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Ask HN: Finding tech talent is getting harder. It's not a Bay Area problem only

62 points by hichamin 8y ago

If you're a CTO for a growing startup, this might be a familiar challenge for you. On top of building the product, finding product engineers is becoming one of the hardest things for a CTO to do in 2019, especially in tech hubs like NY and London due to higher demand and competition. This problem is no longer exclusive to the Bay Area. Hiring is time-consuming and expensive, and many startups feel that they can’t compete with some of the top salaries and perks offered by deep-pocketed alternatives. It makes sense to rely on your network to hire the initial few developers, but this approach is not sustainable in the long run. Job boards are getting crowded. Recruiters are generally worse. I've read a lot of stories about using recruitment platforms. Few are great, but many are unpleasant. The flaw with many recruitment companies is they don't reliably deliver enough good candidates to build trust. Asking for profile A and getting profile B is a common frustration. For startups, this tends to be a deal-breaker because hiring the wrong candidate has a significant cost and impact on backlog and team. Is it that most recruiters or on-demand marketplaces aren't highly technical? Is it that they also suffer from talent shortage? Remote work has been getting a lot of love in recent years to bypass the talent war. Although it has come a long way, it's still hard to pull off, especially for companies that are trying to do both local and remote but are not remote-first (think infrastructure and payroll primarily). With that being said. How do startups in hubs currently find great engineers quicker? What's an approach that you have been investing in recently to hire product hackers?

