4 ms·

> me: hi i'm here about the lead developer position > CEO: cool man lets grab a couple beers > me: (over beers) hi i'm here for the lead developer position >

> me: hi i'm here about the lead developer position > CEO: cool man lets grab a couple beers > me: (over beers) hi i'm here for the lead developer position > CEO: yeah dude but are you any good at foosball? > me: (over foosball) i'm here for the lead developer position This is surprisingly common and not just for hiring technical roles. I find it especially odd when founders do it in the process of hiring their first few employees....it's like dude, you don't even have a culture yet, why do you care about culture fit? It would be impossible to quantify but I wonder how many good ideas tackled by good founders never got off the ground because they were overly fixated on getting the first 10 hires EXACTLY right.

tedmiston 11y ago
I don't know that grabbing beers and playing foosball necessarily equates to getting the hires "EXACTLY right". I feel like it's the litmus test for "Can I hang out with this person casually and for very extended periods of time?" Edit: Not sure why the down votes. For anyone that's worked in a seed/pre-seed startup, this is absolutely an essential thing.
- leroy_masochist 11y ago
  That's a valid point and I'm not sure why people are downvoting you. I think the litmus test should be, "do I not dislike spending a lot of time with this person", not "do I really like spending time with this person". Shooting the shit over beers and foosball is really testing for the latter, not the former. Plus let's face it, a lot of technically gifted and experienced people ain't exactly extroverts. And people act different when they know they're being evaluated anyway. So some founders' insistence on fratting it up for step one of the hiring process just strikes me as stupid. And by the way...I'm a tall, white, former college athlete male. I'm VERY comfortable in a "drinking beer in bars with dudes" environment; it's what I often do with my friends on my own time. I'd likely be even more opinionated about this if I were not as naturally comfortable in a bro-y environment.
  - supjeff 11y ago
    I'm not okay with somebody expecting me to be their friend if they hire me. I'm here to make software, not lend emotional support. That said, we're all still just people, and if we're gonna be friends, we'll be friends. That usually sorts itself out just from sharing circumstances.
    - stanleydrew 11y ago
      Friendship isn't really about emotional support. To think that working in a high-level position at a growing company doesn't require getting along with people is incredibly naïve.
      - izacus 11y ago
        In my experience "getting along" is a large spectrum and working with someone professionaly isn't the same thing as going to a beer with them. I've had extremely productive professional relationship with several people I wouldn't go out to grab a beer with (mostly because they were at different stages in life and we didn't really have much to talk about). Filtering via non-professional social occasions is pretty much the worst part of the bro culture.
        stanleydrew 11y ago
        This is a good point. Depending on the stage of the company and the type of people working there it is very possible to have productive working relationships that would never extend to events outside the office. But that doesn't mean a first meeting outside the office over beer or coffee isn't a good idea. It isn't necessarily part of "bro culture" either. I've found that it's a good way to have a conversation with someone to get a feel for what they like to think about, and hopefully learn a little bit about what kind of decision maker someone is.
      - mwfunk 11y ago
        Of course you have to be able to get along with people, but friendship is way more than just getting along with people. It's being involved in each other's personal lives for non-business reasons. When someone is explicitly looking to hire not just colleagues but new personal friends, it can be a sign of immaturity, and that they might not be great at understanding boundaries. On the other hand, there are probably some people who would like that kind of a work environment. No harm is done if the potential employer is up front about it, at least they're being open about what they want. Much more awkward to take the job and get surprised by Overly Attached Coworkers if that's not what you want.
- DanBC 11y ago
  You're filtering out people who don't drink alcohol. That probably doesn't have much to do with whether they're any good at the job or whether you like working with them.
  - _yosefk 11y ago
    Actually, wouldn't you expect drinking to correlate negatively with a programmer's output? Whatever bullshit people say about drugs enhancing their output, I've never heard similar bullshit about alcohol/hangover being a stimulant and if someone drinks a lot there's a decent chance they'd program when drunk or hungover. (Personally I've tried once to program when drunk - I ate nothing the whole morning and drank half a bottle of wine, which is more than enough for me given my very little drinking experience; I couldn't stop laughing at any joke by the guy we drank with - or at pretty much anything he said, really. I did write pretty decent code in the couple of hours it took me to become sober again, in retrospect, and I think it actually gave me courage to tackle the shit I had to at that moment, but then I thought about it all a lot before getting drunk and it was almost done and all I had to do was finish it. It didn't feel like I'd do very well in general in that condition.)
    - smnrchrds 11y ago
      Obligatory xkcd: https://xkcd.com/323/ https://xkcd.com/323/
