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>> candidates will be invited to schedule a first 45 minute behavioral interview with the Infrastructure Lead Yes, go right ahead and filter out some (disclaim

>> candidates will be invited to schedule a first 45 minute behavioral interview with the Infrastructure Lead Yes, go right ahead and filter out some (disclaimer before the rant: some, not all) of the best talent. The kind of potential employee that gets rejected due to perceived personality problems is exactly the kind of person who would tell management to shove a stick up their ass for demanding a 2 week deadline for a project requiring 3 months to execute properly. Maybe if GitLab had hired the best talent, instead of the best "behavioral/cultural fit", at least one of their 5 backup systems would have been functional. Many people who are perfectionists in their craft, who would never have allowed this kind of failure to take place under their watch, come with abrasive personalities. If you only hire those who are submissive during the interviewing process, you will get exactly what you chose - people with no backbone to push back against unreasonable business expectations. Case in point: would you want to hire me based on this comment of mine? Hell no! You're going to steer clear of me and give me an instant fail during a "behavioral interview", because you can't look past my belligerence to understand that there is value in having employees who obsess over the little things like having systems that do what the fuck they're supposed to do, rather than being able to give a conformant first impression full of social prowess. "Whoa, he used the word 'fuck' to hammer home his point; definitely avoid hiring this guy!" tldr; Sometimes, people who are "talented" or "skilled" get to that point by being obsessive freaks who sit at home in the dark all night hacking away at stuff, with no social lives. The result can be someone who knows what they are doing because they invest all their personal free time into the domain, but consequently has absolutely no social skills to put on display. shorter tldr; Businesses focus on the liability of a person without considering the potential.

elygre 10y ago
Not vetting people based on behavior is perilously close to accepting the old adage "Say what you like about Mussolini, but at least he made the trains run on time".
- watwut 10y ago
  And the fact is, trains were not on time at that time. It was mostly propaganda.
watwut 10y ago
Abrasive personalities don't tend to create safe&sane process, many would just yell at the people when mistakes happen. That is not the same. Able not to make mistakes and able to create process with enough safeguards so that mistakes are guaranteed not to happen are sometimes in opposition. Obsessive freak who tend not to do little mistakes may resist the change toward safer process, preferring to play blame game. Moreover, many with abrasive personalities are the ones who demand and take for granted excessive overtime the moment they are in senior or lead position. "I am too tired and it is late at night lets do it tomorrow" is not an option to abrasive personality. As a rule, obsessive freak with no social skills you describe wont be able to effectively reorganize the team nor create process nor (if in extreme version) work within process someone else created. He is more likely to end up in endless quarrels about petty differences in coding style. Ability to create, fight for and enforce sane process is not the same as being abrasive. He is however absolutely fine when you have isolated position.
marcinzm 10y ago
As others have said, abrasiveness isn't a virtue especially in a role that requires others to change their behavior. There are in fact diplomatic ways to convey the same information which have a much higher chance of causing others to listen and getting everyone to adopt new processes. That someone is diplomatic and knows/care about their stuff are not mutually exclusive. That said, depending on their interview process they may be selecting out candidates who even diplomatically disagree about the existing ops processes which results in less than stellar hires.

elygre 10y ago

Not vetting people based on behavior is perilously close to accepting the old adage "Say what you like about Mussolini, but at least he made the trains run on time".

watwut 10y ago
And the fact is, trains were not on time at that time. It was mostly propaganda.

watwut 10y ago

Abrasive personalities don't tend to create safe&sane process, many would just yell at the people when mistakes happen. That is not the same. Able not to make mistakes and able to create process with enough safeguards so that mistakes are guaranteed not to happen are sometimes in opposition. Obsessive freak who tend not to do little mistakes may resist the change toward safer process, preferring to play blame game. Moreover, many with abrasive personalities are the ones who demand and take for granted excessive overtime the moment they are in senior or lead position. "I am too tired and it is late at night lets do it tomorrow" is not an option to abrasive personality. As a rule, obsessive freak with no social skills you describe wont be able to effectively reorganize the team nor create process nor (if in extreme version) work within process someone else created. He is more likely to end up in endless quarrels about petty differences in coding style. Ability to create, fight for and enforce sane process is not the same as being abrasive. He is however absolutely fine when you have isolated position.

marcinzm 10y ago

As others have said, abrasiveness isn't a virtue especially in a role that requires others to change their behavior. There are in fact diplomatic ways to convey the same information which have a much higher chance of causing others to listen and getting everyone to adopt new processes. That someone is diplomatic and knows/care about their stuff are not mutually exclusive. That said, depending on their interview process they may be selecting out candidates who even diplomatically disagree about the existing ops processes which results in less than stellar hires.