5 ms·

That's just tech companies being stupid, insular and cargo-culty with who they hire. Someone with business experience, who can prioritize effectively with an e

by jbooth 10y ago

That's just tech companies being stupid, insular and cargo-culty with who they hire. Someone with business experience, who can prioritize effectively with an eye to the big picture, is way more valuable than someone who figured out the n log n solution to the stupid whiteboard question in 20 minutes. We're not working 20 minute days, here.

lsc 10y ago
The first business lesson? Things are are worth what people will pay for them. And really, the business skills you need to run a small business that doesn't really do sales do not have a lot of overlap with the business skills that large companies want or need in their technical workforce.
- jbooth 10y ago
  Well, I haven't run a small business, but I've been astounded by the number of very sharp engineers I've run into over the years who are completely myopic about the business impact of their activity. From not having internalized basic microecon fundamentals to being willfully ignorant as long as they get to work on their pet technology. Small business owners, presumably, have both of those lessons pretty well internalized, in addition to a certain "just get it frickin done" attitude towards things that need to be done. The super-advanced algo-writing skills that we in the industry screen for, conversely, come up as a real-world requirement far less commonly, and you can poll the whole office for opinions when they do, because everyone's excited to see an actual nifty problem.
  - lsc 10y ago
    eh, I dunno. I think that as a technical person? trying to change things based on "business impact" or based on micro fundamentals is probably going to cause more problems for the company than just doing what I'm told. (At the very least, it's going to cause a lot more problems for my career.) - I mean, one would hope that the big company could afford to hire a businessperson who could more than just eek by. I do think that experience of managing people has made me a better employee, even if maybe I'm not ready to really be a manager again yet. I've got a lot more empathy for the boss than I did before starting this. I've been a bad boss, and I know what leads to those bad boss behaviors, and it's not maliciousness. Managing people is just hard. And there is a bigger picture that you don't see as an employee. I now can accept that when the boss asks me to do something a stupid way, if the boss still tells me to do it that way after I explain why I think it's stupid, well, sometimes there are other issues outside the boss' control that make the stupid way the only way. If anything, running my own company has made me way better at 'staying in the box' when necessary. Or, at least, it has convinced me that there are times that I ought to stay in the box.
  - tedmiston 10y ago
    > "just get it frickin done" attitude Jessica Livingston, in a recent interview with Sam Altman [0], said that she believes determination is the #1 trait for startup founder success (over intelligence etc). I don't think it's a stretch to say the same applies to very early employees. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFOC-cgIWaY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFOC-cgIWaY
loeber 10y ago
Unless you're interviewing at a three-person startup, the company doesn't need your business experience, sales knowledge, or whatever else. That's what managers are hired for. $BIGCO gives you a whiteboarding interview because they're hiring you for your engineering skills, nothing else. The managers are usually better than you at corporate strategy and big-picture thinking. If not, why are you applying to be an engineer? It took me a long time to understand this, too. It might be true that you're e.g. a good designer, but you're being hired as an engineer, so they want you to focus specifically on engineering. Why? Because that's the domain in which you offer the greatest marginal returns to the company. There's a virtually limitless amount of engineering to be done, and a limited number of hours in the day. Priorities.
- ryandrake 10y ago
  Exactly. I also used to think that rounding out my technical skills with business knowledge, basic design skills, project management skills, etc. would make me more "marketable". Unfortunately, the reality is that companies by and large look to hire extremely specialized cogs, and your value to your employer is your ability to execute within the narrow constraints of your job title. You could be a self-taught product design genius, but if you're hired as 3rd software engineer from the left, your company expects you to sit there and code away. They aren't going to listen to your design thoughts. You could be the ex-founder of a billion dollar startup, but once you take $ROLE_X in $COMPANY_Y, your broad set of skills will not be appreciated. You're going to be judged by how well you do $ROLE_X only.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- jbooth 10y ago
  Unless you're being micromanaged to an incredible degree, there's still a lot of room for an engineer's discretion on how things are implemented. That's where "getting it" can play into making better decisions. I'm not talking about moonlighting doing the design or PM work, I'm talking about bringing an understanding of the business to your engineering work. And yes, you don't want to go complete cowboy, major decisions should be run up the chain, but you do need to know what and why the major decisions are.