    - tedmiston 11y ago
      Even in a startup environment with a keg in the office, I wouldn't typically drink and code, besides perhaps a Friday afternoon beer. That said, for personal projects in the evenings, I find having 1-2 drinks helpful for removing barriers to perfectionism when you have simple coding tasks to solve.
      - shopkins 11y ago
        Bingo. Implementing features doesn't usually require it, but keeping an entire system in your head with all its complexity and chain reactions from making something work another way keeps me from moving ahead sometimes -- especially when it isn't clear what the best option is. A beer or two helps me pick one and keep moving, to discover the answer as I go.
- ashayh 11y ago
  You mean hiring echo chambers is an essential thing? Considering the vast majority of startups fail, maybe this is one aspect that needs rethinking.
pavel_lishin 11y ago
I had an interview a little similar to this; ended up doing vodka shots with the founders, shooting the shit for awhile, but not really talking about anything technical. Turned down the job in favor of a bigger, more corporate experience. Surprise surprise, a few months later, the start up in question was lambasted for being the exact stereotype of a dudebro startup, from underpaying its employees and expecting them to work 16 hour days to outright sexual harassment.
pool 11y ago
All of the beers-and-foosball culture definitely troubles me. It feels so...frat boy to me, and I was never a frat boy.
- manachar 11y ago
  It is frat boy, because a large portion of these types of start ups are funded/started by and for frat boys. While it is an obvious culture to examine, realize that most companies (and certainly all startups) have a cultural expectation. Sometimes it is as highly overt as the above, but other times it is a quieter expectation that is more in keeping with mainstream corporate American culture. For example, in many companies not caring about sports can make casual conversations and friendly connections with coworkers difficult. Also, certain departments (such as IT) can be overwhelmingly focused on standard geek culture. It is a really tough and interesting problem to examine. A strong culture can bind a team together in fantastically productive ways. However, a strong culture can also lead to groupthink and exclude voices that would help build an even better team. The exclusionary aspect can also be seen as sexist/racist/bigoted from an outside perspective even though it is doubtful that the team intends it that way. On balance, I think a founder focusing on the type of culture they want is good as it allows both founder and employees have a clear understanding of what the jobs expectations. That said, a culture of beer-and-foosball hardly seems like the most productive and conducive to success.
  - hodgesrm 11y ago
    How about focusing on a culture of getting stuff done? That's about the only thing that counts in a small company.
    - manachar 11y ago
      Certainly one I favor! But there's still going to be variation with that. There's the 'soft' cultural variation of expected work hours (duration and placement during the day), remote vs. in-office only, single 20 somethings that work all the time vs. mature family focused that aims to have a healthy work-life balance, star wars vs. star trek, etc. Some of those soft things can really matter to long term happiness of both the employer and employee. Then there's the critical 'hard' cultural variations. Is it a culture of sticking with the tried and true tech stack and focusing on reframing the tech challenges to fit that stack? Or a culture where NewFunStack.js made by Behemoth Tech Company should be used? Strangely enough I bet both sides of the debate would say they're a culture of focusing on "getting stuff done". I've seen people be highly productive in both approaches, so I'm inclined to say its more a cultural fit question than anything else.
88e282102ae2e5b 11y ago
"Cultural fit" just means "I don't want to work with anyone I'm not friends with"
- paulddraper 11y ago
  Yep. And that's not weird. I work where I do now largely because my friends do. I mean, if you're going to spend 60 hours a week in close-ish quarters with people, it'd be nice if you enjoyed it as much as possible. Granted, there is an extreme, and there are discrimination laws, but I do want to spend time with people I get along with.
raverbashing 11y ago
"you don't even have a culture yet, why do you care about culture fit?" Sometimes they do, and it's not about "brodude startup" If there are some founders and they share a vision/way of doing things that's their culture already and that's how the company is going to do things. I'm not saying it's bad, quite the contrary. What's your focus? What's your way of solving problems? How do you prioritise stuff?
orthoganol 11y ago
A lot of young founders are just enacting their dreams of having fun, getting rich, and being high status cool kids. Doesn't have a lot to do with the business. Fortunately those are the type of founders who fail terribly, although they still probably have enough $ to keep being a serial 'entrepreneur'.
andreasklinger 11y ago
roots in a missunderstanding a lot of people have from my pov imo company culture isnt how a company acts it is how people within treat each other
mahyarm 11y ago
First few people often define the work culture heavily.
lmm 11y ago
For an early employee the effect on the culture may be more significant than their impact on the technical side. Technical interviews suck anyway; maybe they were going to give you a take-home technical task, or a couple of days' contract work, both much better ways of assessing technical skills.