edhowzerblack 8y ago
As a developer who has recently been through the hiring process, I think the problem is not a shortage of talent, but rather that companies are awful at hiring. Here are a few of the main issues: 1. Don't limit your potential talent pool to the miserable and the unemployed. In theory, any developer who is currently employed might be interested in leaving their job to work for you. Perhaps you will offer them more money, or perhaps a better quality of (work) life. However, most developers won't bother to talk to you if they already have a job. Why is that? Simple, if they do talk to you, you're going to offer them a homework assignment. You're going to tell them that it shouldn't take more than an hour, but it will actually take two full days to do right. Giving someone a homework assignment isn't a way to woo them away from their current job. So you are left with a candidate pool that consists mostly of people who are desperate enough that they have to agree to jump through your hoops (i.e. unemployed, miserable in their current job, etc.) 2. Don't discard capable people. The average interview begins with a remote code challenge whereby the candidate, who is probably nervous, has to pair program a completely contrived problem with a complete stranger watching them over a webcam. There are tons of developers who are good at coding solutions to real world problems in real world situations but simply don't perform well in this type of situation. This type of scenario is not really assessing a candidate's skills. It's assessing their familiarity with specific contrived interview problems and their ability to perform under duress. Of course, the points you raised are fair as well. Recruiters are not technical people, they are sales people. You will have to find a good recruiter. They are out there, you just have to find the right ones. But my point is, once you find the good recruiter(s) don't waste the human capital they can being to you by having a terrible interview process. Here is my advice. Once your recruiter has a handful of resumes you like, carve out half a days worth of 30-minute sessions to meet with them at the recruiter's office. Ask them about projects they've worked on. You'll find out much more about what they know and what they're like to work with than you would with the typical remote code challenge. One you narrow the pool down a bit bring them in for on-sites. Best of luck!
- isaacaderogba 8y ago
  This seems to align with my experience, particularly your first point. For context, I’m working as an Associate Product Manager (so not quite a Product Engineer) but I had applied for a job at a Start-up company that I found extremely interesting. Had an initial interview but didn’t hear back from the company for about a month. I had also sent follow up e-mails about this. When I eventually did hear back from them, they apologised for their delay but then spun me with a homework assignment that would have taken at least 2 days. Safe to say, I kindly declined. So yeah, really focus on how you’re recruiting for talent.
- blizkreeg 8y ago
  I'd like to talk more about (1). We do a homework assignment that in fact does takes a few hours, but only for candidates who don't have experience developing in our core stack. If you can code in the languages and frameworks we use, it's a step we bypass. It tells us if they can solve a problem well using the tools and setup of their choice. If we clearly see they did well at this, the on-site can then focus on the more non-coding aspect. Our on-site interviews are highly contextual and rooted in the real-world where candidates work directly in our codebase. They are reasonable in the things we ask candidates to do (re-factor something, review PRs, implement a small enhancement). If someone can't code in one of our core languages, it's a tougher assessment since we would have to resort to hypothetical/whiteboard crap (which we hate). How do you assess someone then? We recently had a candidate do a take-home where they didn't do well, and it did save 5-6h of everyone's time and their effort of coming in and being subject to the pressure of the interview. I'd love to hear counter-opinions on this.
  - wool_gather 8y ago
    > If you can code in the languages and frameworks we use, it's a step we bypass. Curious; can you say more about how you judge this? Isn't that sort of the point of the homework in the first place?
    - blizkreeg 8y ago
      Judge if they can code in our core stack? Well, if they're working with it in their current job, or in side projects. Assessing if they are good, we can do it in the on-site. Like I said, our on-site is based on knowing our stack, so we have to make sure they can work with it before we bring them in.
sharemywin 8y ago
Curious what your definition of an A versus B profile is?
- hichamin 8y ago
  I don't have a particular example in mind, but a lot of recruiters or even companies are still biased by credentials and resume buzzwords and don't have a proper vetting process to filter through the noise.
- amarraja 8y ago
  Not OP, but during a recent hiring process we asked for backend engineers (e.g. java/golang/databases etc). Half of the CVs we received were for Angular/React developers. I'm unsure how this could happen with any sane vetting process.
  - hichamin 8y ago
    Wow, is that even true? I do believe the "technical" layer in a recruiter is the most important thing. Amarraja, how do you go about vetting your recruiter? Have you had any set of criteria to identify a solid talent acquisition partner?
cirgue 8y ago
>Asking for profile A and getting profile B is a common frustration. For startups, this tends to be a deal-breaker because hiring the wrong candidate has a significant cost and impact on backlog and team. This sticks out: the hiring process is really bad at making this judgement effectively. We face this problem at my company, most of our best and worst team members have been surprises.
- hichamin 8y ago
  That is very relatable, and results primarily from failing to identify false positives and false negatives in the hiring process. An interview can result in a bad engineer being hired and later fired (a false positive). And an interview can disqualify someone who could have done that job well (a false negatives). In order to keep the false positive rate low in the face of this noise, companies have to bias decision ever farther toward rejection. The result is a process that misses good engineers, still often preferences credentials over real skill, and often feels capricious and frustrating to the people involved. If everyone at your company had to re-interview for their current jobs, what percentage would pass? This is a scary question. The answer is almost certainly well under 100%. Candidates are harmed when they are rejected by companies they could have done great work for, and companies are harmed when they can't find the talent they need.
JSeymourATL 8y ago
> Job boards are getting crowded. Recruiters are generally worse. It seems that most (young) recruiters these days rely primarily on Linkedin as a sourcing tool. But that's not where the best talent is found. The Hack to finding talent is to truly learn the recruiting process. That is to say, can you identify, assess, and ATTRACT decent people on your own? Start by asking: Who would know know my ideal candidate? ON this subject, Lou Adler is masterful > https://youtu.be/9KLR6rteoOU https://youtu.be/9KLR6rteoOU
- dkersten 8y ago
  > ATTRACT decent people This reminds me of a recent post that rings pretty true: "When hiring senior engineers, you’re not buying, you’re selling" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18955731 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18955731
fastonosql 8y ago
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vonmoltke 8y ago
> This problem is no longer exclusive to the Bay Area. When people question why so many companies start or stay in the Bay Area, "density of talent" inevitably comes up as one of the reasons. I can't reconcile that assertion with this one here.
- hichamin 8y ago
  I agree, Silicon Valley is the mecca of engineering talent. However, the demand for that talent greatly outranks the supply. With that being said, how can a seed or even a Series A startup stand out and be able to attract engineers when Facebook & Google are next door? Even better, how can a startup retain its engineer that's probably getting x10 inboxes a day from other companies with better packages? I'm not challenging you here, but it's common questions I hear that can complement your perspective...
  - blizkreeg 8y ago
    We're in a similar boat. Attracting good engineers as a seed stage company is challenging. What has worked for you?
  - malvosenior 8y ago
    You have to pay competitively. If you can't afford to pay FB level salaries then you either didn't raise enough money or you have to be willing to part with serious equity. I think the days of founders retaining as much stock as they traditionally have are over. You'll need to start compensating your developers like you would execs. If you think about it, it actually makes sense. Execs add value by scaling up an organization of people. Devs add value by scaling up an organization of code and machines. In fact if you think about it like that, devs should probably be getting paid more than non-technical executives.