by jbooth 10y ago

lsc 10y ago

The first business lesson? Things are are worth what people will pay for them. And really, the business skills you need to run a small business that doesn't really do sales do not have a lot of overlap with the business skills that large companies want or need in their technical workforce.

jbooth 10y ago
Well, I haven't run a small business, but I've been astounded by the number of very sharp engineers I've run into over the years who are completely myopic about the business impact of their activity. From not having internalized basic microecon fundamentals to being willfully ignorant as long as they get to work on their pet technology. Small business owners, presumably, have both of those lessons pretty well internalized, in addition to a certain "just get it frickin done" attitude towards things that need to be done. The super-advanced algo-writing skills that we in the industry screen for, conversely, come up as a real-world requirement far less commonly, and you can poll the whole office for opinions when they do, because everyone's excited to see an actual nifty problem.
- lsc 10y ago
  eh, I dunno. I think that as a technical person? trying to change things based on "business impact" or based on micro fundamentals is probably going to cause more problems for the company than just doing what I'm told. (At the very least, it's going to cause a lot more problems for my career.) - I mean, one would hope that the big company could afford to hire a businessperson who could more than just eek by. I do think that experience of managing people has made me a better employee, even if maybe I'm not ready to really be a manager again yet. I've got a lot more empathy for the boss than I did before starting this. I've been a bad boss, and I know what leads to those bad boss behaviors, and it's not maliciousness. Managing people is just hard. And there is a bigger picture that you don't see as an employee. I now can accept that when the boss asks me to do something a stupid way, if the boss still tells me to do it that way after I explain why I think it's stupid, well, sometimes there are other issues outside the boss' control that make the stupid way the only way. If anything, running my own company has made me way better at 'staying in the box' when necessary. Or, at least, it has convinced me that there are times that I ought to stay in the box.
- tedmiston 10y ago
  > "just get it frickin done" attitude Jessica Livingston, in a recent interview with Sam Altman [0], said that she believes determination is the #1 trait for startup founder success (over intelligence etc). I don't think it's a stretch to say the same applies to very early employees. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFOC-cgIWaY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFOC-cgIWaY

loeber 10y ago

Unless you're interviewing at a three-person startup, the company doesn't need your business experience, sales knowledge, or whatever else. That's what managers are hired for. $BIGCO gives you a whiteboarding interview because they're hiring you for your engineering skills, nothing else. The managers are usually better than you at corporate strategy and big-picture thinking. If not, why are you applying to be an engineer? It took me a long time to understand this, too. It might be true that you're e.g. a good designer, but you're being hired as an engineer, so they want you to focus specifically on engineering. Why? Because that's the domain in which you offer the greatest marginal returns to the company. There's a virtually limitless amount of engineering to be done, and a limited number of hours in the day. Priorities.

ryandrake 10y ago
Exactly. I also used to think that rounding out my technical skills with business knowledge, basic design skills, project management skills, etc. would make me more "marketable". Unfortunately, the reality is that companies by and large look to hire extremely specialized cogs, and your value to your employer is your ability to execute within the narrow constraints of your job title. You could be a self-taught product design genius, but if you're hired as 3rd software engineer from the left, your company expects you to sit there and code away. They aren't going to listen to your design thoughts. You could be the ex-founder of a billion dollar startup, but once you take $ROLE_X in $COMPANY_Y, your broad set of skills will not be appreciated. You're going to be judged by how well you do $ROLE_X only.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
jbooth 10y ago
Unless you're being micromanaged to an incredible degree, there's still a lot of room for an engineer's discretion on how things are implemented. That's where "getting it" can play into making better decisions. I'm not talking about moonlighting doing the design or PM work, I'm talking about bringing an understanding of the business to your engineering work. And yes, you don't want to go complete cowboy, major decisions should be run up the chain, but you do need to know what and why the major decisions are.