is to deadlift 2x your body weight to 2.5x your body weight. Similarly, capable junior developers become "mid-level" and sometimes…

A lifelong learner with decades of experience will outperform a 5-year "senior" many times over, not just in output but also in the headaches and mess that they save you from having to experience.

What we need is better titling. There's nothing shameful about being a junior or a mid-level for multiple years each. Until we get that, one can usually tease out the "seniorness" of the position by discussing salary.

Re: Hire for slope, not Y-Intercept

#54

Post by karmakaze »

ebiester wrote: post #51

I dislike this in that it promotes ageist thinking in many people. There is a presumption that younger people will have a higher slope. In one sense, it's true. Consider the weightlifting analogy. It is easier to train to deadlift from half your body weight to 1x your body weight, than is is to deadlift 2x your body weight to 2.5x your body weight. Similarly, capable junior developers become "mid-level" and sometimes…

I don't find this at all. Myself as an experienced developer can drop into any situation, survey the terrain, not knowing any of the terminology or idioms same as with a junior. I would much more quickly be able to map out what I find into parallels of what I already know and be proficient much faster than someone who's climbing slope quickly. Basically I was high up on one hill and merely learned to translate (shift over) to another one.

The way to deal with this and the other is to think of the y-axis in terms not of learning, but of becoming proficient. The better job posts are clearly aware of this, stating what stack they use, but that they're open to experts on any stack.

There's also actual benefit to having a lot of high slope interns. They are sponges and learn fast, have the least to unlearn or conflicting past knowledge, and together with high y-intercept experts is the best combo I've found.

Re: Hire for slope, not Y-Intercept

#55

Post by cortesoft »

ebiester wrote: post #51

I dislike this in that it promotes ageist thinking in many people. There is a presumption that younger people will have a higher slope. In one sense, it's true. Consider the weightlifting analogy. It is easier to train to deadlift from half your body weight to 1x your body weight, than is is to deadlift 2x your body weight to 2.5x your body weight. Similarly, capable junior developers become "mid-level" and sometimes…

This is all about value to the company… they have to pay the 60 year old the actual value of their work, because it is established and known. The 22 year old they can pay at an entry level rate, and then in a few years be getting intermediate value for that same entry level rate.

Re: Hire for slope, not Y-Intercept

#56

Post by adverbly »

Seriously?

What are you are hiring using y=mx + b?

I suppose you also assumed that all employees are mass-less, friction-less, perfect spheres as well?

If you are gonna oversimplify, why not just say "Hire for integral"?

I can't even.

Re: Hire for slope, not Y-Intercept

#58

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

adverbly wrote: post #56

Seriously? What are you are hiring using y=mx + b? I suppose you also assumed that all employees are mass-less, friction-less, perfect spheres as well? If you are gonna oversimplify, why not just say "Hire for integral"? I can't even.

Spherical weightless employees in a perfect vacuum.

Re: Hire for slope, not Y-Intercept

#59

Post by autokad »

agallant wrote: post #25

I'm a huge fan of lifelong learning, and overall agree with this post. But, from a hiring perspective, it is missing a few important details: 1. Sometimes you have things that need to be achieved in a time-sensitive fashion, i.e. the time to ramp up may be problematic, and "taking a chance" may have real business ramifications. 2. Even if you don't have anything urgent, naturally there should be some discount factor…

also, how would you measure someone's slope? would it even be fair to evaluate them by it?

Re: Hire for slope, not Y-Intercept

#60

Post by dasil003 »

This article is ambiguous. Are we talking about the ramp for onboarding and productivity within a specific company/role, or are we talking about some measure of absolute skill and productivity? The former is a legit consideration, the latter is meaningless without knowing the ceiling (ie. a very senior person is not growing fast is not a problem if they already have exceptional abilities).

Also, in either case, it's very misleading to show a linear graph as presented here. These graphs will be much more curved in both cases. The entire trick of hiring is anticipating what those graphs will look like down the line.

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