aantix 8y ago
This problem is no longer exclusive to the Bay Area. Hiring is time-consuming and expensive, and many startups feel that they can’t compete with some of the top salaries and perks offered by deep-pocketed alternatives. Offer to teach the developer something. "Java developers - want to learn Node and React?" "Rails developers - want to learn Elixir?" Get one senior person on staff who really knows the stack well and require that they pair program every day with a different member of the team. Good developers are grateful for the opportunity to level up their skills, contribute, and still make a living. Andres Camacho in SF has been VP of Engineering and CTO at several startups and is king of this strategy.
- daveFNbuck 8y ago
  If good developers want to level up their skills, how do you keep the senior developer who you've turned into a tutor happy?
  - SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
    Pay them a lot.
    - misterbwong 8y ago
      A certain pay level is necessary, but not sufficient, to keep talented staff.
  - aantix 8y ago
    Fair question. At least in the above scenario, it was Andres doing the work of initially getting someone up to speed and then pairing the coworkers on an appropriate level feature/bug. He'd stop by and check in to see where they were stuck and would genuinely try and solve the problem. So, it has to be someone who is a great coder for that stack and enjoys teaching. If it's done right, other members of the team become good teachers as well, so the initial burden of teaching is lightened.
  - murph 8y ago
    Mentorship and teaching are also valuable skills. Many good senior engineers would love to focus on them if their employer recognized it as valuable.
systemtest 8y ago
The cheapest way of finding talent is retaining it. I currently work on a project with an empty backlog and a sprint full of impediments. We are all looking for new jobs. Hiring a good product owner would've meant retaining the team. Now you have to have to find six new developers.
cletus 8y ago
There is no such thing as a labour shortage. There is only an unwillingness to pay. If you can't afford to attract talent at market rates then your business model as it is exists isn't viable. A big aspect to this is that the equity lottery of startups is largely gone because companies going public is increasingly rare, companies stay private longer (which presents real problems for the liquidity of employee options) and there are just so many ways an employee can get screwed out of their equity value that as the time a startup is private increases the value of the equity inevitably approaches zero. Down rounds, liquidity preferences, that sort of thing. Equity is a pretty terrible deal for employees. Great for VCs. Great for founders (mostly). Horrible for employees.
- jbattle 8y ago
  > If you can't afford to attract talent at market rates then your business model as it is exists isn't viable. That sounds kind of extreme, but I think you are on to something. Facebook can generate more incremental revenue per unit developer than company X. It's not that company X is just being cheap offering less and the solution isn't as simple as "raise salaries". This two-tier system of compensation isn't just a matter of non-FAANG companies being too stingy. Its a matter of economics and business models.
- nakedrobot2 8y ago
  Yes there is such a thing as a labor shortage. When unemployment is below 3% (as in the czech republic) there literally aren't any workers available. No I'm not going to pay someone $30/hour to paint my house, and i'm not going to pay $250/hour to some fresh graduate to hack some node.js.
  - malvosenior 8y ago
    Then it's quite possible that your house will stay unpainted and your node.js will stay unhacked. Due to the labor shortage the people who can do those things will be getting paid to do them though, so they won't have any problems with this situation.
  - wool_gather 8y ago
andy_adams 8y ago
When I look for a job, I spend time investigating companies who align with my experience, goals, etc - regardless of whether or not they're actively hiring. Consider doing the inverse: Contact developers who may not be looking, but who align with your company well. It's flattering to hear from someone who is genuinely interested in hiring me - if you're interested in _me_, I might consider you even if I wasn't planning on leaving where I'm at. Admittedly, it's time-consuming. But it's also "doing things that don't scale".
- wool_gather 8y ago
  This seems similar to the "hire from your network" that was mentioned in the OP. Or, to rephrase, how do you find/target these developers?
  - andy_adams 8y ago
    I mean outside of your network - people you wouldn't normally get referrals for. LinkedIn in a starting point, then researching an individual (Github profile, Twitter, personal website, etc) to learn more. This will obviously only work if the dev has a public life.
  - mbrameld 8y ago
    Do you use any open-source projects? Reach out to the contributors.
pooya13 8y ago
It seems to me that there is more talent going to software than ever and the Junior dev starting salary has been steadily declining over the past decade.
stakhanov 8y ago
Of the dozen-or-so companies that I've been through at this point, there were only three where I would say they put a decent effort into trying to retain the talent they ALREADY HAD. So if finding "fresh meat" is becoming more difficult, maybe there is some good in that, if it incentivizes more to adequately value the talent they already have and put a decent effort into trying to retain them.
malvosenior 8y ago
It's funny because people keep saying this yet I've noticed something... The interview process for developers is about 10X harder than it used to be a decade ago. It used to be that you'd chat with a couple of people about tech, projects you'd worked on... then get a job offer. Now there are multiple rounds spread out over weeks with a massive number of team members, live coding challenges galore, non-tech screening for all manner of sketchy things (culture fit, dedication to diversity...). I think a lot of this is based on they myth of: A bad hire causes tons more damage than not hiring a good person. I call BS. To me this is just weak management. It's actually not that difficult to fire someone. If you're in doubt, put an explicit probation period in the contract. I think being able to effectively fire is management 101 but looks like it's becoming a lost art. I'm not sure if this is because people are afraid of confrontation or they're just cargo culting the story they've heard about bad hires. Easy in, easy out and you'll see your dev shortage problem start to solve itself.
- dkersten 8y ago
  > A bad hire causes tons more damage than not hiring a good person. I think it is true, but only if you don't identify it quickly and/or don't reassign or fire them as necessary. I'm a firm believer of a holistic and lightweight interview process followed by a trial period. The only way to really understand if someone will work well in the position is to let them give it a try.
- creato 8y ago
  > I call BS. To me this is just weak management. It's actually not that difficult to fire someone. If you're in doubt, put an explicit probation period in the contract. I think being able to effectively fire is management 101 but looks like it's becoming a lost art. I'm not sure if this is because people are afraid of confrontation or they're just cargo culting the story they've heard about bad hires. It has little to do with confrontation, and a hell of a lot to do with potential legal issues. Maybe this fear is unfounded, but I doubt it. If you are a small company, you might get away with it on pure luck. If you are a big company, you can average out the cost of "bad firings" with the rest, and see how expensive it is. I'm guessing it's a lot.
wrestlerman 8y ago
I'm from Europe, so I will say why I don't want to work in London (and I get a lot of offers from there!) The salaries that are offered are a joke in London. The expenses are so huge there! Even if the salary is a bit higher than my current one, I would spend much more. There are a lot of joke startups, some new cryptocurrency or blockchain startups... Nope, I'm not gonna join anything like that. Also, I'm not a huge fan of big cities and London is too crowded (for me). Allow remote and I'm sure you are gonna find someone.
nakedrobot2 8y ago
Hey y'all, there's a huge tech talent shortage in Prague, which has approximately 1000x higher quality of life than the bay area. You can make a high salary here and live extremely well. Bonus: no human feces on your front doorstep!
hc91 8y ago
Man, there is NO shortage of tech talent, stop lying to yourself. You are just not paying enough for people to even consider interviewing for your company. Period. This is actually a very simple problem. Throw money at it and stop complaining.
fucking_tragedy 8y ago
Pay more.
- fucking_tragedy 8y ago
  To add on to this: offer remote, and if you have an office, don't have an open office setup.
weliketocode 8y ago
