Finding Great Dev Talent

Startups think they can just say they use Ruby on Rails and that will attract super star hackers. Just because it 'seems' that many hackers are moving to RoR doesn't mean they wanna work for you. You should tell them why they should work for you. Just as you're looking for good talent, they're looking for a good environment in which they can be learn and practice they art.

Re: Finding Great Dev Talent

#5

Post by patryn20 » Tue, Apr 17, 2007, 6:17 PM UTC

Maybe a lot of startups also need to realize that an enthusiastic person with years of experience and an incomplete degree is better than most college graduates with no real-world experience.

Seriously. The amount of degree snobbery in these startups founded by Stanford (and other top-level school) graduates is ridiculous. They are turning down tons of great developers everyday, most likely.

Re: Finding Great Dev Talent

#6

Post by phony_identity » Tue, Apr 17, 2007, 6:27 PM UTC

These guys are doomed.

To repeat what I've said elsewhere: we need a succinct term for non-technical people who think they should be doing startups and just have to find some programmers to realize their visions. You can't call them suits or MBAs because most of them didn't go to B-school and don't wear suits. What to call them?

Re: Finding Great Dev Talent

#7

Post by lindsayrgwatt » Tue, Apr 17, 2007, 6:40 PM UTC

budu3 wrote: post #4

Startups think they can just say they use Ruby on Rails and that will attract super star hackers. Just because it 'seems' that many hackers are moving to RoR doesn't mean they wanna work for you. You should tell them why they should work for you. Just as you're looking for good talent, they're looking for a good environment in which they can be learn and practice they art.

As someone who's looking for talent, let me ask you what you'd be looking for. Here's what I think high quality developers are looking for; I'd love your thoughts on whether I'm out to lunch or not: 1) Chance to be part of a great engineering team 2) Chance to solve complex problems facing users 3) Opportunity to push the limits of what's possible with technology 4) Ability to influence company's strategy and design

Let me know your thoughts.

Re: Finding Great Dev Talent

#8

Post by lindsayrgwatt » Tue, Apr 17, 2007, 6:42 PM UTC

phony_identity wrote: post #6

These guys are doomed. To repeat what I've said elsewhere: we need a succinct term for non-technical people who think they should be doing startups and just have to find some programmers to realize their visions. You can't call them suits or MBAs because most of them didn't go to B-school and don't wear suits. What to call them?

What about "Free Lunchers"? They think that it's a hot market so they can easily create a company and then flip it for some cash?

Re: Finding Great Dev Talent

#9

Post by aston » Tue, Apr 17, 2007, 7:14 PM UTC

lindsayrgwatt wrote: post #7

budu3 wrote: post #4

Startups think they can just say they use Ruby on Rails and that will attract super star hackers. Just because it 'seems' that many hackers are moving to RoR doesn't mean they wanna work for you. You should tell them why they should work for you. Just as you're looking for good talent, they're looking for a good environment in which they can be learn and practice they art.

As someone who's looking for talent, let me ask you what you'd be looking for. Here's what I think high quality developers are looking for; I'd love your thoughts on whether I'm out to lunch or not: 1) Chance to be part of a great engineering team 2) Chance to solve complex problems facing users 3) Opportunity to push the limits of what's possible with technology 4) Ability to influence company's strategy and design…

I think your list cuts across the spectrum too broadly. Younger, more inexperienced developers should be looking, number one, to work with people who know a ton more than they do so that they can learn from the greats. Older, more experienced devs will want more influence on design (although maybe not strategy).

I think the solving complex problems part is not a real factor. Every business has its problems, and most of them are non-trivial (otherwise, everyone would be in the business), so while it's maybe your job to convince someone that your problems are worth solving, it's not necessary to prove that your problems are hard.

I also think most hackers get less joy out of pushing technology to the limits and more joy out of doing something well. Sometimes those may coincide (scaling Rails, for example) but often times pushing technology to the limits means you're not solving the problem elegantly/economically. Take Google for example; they've got the most powerful distributed computation system in the world, but it's done on some really crappy PC's.

Re: Finding Great Dev Talent

#10

Post by Tichy » Tue, Apr 17, 2007, 8:28 PM UTC

lindsayrgwatt wrote: post #8

phony_identity wrote: post #6

These guys are doomed. To repeat what I've said elsewhere: we need a succinct term for non-technical people who think they should be doing startups and just have to find some programmers to realize their visions. You can't call them suits or MBAs because most of them didn't go to B-school and don't wear suits. What to call them?

What about "Free Lunchers"? They think that it's a hot market so they can easily create a company and then flip it for some cash?

Whereas you are in the market for the hard work, I suppose?