tedmiston 11y ago

I don't know that grabbing beers and playing foosball necessarily equates to getting the hires "EXACTLY right". I feel like it's the litmus test for "Can I hang out with this person casually and for very extended periods of time?" Edit: Not sure why the down votes. For anyone that's worked in a seed/pre-seed startup, this is absolutely an essential thing.

leroy_masochist 11y ago
That's a valid point and I'm not sure why people are downvoting you. I think the litmus test should be, "do I not dislike spending a lot of time with this person", not "do I really like spending time with this person". Shooting the shit over beers and foosball is really testing for the latter, not the former. Plus let's face it, a lot of technically gifted and experienced people ain't exactly extroverts. And people act different when they know they're being evaluated anyway. So some founders' insistence on fratting it up for step one of the hiring process just strikes me as stupid. And by the way...I'm a tall, white, former college athlete male. I'm VERY comfortable in a "drinking beer in bars with dudes" environment; it's what I often do with my friends on my own time. I'd likely be even more opinionated about this if I were not as naturally comfortable in a bro-y environment.
- supjeff 11y ago
  I'm not okay with somebody expecting me to be their friend if they hire me. I'm here to make software, not lend emotional support. That said, we're all still just people, and if we're gonna be friends, we'll be friends. That usually sorts itself out just from sharing circumstances.
  - stanleydrew 11y ago
    Friendship isn't really about emotional support. To think that working in a high-level position at a growing company doesn't require getting along with people is incredibly naïve.
    - izacus 11y ago
      In my experience "getting along" is a large spectrum and working with someone professionaly isn't the same thing as going to a beer with them. I've had extremely productive professional relationship with several people I wouldn't go out to grab a beer with (mostly because they were at different stages in life and we didn't really have much to talk about). Filtering via non-professional social occasions is pretty much the worst part of the bro culture.
      - stanleydrew 11y ago
        This is a good point. Depending on the stage of the company and the type of people working there it is very possible to have productive working relationships that would never extend to events outside the office. But that doesn't mean a first meeting outside the office over beer or coffee isn't a good idea. It isn't necessarily part of "bro culture" either. I've found that it's a good way to have a conversation with someone to get a feel for what they like to think about, and hopefully learn a little bit about what kind of decision maker someone is.
    - mwfunk 11y ago
      Of course you have to be able to get along with people, but friendship is way more than just getting along with people. It's being involved in each other's personal lives for non-business reasons. When someone is explicitly looking to hire not just colleagues but new personal friends, it can be a sign of immaturity, and that they might not be great at understanding boundaries. On the other hand, there are probably some people who would like that kind of a work environment. No harm is done if the potential employer is up front about it, at least they're being open about what they want. Much more awkward to take the job and get surprised by Overly Attached Coworkers if that's not what you want.
DanBC 11y ago
You're filtering out people who don't drink alcohol. That probably doesn't have much to do with whether they're any good at the job or whether you like working with them.
- _yosefk 11y ago
  Actually, wouldn't you expect drinking to correlate negatively with a programmer's output? Whatever bullshit people say about drugs enhancing their output, I've never heard similar bullshit about alcohol/hangover being a stimulant and if someone drinks a lot there's a decent chance they'd program when drunk or hungover. (Personally I've tried once to program when drunk - I ate nothing the whole morning and drank half a bottle of wine, which is more than enough for me given my very little drinking experience; I couldn't stop laughing at any joke by the guy we drank with - or at pretty much anything he said, really. I did write pretty decent code in the couple of hours it took me to become sober again, in retrospect, and I think it actually gave me courage to tackle the shit I had to at that moment, but then I thought about it all a lot before getting drunk and it was almost done and all I had to do was finish it. It didn't feel like I'd do very well in general in that condition.)
  - smnrchrds 11y ago
    Obligatory xkcd: https://xkcd.com/323/ https://xkcd.com/323/
  - tedmiston 11y ago
    Even in a startup environment with a keg in the office, I wouldn't typically drink and code, besides perhaps a Friday afternoon beer. That said, for personal projects in the evenings, I find having 1-2 drinks helpful for removing barriers to perfectionism when you have simple coding tasks to solve.
    - shopkins 11y ago
      Bingo. Implementing features doesn't usually require it, but keeping an entire system in your head with all its complexity and chain reactions from making something work another way keeps me from moving ahead sometimes -- especially when it isn't clear what the best option is. A beer or two helps me pick one and keep moving, to discover the answer as I go.
ashayh 11y ago
You mean hiring echo chambers is an essential thing? Considering the vast majority of startups fail, maybe this is one aspect that needs rethinking.