The usual HN refrain here is 'pay more'. And as a developer in NYC, I'd say this is accurate, but simplifies the problem a bit too much. Companies like their salary bands. Companies like to hire people at around the same compensation as current employees in the same role with around the same experience. The problem is that demand has recently gone up and pay should go up with it, but companies are refusing to adjust their bands and greatly increase pay for their current employees across the board. So, instead of addressing the pay issue head on, we're seeing a few really really bad practices: - Lose candidates at the offer stage - Try to get comp expectations out of the way earlier. - Losing candidates to Big Co. for big pay discrepancies is likely tolerable - Losing candidates over $20k salary band issues is absolutely unacceptable - DO NOT let HR takeover the closing process. - Don't try to give an exploding offer - Don't say an offer is 'best and final' - The CTO or VP eng should give the offer and make it a priority to close the candidate - Giving pay increases to current employees only when they have other offers or explicitly ask for it - Giving regular title bumps to justify pay increases - Your 'senior' engineers will be involved with hiring. It's better to give junior/mid-level engineers big raises than title bumps that will make hiring talent more difficult If these points sound obvious, they're not. As a candidate, I have not seen a single company that follows them. And this post just addresses issues around compensation. I haven't even begun to touch on being honest around your interview process. But let me put a few questions out there as well: - How many rounds do you have? - 3 is probably a maximum. Never have more than one on-site - What is your accept rate at each round? - the accept rate should increase from round to round - For testing candidates - be very clear about what questions you're asking and why - know, objectively, what is considered a pass vs a fail for every question
- lwhalen 8y ago
  I'd like to add on to that: "Pay more" and "Hire remote". Don't disregard the consultant firms either. Many times I've seen a big push to hire an FTE (or series of FTEs) to do a Big Project(tm), only to have to let the FTEs go after Big Project(tm) is completed because there was no more work for them to do.
CamTin 8y ago
If your business is essentially burning VC money for a decade to buy a ticket in the Unicorn lottery, then the easy answer is to spend a lot more money. You can do this by poaching expensive people, by offering more, or by hiring lots more people than you need and keeping the ones you actually want. The result will be more manpower faster, at significant expense. You can also, as many companies default to, ration yourself by imposing very grueling hiring requirements (months of fly-in interviews and hours-long take-home assignments) and "competitive" (as determined by some non-market mechanism like an industry survey) pay. The result of the latter will be long hiring times for good-enough talent that is willing to work for whatever you've pre-determined to be fair. It's really no different from looking for a car: you can have a known high-quality thing right now (buy new from a dealer/pay $$$ for top talent), or you can buy a lot of potential lemons for cheaper until one happens to last (grabbing random by-owner cars from Craigslist/hire-fast-fire-fast), or you can just wait things out until you find the perfect deal (trawl Craigslist a couple times a week until something jumps out as an incredible deal/pay "market" rates and have a long hiring process). There are tradeoffs to be made, and you have to make them according to what you actually need and the resources you have. There's no physical law that says you're entitled to unlimited world-class talent at bargain rates to build your adtech startup.
SJMosley 8y ago
As a product manager, I have gotten to the last round of multiple interviews (3 or more, meeting full teams and different departments). Then been turned down as they are "going with other candidates", only to see the job reposted. This has happened on multiple occasions. Maybe I wasn't the right person for the role. One specific role has now been up for 5 months. Which likely means the company is looking for an unrealistic set of requirements that no one can meet instead of training appropriately. In my opinion, the person that will come in and solve all your problems without training does not exist. Make a decision and be okay with letting a new employee get familiar with your company and industry.
- Salesdude 8y ago
  Some companies post "non-existing jobs" for the following reasons: 1- Gather information from candidates about how other companies are doing the same job or about their strategies 2- Go deeper into discussion with candidates who work for a competitor. 3- Look to be hiring for investors/competitors..etc
  - masonic 8y ago
    4- Fulfill a "we really looked for domestic candidates, honest!" checkbox before hiring on visa.
  - SJMosley 8y ago
    True, seems like a great way to disrespect candidates (good or bad). Then you can complain about not being able to find people cause the job has been up for so long.
mattkrause 8y ago
I'm not sure I believe this. Find a random research university near you. It is chock-a-block full of people, most of whom are very smart and many of whom can code. Since everyone other than tenured profs has a precarious, low-paying job, this should be a fairly easy pool to recruit from. Nevertheless, I, a staff scientist in a computational field, get messages from (maybe) 3-4 recruiters a year, all of whom are from huge companies. It would be good to hear from more places and it would great to hear from places that are willing to consider my actual experience (look at my code, hear about my data analysis) instead of asking me to dredge up half-remembered tricks from my undergrad data structures class.
quantumhobbit 8y ago
Many here are commenting that you should pay more and that is true. But how about not wasting the talent you already have? I’ve had several jobs from startups to big companies and I have never been utilized at anything close to 100% of my potential. Try getting rid of pointless meetings, distracting open offices, insane IT policies, and needlessly overcomplicated architectures. You may not even need to hire any more enigineers if the ones you have are more productive.
mariusz331 8y ago
Tech salaries have gone up faster than founders/VCs expected and it's becoming more expensive to run a startup. Perhaps startups should wait a little longer to raise money. It seems more important than ever to find product-market fit before hiring.
mnm1 8y ago
Shortage my ass. These companies are not paying enough, not looking for remote workers, and generally not offering enough attractive packages. There's no shortage. Start paying more. Offer remote work. Stop being a shitty workplace. Qualified developers will start pouring in. If you think a ping pong table and beer keg are going to attract quality talent over a proper salary and remote work you're delusional and shouldn't be in a position to hire.
protonimitate 8y ago
I don't think the problem is a shortage of talent. I think the problem is that the expectations for the amount of work a single employee can produce are unrealistic. Everyone wants to hire the 10xer. The problem is that they're a) expensive, b) not always easy to work with, c) usually already employed. If companies stopped focusing on getting the "best of the best" to produce results overnight, and instead spent energy in investing in young/less experienced candidates, things would be a lot easier for everyone. Of course, this means that companies need to come up with ways to retain talent so they don't "waste they time" on developing someones career to just have them poached. I find it funny how posts like these alternate between "why can' I find a job?" and "why can't we hire anyone?". Obviously there's a disconnect somewhere. There is absolutely no shortage of talent, it's just mismanaged expectations (on both ends).
- itronitron 8y ago
  Something to consider, if every company told every candidate that had an on-site why they were not offered a position then the pool of candidates would more easily adapt, over time, to the needs of these positions. That would be a win for everyone involved.
rajacombinator 8y ago
Pay more or be more willing to work with people who don’t have all the skills you want. (Yet.) A lot of startups want to hire senior FAANG type talent and pay them less than entry level at those companies. Good luck. You have to be scrappy as a startup and that includes how you find talent.
RickJWagner 8y ago
I can't imagine it's really that difficult. I work remote, and love my job. But if something ever happened to change that, I'd be glad to work for another company. The other company just has to allow remote workers. Given that, I think there's probably a big pool of talent to draw from.
ykevinator 8y ago
And by the way of the 30 or so engineers I have hired in the last 10 years, exactly 1 would have been correctly filtered by a homework assignment and 7 or 8 would have been incorrectly filtered. Technical hiring in my opinion is so poorly done by most people because they think developers are commodities that can be standardized and quantified.

