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I think the "we run a buisiness, not a school" could be the answer to this guy's dilemma. Hiring diamonds in the rough and cultivating talent relentlessly is ho

I think the "we run a buisiness, not a school" could be the answer to this guy's dilemma. Hiring diamonds in the rough and cultivating talent relentlessly is how the best engineers were found and kept in my limited experience at Apple, and it seems Google has an even stronger internal education culture.

matwood 10y ago
> Hiring diamonds in the rough and cultivating talent relentlessly is how the best engineers were found and kept in my limited experience at Apple, and it seems Google has an even stronger internal education culture. Yeah, that was a weird statement in the article. Tech moves so fast that allowing for internal education needs to be a requirement at any company. I literally learn something new every single day. When I look to hire, I look for some raw talent and enthusiasm to learn because whatever the candidate knows right now will be obsolete in 12 months (except for CS foundational topics, but that's for a different post).
- sevensor 10y ago
  I live in flyover country, so we hire from a different pool. I'm not sure if this is a general rule, or if the Bay Area has sucked all of the talent out of the region, but I have yet to interview a competent graduate from the CS program down the street at Big State U. We've had better luck hiring from engineering and the applied sciences. Ceteris paribus, I'd prefer candidates with some theory background, but the ceteris are not paribus.
  - wbl 10y ago
    Probably because CS is the obvious route to a programming job, while doing something else for intellectual satisfaction speaks to being inquisitive.
shortsightedsid 10y ago
It's also means that they are looking not for tech talent but for skilled labor. Highly skilled labor assumes no re-education for the current job but does not account for future work. If you are a master carpenter or a master mechanic then you probably have invested on tools, educating yourself on your own time. You are also probably specialized. E.g. you are highly qualified at fixing/tuning Ferraris but Toyotas are n't your thing. So you go to a Ferrari tune up shop where you can spend the $500,000 salary. /s IMHO, Tech talent on the other hand works completely differently. They are more about talent (i.e designing stuff, critical thinking, analysis skills) rather than rolling into a specific shop to fix a specific issue. That's where there seems to be this problem with "run a business, not a school" that they have.

matwood 10y ago

> Hiring diamonds in the rough and cultivating talent relentlessly is how the best engineers were found and kept in my limited experience at Apple, and it seems Google has an even stronger internal education culture. Yeah, that was a weird statement in the article. Tech moves so fast that allowing for internal education needs to be a requirement at any company. I literally learn something new every single day. When I look to hire, I look for some raw talent and enthusiasm to learn because whatever the candidate knows right now will be obsolete in 12 months (except for CS foundational topics, but that's for a different post).

sevensor 10y ago
I live in flyover country, so we hire from a different pool. I'm not sure if this is a general rule, or if the Bay Area has sucked all of the talent out of the region, but I have yet to interview a competent graduate from the CS program down the street at Big State U. We've had better luck hiring from engineering and the applied sciences. Ceteris paribus, I'd prefer candidates with some theory background, but the ceteris are not paribus.
- wbl 10y ago
  Probably because CS is the obvious route to a programming job, while doing something else for intellectual satisfaction speaks to being inquisitive.

shortsightedsid 10y ago

It's also means that they are looking not for tech talent but for skilled labor. Highly skilled labor assumes no re-education for the current job but does not account for future work. If you are a master carpenter or a master mechanic then you probably have invested on tools, educating yourself on your own time. You are also probably specialized. E.g. you are highly qualified at fixing/tuning Ferraris but Toyotas are n't your thing. So you go to a Ferrari tune up shop where you can spend the $500,000 salary. /s IMHO, Tech talent on the other hand works completely differently. They are more about talent (i.e designing stuff, critical thinking, analysis skills) rather than rolling into a specific shop to fix a specific issue. That's where there seems to be this problem with "run a business, not a school" that they have.