pavel_lishin 11y ago

I had an interview a little similar to this; ended up doing vodka shots with the founders, shooting the shit for awhile, but not really talking about anything technical. Turned down the job in favor of a bigger, more corporate experience. Surprise surprise, a few months later, the start up in question was lambasted for being the exact stereotype of a dudebro startup, from underpaying its employees and expecting them to work 16 hour days to outright sexual harassment.

pool 11y ago

All of the beers-and-foosball culture definitely troubles me. It feels so...frat boy to me, and I was never a frat boy.

manachar 11y ago
It is frat boy, because a large portion of these types of start ups are funded/started by and for frat boys. While it is an obvious culture to examine, realize that most companies (and certainly all startups) have a cultural expectation. Sometimes it is as highly overt as the above, but other times it is a quieter expectation that is more in keeping with mainstream corporate American culture. For example, in many companies not caring about sports can make casual conversations and friendly connections with coworkers difficult. Also, certain departments (such as IT) can be overwhelmingly focused on standard geek culture. It is a really tough and interesting problem to examine. A strong culture can bind a team together in fantastically productive ways. However, a strong culture can also lead to groupthink and exclude voices that would help build an even better team. The exclusionary aspect can also be seen as sexist/racist/bigoted from an outside perspective even though it is doubtful that the team intends it that way. On balance, I think a founder focusing on the type of culture they want is good as it allows both founder and employees have a clear understanding of what the jobs expectations. That said, a culture of beer-and-foosball hardly seems like the most productive and conducive to success.
- hodgesrm 11y ago
  How about focusing on a culture of getting stuff done? That's about the only thing that counts in a small company.
  - manachar 11y ago
    Certainly one I favor! But there's still going to be variation with that. There's the 'soft' cultural variation of expected work hours (duration and placement during the day), remote vs. in-office only, single 20 somethings that work all the time vs. mature family focused that aims to have a healthy work-life balance, star wars vs. star trek, etc. Some of those soft things can really matter to long term happiness of both the employer and employee. Then there's the critical 'hard' cultural variations. Is it a culture of sticking with the tried and true tech stack and focusing on reframing the tech challenges to fit that stack? Or a culture where NewFunStack.js made by Behemoth Tech Company should be used? Strangely enough I bet both sides of the debate would say they're a culture of focusing on "getting stuff done". I've seen people be highly productive in both approaches, so I'm inclined to say its more a cultural fit question than anything else.

88e282102ae2e5b 11y ago

"Cultural fit" just means "I don't want to work with anyone I'm not friends with"

paulddraper 11y ago
Yep. And that's not weird. I work where I do now largely because my friends do. I mean, if you're going to spend 60 hours a week in close-ish quarters with people, it'd be nice if you enjoyed it as much as possible. Granted, there is an extreme, and there are discrimination laws, but I do want to spend time with people I get along with.

raverbashing 11y ago

"you don't even have a culture yet, why do you care about culture fit?" Sometimes they do, and it's not about "brodude startup" If there are some founders and they share a vision/way of doing things that's their culture already and that's how the company is going to do things. I'm not saying it's bad, quite the contrary. What's your focus? What's your way of solving problems? How do you prioritise stuff?

orthoganol 11y ago

A lot of young founders are just enacting their dreams of having fun, getting rich, and being high status cool kids. Doesn't have a lot to do with the business. Fortunately those are the type of founders who fail terribly, although they still probably have enough $ to keep being a serial 'entrepreneur'.

andreasklinger 11y ago

roots in a missunderstanding a lot of people have from my pov imo company culture isnt how a company acts it is how people within treat each other

mahyarm 11y ago

First few people often define the work culture heavily.

lmm 11y ago

For an early employee the effect on the culture may be more significant than their impact on the technical side. Technical interviews suck anyway; maybe they were going to give you a take-home technical task, or a couple of days' contract work, both much better ways of assessing technical skills.