62 points by hichamin 8y ago

edhowzerblack 8y ago

As a developer who has recently been through the hiring process, I think the problem is not a shortage of talent, but rather that companies are awful at hiring. Here are a few of the main issues: 1. Don't limit your potential talent pool to the miserable and the unemployed. In theory, any developer who is currently employed might be interested in leaving their job to work for you. Perhaps you will offer them more money, or perhaps a better quality of (work) life. However, most developers won't bother to talk to you if they already have a job. Why is that? Simple, if they do talk to you, you're going to offer them a homework assignment. You're going to tell them that it shouldn't take more than an hour, but it will actually take two full days to do right. Giving someone a homework assignment isn't a way to woo them away from their current job. So you are left with a candidate pool that consists mostly of people who are desperate enough that they have to agree to jump through your hoops (i.e. unemployed, miserable in their current job, etc.) 2. Don't discard capable people. The average interview begins with a remote code challenge whereby the candidate, who is probably nervous, has to pair program a completely contrived problem with a complete stranger watching them over a webcam. There are tons of developers who are good at coding solutions to real world problems in real world situations but simply don't perform well in this type of situation. This type of scenario is not really assessing a candidate's skills. It's assessing their familiarity with specific contrived interview problems and their ability to perform under duress. Of course, the points you raised are fair as well. Recruiters are not technical people, they are sales people. You will have to find a good recruiter. They are out there, you just have to find the right ones. But my point is, once you find the good recruiter(s) don't waste the human capital they can being to you by having a terrible interview process. Here is my advice. Once your recruiter has a handful of resumes you like, carve out half a days worth of 30-minute sessions to meet with them at the recruiter's office. Ask them about projects they've worked on. You'll find out much more about what they know and what they're like to work with than you would with the typical remote code challenge. One you narrow the pool down a bit bring them in for on-sites. Best of luck!

isaacaderogba 8y ago
This seems to align with my experience, particularly your first point. For context, I’m working as an Associate Product Manager (so not quite a Product Engineer) but I had applied for a job at a Start-up company that I found extremely interesting. Had an initial interview but didn’t hear back from the company for about a month. I had also sent follow up e-mails about this. When I eventually did hear back from them, they apologised for their delay but then spun me with a homework assignment that would have taken at least 2 days. Safe to say, I kindly declined. So yeah, really focus on how you’re recruiting for talent.
blizkreeg 8y ago
I'd like to talk more about (1). We do a homework assignment that in fact does takes a few hours, but only for candidates who don't have experience developing in our core stack. If you can code in the languages and frameworks we use, it's a step we bypass. It tells us if they can solve a problem well using the tools and setup of their choice. If we clearly see they did well at this, the on-site can then focus on the more non-coding aspect. Our on-site interviews are highly contextual and rooted in the real-world where candidates work directly in our codebase. They are reasonable in the things we ask candidates to do (re-factor something, review PRs, implement a small enhancement). If someone can't code in one of our core languages, it's a tougher assessment since we would have to resort to hypothetical/whiteboard crap (which we hate). How do you assess someone then? We recently had a candidate do a take-home where they didn't do well, and it did save 5-6h of everyone's time and their effort of coming in and being subject to the pressure of the interview. I'd love to hear counter-opinions on this.
- wool_gather 8y ago
  > If you can code in the languages and frameworks we use, it's a step we bypass. Curious; can you say more about how you judge this? Isn't that sort of the point of the homework in the first place?
  - blizkreeg 8y ago
    Judge if they can code in our core stack? Well, if they're working with it in their current job, or in side projects. Assessing if they are good, we can do it in the on-site. Like I said, our on-site is based on knowing our stack, so we have to make sure they can work with it before we bring them in.

sharemywin 8y ago

Curious what your definition of an A versus B profile is?

hichamin 8y ago
I don't have a particular example in mind, but a lot of recruiters or even companies are still biased by credentials and resume buzzwords and don't have a proper vetting process to filter through the noise.
amarraja 8y ago
Not OP, but during a recent hiring process we asked for backend engineers (e.g. java/golang/databases etc). Half of the CVs we received were for Angular/React developers. I'm unsure how this could happen with any sane vetting process.
- hichamin 8y ago
  Wow, is that even true? I do believe the "technical" layer in a recruiter is the most important thing. Amarraja, how do you go about vetting your recruiter? Have you had any set of criteria to identify a solid talent acquisition partner?

cirgue 8y ago

>Asking for profile A and getting profile B is a common frustration. For startups, this tends to be a deal-breaker because hiring the wrong candidate has a significant cost and impact on backlog and team. This sticks out: the hiring process is really bad at making this judgement effectively. We face this problem at my company, most of our best and worst team members have been surprises.

hichamin 8y ago
That is very relatable, and results primarily from failing to identify false positives and false negatives in the hiring process. An interview can result in a bad engineer being hired and later fired (a false positive). And an interview can disqualify someone who could have done that job well (a false negatives). In order to keep the false positive rate low in the face of this noise, companies have to bias decision ever farther toward rejection. The result is a process that misses good engineers, still often preferences credentials over real skill, and often feels capricious and frustrating to the people involved. If everyone at your company had to re-interview for their current jobs, what percentage would pass? This is a scary question. The answer is almost certainly well under 100%. Candidates are harmed when they are rejected by companies they could have done great work for, and companies are harmed when they can't find the talent they need.

