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Things we've learned about building products

newsletter.posthog.com

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Re: Things we've learned about building products

#51

Post by kayo_20211030 »

adamgordonbell wrote: post #40
skyyler wrote: post #37

In the first image in the article, what is a "SuperDay"? Is this like a trial day where you're invited to do a day of work for free?

They pay you for it, but it is a trial work day. Story time. I interviewed for a job at posthog. I knew that I really loved their communication style. But I hadn't used their product and didn't know a ton about them except that their writing is fantastic. The 'product for engineers' focus that they is cool but when I had an interview, it was clear that I wasn't a 'product for engineering' person. When they proposed t…

Getting paid is, at least, fair. Everyone has some skin in the game. Pretty impressive.

Re: Things we've learned about building products

#52

Post by fdlaks »

Wow. 900 applications down to 10 "SuperDay" participants down to 4 hires. All to work at.... posthog. What a depressing statistic.

This felt like a humble brag to help make their point about hiring good talent and how many people want to be a hogger (or whatever they call people that work there) but this just really highlights how brutal the job market is. Yes the market is also flooded with unqualified applicants and or bots that will apply to any job listing thats posted, but still this is ridiculous.

I really feel bad for the 6 people who had to endure the technical interview AND THEN were given the honor of attending the "SuperDay" which sounds like a full day of at least 5 interviews, 2 - 3 being technical, and still got rejected. Not sure what the technical interview is like at posthog, but assuming this is just an hour phone screen those 6 people still probably had more than 7 hours devoted just to interviewing at this place just to get rejected. That's not including any time spent preparing for interviews or anything else either.

There must be a better way to do interviews. Posthog is not Google, Posthog (or any other startup) does not need to hire to the same standard that Google does.

Let me know when you're on par with Google in terms of revenue or benefits or prestige, or anything else really that Google offers then sure I will jump through as many hoops as you want for the interview. Until then, hard pass.

Re: Things we've learned about building products

#53

Post by rbaudibert »

fdlaks wrote: post #52

Wow. 900 applications down to 10 "SuperDay" participants down to 4 hires. All to work at.... posthog. What a depressing statistic. This felt like a humble brag to help make their point about hiring good talent and how many people want to be a hogger (or whatever they call people that work there) but this just really highlights how brutal the job market is. Yes the market is also flooded with unqualified applicants an…

Superday is a paid day of work with a 30-minute talk with a founder + a 30min review about the day with an engineer

Re: Things we've learned about building products

#54

Post by fdlaks »

rbaudibert wrote: post #53
fdlaks wrote: post #52

Wow. 900 applications down to 10 "SuperDay" participants down to 4 hires. All to work at.... posthog. What a depressing statistic. This felt like a humble brag to help make their point about hiring good talent and how many people want to be a hogger (or whatever they call people that work there) but this just really highlights how brutal the job market is. Yes the market is also flooded with unqualified applicants an…

Superday is a paid day of work with a 30-minute talk with a founder + a 30min review about the day with an engineer

Ah ok my mistake, so that’s 8 hours including the review and discussion portion for the super day, then let’s say 45 minutes for the technical interview so 8 hours and 45 minutes of time spent interviewing at a minimum.

Re: Things we've learned about building products

#55

Post by mannyv »

abc-1 wrote: post #9

There are companies out there that probably do none of these things and are x1000 more successful from a revenue or market cap perspective. Seems like the biggest successes are simply being at the right place at the right time and not being a complete idiot. Nobody wants to hear that though.

Salespeople are what make a successful company, from a revenue point of view. There's only one company that I know of that's been successful at that level without sales: Atlassian. Everyone else has salespeople.

If you if you don't have salespeople then you need to make a product that works and fulfills user needs. And it has to be good enough for word of mouth...which is where posthog's experience comes in.

Re: Things we've learned about building products

#56

Post by sibeliuss »

fdlaks wrote: post #52

Wow. 900 applications down to 10 "SuperDay" participants down to 4 hires. All to work at.... posthog. What a depressing statistic. This felt like a humble brag to help make their point about hiring good talent and how many people want to be a hogger (or whatever they call people that work there) but this just really highlights how brutal the job market is. Yes the market is also flooded with unqualified applicants an…

Having attended a SuperDay, I can hands down state that their interview process is the best I've ever had (didn't get the job tho, which was probably for the best at this phase of life). Designed to perfectly lift signal and minimize noise, for what they're trying to achieve. Don't change a thing PostHog.

Re: Things we've learned about building products

#57

Post by enraged_camel »

fdlaks wrote: post #52

Wow. 900 applications down to 10 "SuperDay" participants down to 4 hires. All to work at.... posthog. What a depressing statistic. This felt like a humble brag to help make their point about hiring good talent and how many people want to be a hogger (or whatever they call people that work there) but this just really highlights how brutal the job market is. Yes the market is also flooded with unqualified applicants an…

>> Wow. 900 applications down to 10 "SuperDay" participants down to 4 hires. All to work at.... posthog. What a depressing statistic.

Yeah, at first I thought it was some kind of parody, then I realized it's a serious article and was astonished.

Re: Things we've learned about building products

#58

Post by fdlaks »

sibeliuss wrote: post #56
fdlaks wrote: post #52

Wow. 900 applications down to 10 "SuperDay" participants down to 4 hires. All to work at.... posthog. What a depressing statistic. This felt like a humble brag to help make their point about hiring good talent and how many people want to be a hogger (or whatever they call people that work there) but this just really highlights how brutal the job market is. Yes the market is also flooded with unqualified applicants an…

Having attended a SuperDay, I can hands down state that their interview process is the best I've ever had (didn't get the job tho, which was probably for the best at this phase of life). Designed to perfectly lift signal and minimize noise, for what they're trying to achieve. Don't change a thing PostHog.

I personally think there are more efficient ways to get a high signal to noise ratio on if you are going to be a good hire or not without having the candidate invest almost 9 hours into an interview process, but that’s just me

Re: Things we've learned about building products

#59

Post by echelon »

enraged_camel wrote: post #57
fdlaks wrote: post #52

Wow. 900 applications down to 10 "SuperDay" participants down to 4 hires. All to work at.... posthog. What a depressing statistic. This felt like a humble brag to help make their point about hiring good talent and how many people want to be a hogger (or whatever they call people that work there) but this just really highlights how brutal the job market is. Yes the market is also flooded with unqualified applicants an…

>> Wow. 900 applications down to 10 "SuperDay" participants down to 4 hires. All to work at.... posthog. What a depressing statistic. Yeah, at first I thought it was some kind of parody, then I realized it's a serious article and was astonished.

> “If you aren't excited about what you're working on, pivot. It's as simple as that. You'll achieve more if you're working on something that feels yours.”

I doubt the rank and file ICs feel this way at all. It's analytics plumbing, and it's all for the sake of the paycheck.

Re: Things we've learned about building products

#60

Post by intelVISA »

scottishbee wrote: post #47
Chyzwar wrote: post #5

18. Instead, forcing PRs into day of work unit, it is better to be minimum testable increment. Some features just need more work to be tested. Forcing everything into tiny tickets make both planning tedious and often introduce bugs in half finished features. 22. I saw design system fail in many companies. It is very hard to get right people and budget for this to succeed. For most startups are better to pick existing…

27. I don't think you do disagree. Read point 29: Hire and rely on product engineers. They have full-stack technical skills needed to build a product along with customer obsession. Yes, this means they need to talk to users, do user interviews, recruit tests for new features, collect feedback, do support, and respond to incidents.

> skills needed to build a product along with customer obsession

So a disempowered founder-lite? What's their incentive?

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