Everyone thinks they're hiring the top 1% (2005) • Hacker News Board

Re: Everyone thinks they're hiring the top 1% (2005)

#91

Post by angelbob » Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 8:08 PM UTC

billybob wrote: post #38

mduerksen wrote: post #19

For similar reasons, every programmer thinks he is the top 1% - including me ;)

I sure don't. Personally, my outlook swings between "I'm so awesome, look at what I made" to "I am an idiot - why am I in this field?" The latter comes when I'm 2 hours into a debugging session and still stumped, or when I'm looking at code written by somebody famous, or when I get an explanation of some concept or piece of code and I still don't understand. (Rebuttals: debugging is actually hard sometimes, and that…

I try hard not to assume "top 1%" == "smartest 1%". I tried being very smart for awhile, and I'm really pretty good at it.

Turns out that "dedicated" and "hardworking" trump "smart" nine times out of ten. So now I'm trying for that. It's taking longer.

Re: Everyone thinks they're hiring the top 1% (2005)

#92

Post by jonstjohn » Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 8:14 PM UTC

agentultra wrote: post #59

What I like about the concept of the mythical "top 1%" is that every company must hire only these cream-of-the-crop developers. It's quite presumptuous to believe that you could convince someone with a PhD in CS and probably at least a bachelors in Math to work on your web application. This is someone who could literally be considered in the top 1%: think Norvig, Sussman, etc. The truly great programmers who taught t…

Absolutely agree. Finding the right fit for a company, somebody who is dedicated and works well with a team, is probably more important than that top 1%.

Re: Everyone thinks they're hiring the top 1% (2005)

#93

Post by ww520 » Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 8:30 PM UTC

Tycho wrote: post #43

potatolicious wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think you're hiring the top 1%, but you're not paying at top-1% levels, you're probably not actually hiring the top 1%. That's my main takeaway anyhow. Extraordinary people command extraordinary compensation - if you can't cough up the cash you're not going to get to play.

What would you say was the lower bound for the top 1% salary range?

200K plus if you are serious.

Re: Everyone thinks they're hiring the top 1% (2005)

#94

Post by ww520 » Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 8:34 PM UTC

mooism2 wrote: post #31

potatolicious wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think you're hiring the top 1%, but you're not paying at top-1% levels, you're probably not actually hiring the top 1%. That's my main takeaway anyhow. Extraordinary people command extraordinary compensation - if you can't cough up the cash you're not going to get to play.

I'm not sure how true this is. Paying high wages to knowledge workers causes them in general to be less productive. The top 1% might rather go for the money anyway. But the top 1% also care about working conditions (more screen space, faster computers, fewer interruptions, etc). Perhaps more than money, after they're being paid enough not to have to worry about money.

High wage is the baseline. The working conditions are on top of those.

Re: Everyone thinks they're hiring the top 1% (2005)

#95

Post by herdrick » Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 8:49 PM UTC

zasz wrote: post #83

Tycho wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The guy who started programming Facebook with Zuckerbeg apparently had just finished 'Perl for Dummies' and never coded before in his life... (the For Dummies books are really good, mind you)

Just because it was Facebook doesn't mean the initial code was very good. Twitter's suffering a lot of technical debt from some bad initial decisions in the codebase.

Those weren't bad decisions, they were technical debt - a very useful thing in early stage startups.

Re: Everyone thinks they're hiring the top 1% (2005)

#96

Post by bootload » Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 10:45 PM UTC

danohuiginn wrote: post #51

bartonfink wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to play devil's advocate, doesn't that rest on the assumption that the top 1% of software developers are also strong enough networkers that they can get a job pretty much anywhere without using the formal channels which would require item (d)? I'm not at all convinced that's the case, even though I understand that there's some truth to the conclusion.

The point is that they don't need to be networkers, because they will be networkees. i.e. other people will notice how good they are, and actively try to get them into appropriate jobs. I think this is largely true, though it takes a while for reputation to spread. There are some brilliant young developers who haven't yet been noticed by anybody in a position to hire them -- but they won't stay in that situation more…

"... other people will notice how good they are, and actively try to get them into appropriate jobs. ..."

Do you mean, "other people who work with them" or "other people who notice them"? I ask this because how do you tell if someone is a great hacker unless you work with them?

Re: Everyone thinks they're hiring the top 1% (2005)

#97

Post by summitpush » Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 10:47 PM UTC

cldwalker wrote: post #46

Why are we submitting 5+ year old content?

It's good to revisit the classics once in a while

Re: Everyone thinks they're hiring the top 1% (2005)

#98

Post by timmy_chen » Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 11:09 PM UTC

nailer wrote: post #35

potatolicious wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think you're hiring the top 1%, but you're not paying at top-1% levels, you're probably not actually hiring the top 1%. That's my main takeaway anyhow. Extraordinary people command extraordinary compensation - if you can't cough up the cash you're not going to get to play.

I find that people who are truly good actually love what they do. I don't know if I fit in that category, but I remember walking to work a few weeks ago thinking about one particular project: 'if I wasn't here I'd be doing this for free'. That said, I'm paid above average for the industry. The best combination of passion and reward I've ever seen has been small hedge funds and quant shops. They're smart, love what th…

how does a programmer find small hedge funds and quant shops? ive been thinking about a job hop.

Re: Everyone thinks they're hiring the top 1% (2005)

#99

Post by trustfundbaby » Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 11:18 PM UTC

This explains why recruiters become even more aggressive in trying to contact you when you actually have a job ... never understood that.

Re: Everyone thinks they're hiring the top 1% (2005)

#100

Post by cwp » Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 11:26 PM UTC

bartonfink wrote: post #45

edw519 wrote: post #40

In fact, one thing I have noticed is that the people who I consider to be good software developers barely ever apply for jobs at all. Good point. The best developers I ever hired were (a) already working, (b) not looking, (c) referred, and (d) without a current resume. Therefore, the people who I consider to be good software developers probably don't have a current resume. Therefore, the top 1% of good software devel…

Just to play devil's advocate, doesn't that rest on the assumption that the top 1% of software developers are also strong enough networkers that they can get a job pretty much anywhere without using the formal channels which would require item (d)? I'm not at all convinced that's the case, even though I understand that there's some truth to the conclusion.

Yes, it does rest on that assumption, but I think the assumption is warranted. The bar for "strong enough" networking skills is pretty low, after all. An developer who's so socially inept that nobody he's worked with would recommend him for a job probably isn't in the top 1% anyway.