JSeymourATL 8y ago

> Job boards are getting crowded. Recruiters are generally worse. It seems that most (young) recruiters these days rely primarily on Linkedin as a sourcing tool. But that's not where the best talent is found. The Hack to finding talent is to truly learn the recruiting process. That is to say, can you identify, assess, and ATTRACT decent people on your own? Start by asking: Who would know know my ideal candidate? ON this subject, Lou Adler is masterful > https://youtu.be/9KLR6rteoOU https://youtu.be/9KLR6rteoOU

dkersten 8y ago
> ATTRACT decent people This reminds me of a recent post that rings pretty true: "When hiring senior engineers, you’re not buying, you’re selling" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18955731 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18955731

fastonosql 8y ago

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vonmoltke 8y ago

> This problem is no longer exclusive to the Bay Area. When people question why so many companies start or stay in the Bay Area, "density of talent" inevitably comes up as one of the reasons. I can't reconcile that assertion with this one here.

hichamin 8y ago
I agree, Silicon Valley is the mecca of engineering talent. However, the demand for that talent greatly outranks the supply. With that being said, how can a seed or even a Series A startup stand out and be able to attract engineers when Facebook & Google are next door? Even better, how can a startup retain its engineer that's probably getting x10 inboxes a day from other companies with better packages? I'm not challenging you here, but it's common questions I hear that can complement your perspective...
- blizkreeg 8y ago
  We're in a similar boat. Attracting good engineers as a seed stage company is challenging. What has worked for you?
- malvosenior 8y ago
  You have to pay competitively. If you can't afford to pay FB level salaries then you either didn't raise enough money or you have to be willing to part with serious equity. I think the days of founders retaining as much stock as they traditionally have are over. You'll need to start compensating your developers like you would execs. If you think about it, it actually makes sense. Execs add value by scaling up an organization of people. Devs add value by scaling up an organization of code and machines. In fact if you think about it like that, devs should probably be getting paid more than non-technical executives.

aantix 8y ago

This problem is no longer exclusive to the Bay Area. Hiring is time-consuming and expensive, and many startups feel that they can’t compete with some of the top salaries and perks offered by deep-pocketed alternatives. Offer to teach the developer something. "Java developers - want to learn Node and React?" "Rails developers - want to learn Elixir?" Get one senior person on staff who really knows the stack well and require that they pair program every day with a different member of the team. Good developers are grateful for the opportunity to level up their skills, contribute, and still make a living. Andres Camacho in SF has been VP of Engineering and CTO at several startups and is king of this strategy.

daveFNbuck 8y ago
If good developers want to level up their skills, how do you keep the senior developer who you've turned into a tutor happy?
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
  Pay them a lot.
  - misterbwong 8y ago
    A certain pay level is necessary, but not sufficient, to keep talented staff.
- aantix 8y ago
  Fair question. At least in the above scenario, it was Andres doing the work of initially getting someone up to speed and then pairing the coworkers on an appropriate level feature/bug. He'd stop by and check in to see where they were stuck and would genuinely try and solve the problem. So, it has to be someone who is a great coder for that stack and enjoys teaching. If it's done right, other members of the team become good teachers as well, so the initial burden of teaching is lightened.
- murph 8y ago
  Mentorship and teaching are also valuable skills. Many good senior engineers would love to focus on them if their employer recognized it as valuable.

systemtest 8y ago

The cheapest way of finding talent is retaining it. I currently work on a project with an empty backlog and a sprint full of impediments. We are all looking for new jobs. Hiring a good product owner would've meant retaining the team. Now you have to have to find six new developers.

cletus 8y ago

There is no such thing as a labour shortage. There is only an unwillingness to pay. If you can't afford to attract talent at market rates then your business model as it is exists isn't viable. A big aspect to this is that the equity lottery of startups is largely gone because companies going public is increasingly rare, companies stay private longer (which presents real problems for the liquidity of employee options) and there are just so many ways an employee can get screwed out of their equity value that as the time a startup is private increases the value of the equity inevitably approaches zero. Down rounds, liquidity preferences, that sort of thing. Equity is a pretty terrible deal for employees. Great for VCs. Great for founders (mostly). Horrible for employees.

jbattle 8y ago
> If you can't afford to attract talent at market rates then your business model as it is exists isn't viable. That sounds kind of extreme, but I think you are on to something. Facebook can generate more incremental revenue per unit developer than company X. It's not that company X is just being cheap offering less and the solution isn't as simple as "raise salaries". This two-tier system of compensation isn't just a matter of non-FAANG companies being too stingy. Its a matter of economics and business models.
nakedrobot2 8y ago
Yes there is such a thing as a labor shortage. When unemployment is below 3% (as in the czech republic) there literally aren't any workers available. No I'm not going to pay someone $30/hour to paint my house, and i'm not going to pay $250/hour to some fresh graduate to hack some node.js.
- malvosenior 8y ago
  Then it's quite possible that your house will stay unpainted and your node.js will stay unhacked. Due to the labor shortage the people who can do those things will be getting paid to do them though, so they won't have any problems with this situation.
- wool_gather 8y ago

andy_adams 8y ago

When I look for a job, I spend time investigating companies who align with my experience, goals, etc - regardless of whether or not they're actively hiring. Consider doing the inverse: Contact developers who may not be looking, but who align with your company well. It's flattering to hear from someone who is genuinely interested in hiring me - if you're interested in _me_, I might consider you even if I wasn't planning on leaving where I'm at. Admittedly, it's time-consuming. But it's also "doing things that don't scale".

