5 ms·
"in the early days Facebook made a point of hiring programmers even for jobs that would not ordinarily consist of programming, like HR and marketing." No offen
by mixmax 16y ago
"in the early days Facebook made a point of hiring programmers even for jobs that would not ordinarily consist of programming, like HR and marketing."
No offense, but hiring programmers for HR seems like a terrible idea. HR people's main capacity is to understand people and relationships, not exactly something programmers are known for being good at.
- pxlpshr 16y agoIf most (all) of your early employees are hackers, how does it not make sense to hire a hacker to manage HR?
- andrew1 16y agoBecause different jobs need different skill sets? Why does being a 'hacker' make you qualified or even appropriate to manage something like HR or marketing?
- pxlpshr 16y agoHow many hackers are CEO's and how many of those were ever qualified for that job at the start?
- pxlpshr 16y agoDown vote and no opinion? Hmm. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1596814 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1596814
- corin_ 16y agoThe logic isn't that "any hacker is appropriate for HR work", but that a hacker who is suitible is better than a non-hacker.
- mixmax 16y agoIf you start a gardening service does it make sense to hire a gardener to do your finances? Not to be offensive, but I think a little bit of respect for other lines of work would be a good thing here.
- pxlpshr 16y agoYou're comparing apples vs. oranges. I suspect a competent hacker can do a lot of things not related to coding. Per the original comment, a hacker created the most social network of the decade. I think a hacker can manage the demands of a team internally.
- jleader 16y agoRecruiting is part of HR; at fast-growing companies, it's a pretty big part. Wouldn't it make sense to hire some recruiters who are able to distinguish at least roughly between good hackers and bad ones?
- ora600 16y agoNo offense meant to the wonderful HR people who are no doubt out there, but from my experience HR people are good with: * Processes, procedures and forms * 401K, health insurance and other benefit programs * Buying salary surveys * Finding template bonus programs, performance evaluation programs and hire-a-friend programs. Adjusting them a bit to fit current organization. * Employment and immigration laws I've never found them to particularly understand people and relationships. I've worked for 4 years for a corporation where I never once managed to talk to an HR person. Everything was done through support tickets. But even in smaller companies, I found that HR folks are more of systems-people than people-people.
- mixmax 16y agoPresuming you're from the US it seems that HR fills a somewhat different role over there. The people I know in HR in Denmark are very people oriented. the point remains the same though. I don't think hackers would be very good at processes, procedures and forms. Hackers create, this is administration.
- jleyank 16y agoI have always thought that in the US, HR people exist to protect the company from their employees. Make sure that things go correctly hiring and firing, to minimize the chance of lawsuits. Basically, they're company people and looking at them as anything else is a mistake. If those in Denmark are people people, good for them!
- edderly 16y agoThat's a common impression but when it comes down to it HR's main capacity is to understand and deal with employment laws and regulations. HR will have zero to do with day-to-day interpersonal relationships and will typically only get involved in escalated issues which can't be handled solely by management.
- MartinCron 16y agoI've noticed this pervasive bias that if a person is good at programming, they must be terrible at anything and everything else. Perhaps this is a hacker-culture reaction to that kind of thinking?
- cookiecaper 16y agoIn the specific case of HR, I think most people assume programmers would hate it because you're going from such an engaging and creative field (programming) to something that is totally brain-dead (filling out forms, reciting orientation spiels every few weeks, looking up answers about insurance and forwarding them on).
- tome 16y agosomething that is totally brain-dead (filling out forms, reciting orientation spiels every few weeks, looking up answers about insurance and forwarding them on) Sounds a bit like writing FooInterface and FooInterfaceImpls all day, to me.