wool_gather 8y ago
This seems similar to the "hire from your network" that was mentioned in the OP. Or, to rephrase, how do you find/target these developers?
- andy_adams 8y ago
  I mean outside of your network - people you wouldn't normally get referrals for. LinkedIn in a starting point, then researching an individual (Github profile, Twitter, personal website, etc) to learn more. This will obviously only work if the dev has a public life.
- mbrameld 8y ago
  Do you use any open-source projects? Reach out to the contributors.

pooya13 8y ago

It seems to me that there is more talent going to software than ever and the Junior dev starting salary has been steadily declining over the past decade.

stakhanov 8y ago

Of the dozen-or-so companies that I've been through at this point, there were only three where I would say they put a decent effort into trying to retain the talent they ALREADY HAD. So if finding "fresh meat" is becoming more difficult, maybe there is some good in that, if it incentivizes more to adequately value the talent they already have and put a decent effort into trying to retain them.

malvosenior 8y ago

It's funny because people keep saying this yet I've noticed something... The interview process for developers is about 10X harder than it used to be a decade ago. It used to be that you'd chat with a couple of people about tech, projects you'd worked on... then get a job offer. Now there are multiple rounds spread out over weeks with a massive number of team members, live coding challenges galore, non-tech screening for all manner of sketchy things (culture fit, dedication to diversity...). I think a lot of this is based on they myth of: A bad hire causes tons more damage than not hiring a good person. I call BS. To me this is just weak management. It's actually not that difficult to fire someone. If you're in doubt, put an explicit probation period in the contract. I think being able to effectively fire is management 101 but looks like it's becoming a lost art. I'm not sure if this is because people are afraid of confrontation or they're just cargo culting the story they've heard about bad hires. Easy in, easy out and you'll see your dev shortage problem start to solve itself.

dkersten 8y ago
> A bad hire causes tons more damage than not hiring a good person. I think it is true, but only if you don't identify it quickly and/or don't reassign or fire them as necessary. I'm a firm believer of a holistic and lightweight interview process followed by a trial period. The only way to really understand if someone will work well in the position is to let them give it a try.
creato 8y ago
> I call BS. To me this is just weak management. It's actually not that difficult to fire someone. If you're in doubt, put an explicit probation period in the contract. I think being able to effectively fire is management 101 but looks like it's becoming a lost art. I'm not sure if this is because people are afraid of confrontation or they're just cargo culting the story they've heard about bad hires. It has little to do with confrontation, and a hell of a lot to do with potential legal issues. Maybe this fear is unfounded, but I doubt it. If you are a small company, you might get away with it on pure luck. If you are a big company, you can average out the cost of "bad firings" with the rest, and see how expensive it is. I'm guessing it's a lot.

wrestlerman 8y ago

I'm from Europe, so I will say why I don't want to work in London (and I get a lot of offers from there!) The salaries that are offered are a joke in London. The expenses are so huge there! Even if the salary is a bit higher than my current one, I would spend much more. There are a lot of joke startups, some new cryptocurrency or blockchain startups... Nope, I'm not gonna join anything like that. Also, I'm not a huge fan of big cities and London is too crowded (for me). Allow remote and I'm sure you are gonna find someone.

nakedrobot2 8y ago

Hey y'all, there's a huge tech talent shortage in Prague, which has approximately 1000x higher quality of life than the bay area. You can make a high salary here and live extremely well. Bonus: no human feces on your front doorstep!

hc91 8y ago

Man, there is NO shortage of tech talent, stop lying to yourself. You are just not paying enough for people to even consider interviewing for your company. Period. This is actually a very simple problem. Throw money at it and stop complaining.

fucking_tragedy 8y ago

Pay more.

fucking_tragedy 8y ago
To add on to this: offer remote, and if you have an office, don't have an open office setup.

weliketocode 8y ago

The usual HN refrain here is 'pay more'. And as a developer in NYC, I'd say this is accurate, but simplifies the problem a bit too much. Companies like their salary bands. Companies like to hire people at around the same compensation as current employees in the same role with around the same experience. The problem is that demand has recently gone up and pay should go up with it, but companies are refusing to adjust their bands and greatly increase pay for their current employees across the board. So, instead of addressing the pay issue head on, we're seeing a few really really bad practices: - Lose candidates at the offer stage - Try to get comp expectations out of the way earlier. - Losing candidates to Big Co. for big pay discrepancies is likely tolerable - Losing candidates over $20k salary band issues is absolutely unacceptable - DO NOT let HR takeover the closing process. - Don't try to give an exploding offer - Don't say an offer is 'best and final' - The CTO or VP eng should give the offer and make it a priority to close the candidate - Giving pay increases to current employees only when they have other offers or explicitly ask for it - Giving regular title bumps to justify pay increases - Your 'senior' engineers will be involved with hiring. It's better to give junior/mid-level engineers big raises than title bumps that will make hiring talent more difficult If these points sound obvious, they're not. As a candidate, I have not seen a single company that follows them. And this post just addresses issues around compensation. I haven't even begun to touch on being honest around your interview process. But let me put a few questions out there as well: - How many rounds do you have? - 3 is probably a maximum. Never have more than one on-site - What is your accept rate at each round? - the accept rate should increase from round to round - For testing candidates - be very clear about what questions you're asking and why - know, objectively, what is considered a pass vs a fail for every question

lwhalen 8y ago
I'd like to add on to that: "Pay more" and "Hire remote". Don't disregard the consultant firms either. Many times I've seen a big push to hire an FTE (or series of FTEs) to do a Big Project(tm), only to have to let the FTEs go after Big Project(tm) is completed because there was no more work for them to do.

CamTin 8y ago

If your business is essentially burning VC money for a decade to buy a ticket in the Unicorn lottery, then the easy answer is to spend a lot more money. You can do this by poaching expensive people, by offering more, or by hiring lots more people than you need and keeping the ones you actually want. The result will be more manpower faster, at significant expense. You can also, as many companies default to, ration yourself by imposing very grueling hiring requirements (months of fly-in interviews and hours-long take-home assignments) and "competitive" (as determined by some non-market mechanism like an industry survey) pay. The result of the latter will be long hiring times for good-enough talent that is willing to work for whatever you've pre-determined to be fair. It's really no different from looking for a car: you can have a known high-quality thing right now (buy new from a dealer/pay $$$ for top talent), or you can buy a lot of potential lemons for cheaper until one happens to last (grabbing random by-owner cars from Craigslist/hire-fast-fire-fast), or you can just wait things out until you find the perfect deal (trawl Craigslist a couple times a week until something jumps out as an incredible deal/pay "market" rates and have a long hiring process). There are tradeoffs to be made, and you have to make them according to what you actually need and the resources you have. There's no physical law that says you're entitled to unlimited world-class talent at bargain rates to build your adtech startup.

SJMosley 8y ago

As a product manager, I have gotten to the last round of multiple interviews (3 or more, meeting full teams and different departments). Then been turned down as they are "going with other candidates", only to see the job reposted. This has happened on multiple occasions. Maybe I wasn't the right person for the role. One specific role has now been up for 5 months. Which likely means the company is looking for an unrealistic set of requirements that no one can meet instead of training appropriately. In my opinion, the person that will come in and solve all your problems without training does not exist. Make a decision and be okay with letting a new employee get familiar with your company and industry.

Salesdude 8y ago
Some companies post "non-existing jobs" for the following reasons: 1- Gather information from candidates about how other companies are doing the same job or about their strategies 2- Go deeper into discussion with candidates who work for a competitor. 3- Look to be hiring for investors/competitors..etc
- masonic 8y ago
  4- Fulfill a "we really looked for domestic candidates, honest!" checkbox before hiring on visa.
- SJMosley 8y ago
  True, seems like a great way to disrespect candidates (good or bad). Then you can complain about not being able to find people cause the job has been up for so long.

mattkrause 8y ago

I'm not sure I believe this. Find a random research university near you. It is chock-a-block full of people, most of whom are very smart and many of whom can code. Since everyone other than tenured profs has a precarious, low-paying job, this should be a fairly easy pool to recruit from. Nevertheless, I, a staff scientist in a computational field, get messages from (maybe) 3-4 recruiters a year, all of whom are from huge companies. It would be good to hear from more places and it would great to hear from places that are willing to consider my actual experience (look at my code, hear about my data analysis) instead of asking me to dredge up half-remembered tricks from my undergrad data structures class.

quantumhobbit 8y ago

Many here are commenting that you should pay more and that is true. But how about not wasting the talent you already have? I’ve had several jobs from startups to big companies and I have never been utilized at anything close to 100% of my potential. Try getting rid of pointless meetings, distracting open offices, insane IT policies, and needlessly overcomplicated architectures. You may not even need to hire any more enigineers if the ones you have are more productive.

mariusz331 8y ago

Tech salaries have gone up faster than founders/VCs expected and it's becoming more expensive to run a startup. Perhaps startups should wait a little longer to raise money. It seems more important than ever to find product-market fit before hiring.

mnm1 8y ago

Shortage my ass. These companies are not paying enough, not looking for remote workers, and generally not offering enough attractive packages. There's no shortage. Start paying more. Offer remote work. Stop being a shitty workplace. Qualified developers will start pouring in. If you think a ping pong table and beer keg are going to attract quality talent over a proper salary and remote work you're delusional and shouldn't be in a position to hire.

protonimitate 8y ago

I don't think the problem is a shortage of talent. I think the problem is that the expectations for the amount of work a single employee can produce are unrealistic. Everyone wants to hire the 10xer. The problem is that they're a) expensive, b) not always easy to work with, c) usually already employed. If companies stopped focusing on getting the "best of the best" to produce results overnight, and instead spent energy in investing in young/less experienced candidates, things would be a lot easier for everyone. Of course, this means that companies need to come up with ways to retain talent so they don't "waste they time" on developing someones career to just have them poached. I find it funny how posts like these alternate between "why can' I find a job?" and "why can't we hire anyone?". Obviously there's a disconnect somewhere. There is absolutely no shortage of talent, it's just mismanaged expectations (on both ends).

itronitron 8y ago
Something to consider, if every company told every candidate that had an on-site why they were not offered a position then the pool of candidates would more easily adapt, over time, to the needs of these positions. That would be a win for everyone involved.

rajacombinator 8y ago

Pay more or be more willing to work with people who don’t have all the skills you want. (Yet.) A lot of startups want to hire senior FAANG type talent and pay them less than entry level at those companies. Good luck. You have to be scrappy as a startup and that includes how you find talent.

RickJWagner 8y ago

I can't imagine it's really that difficult. I work remote, and love my job. But if something ever happened to change that, I'd be glad to work for another company. The other company just has to allow remote workers. Given that, I think there's probably a big pool of talent to draw from.

ykevinator 8y ago

And by the way of the 30 or so engineers I have hired in the last 10 years, exactly 1 would have been correctly filtered by a homework assignment and 7 or 8 would have been incorrectly filtered. Technical hiring in my opinion is so poorly done by most people because they think developers are commodities that can be standardized and quantified.