4 ms·

Your implicit assumption seems to be that Google and its ilk hire the absolute best engineers. This is simply not true, for one very simple reason. There is no

by maxaf 7y ago

Your implicit assumption seems to be that Google and its ilk hire the absolute best engineers. This is simply not true, for one very simple reason. There is no proven method for sorting a pile of candidates such that the absolute best engineers will float to the top. In the case of high-profile employers, a significant percentage of hires will be those who have trained themselves specifically to beat the hiring process at that company. Those people aren’t the absolute best software engineers.

esotericn 7y ago
They are the best at obtaining positions at Google. Which is what people talk about here. No-one ever mentions the fact that say, you're barred from cracking out `git clone` and making the next Linux. It's always commercial employment, which always has been and I am willing to bet always will be primarily a political field. Obviously Google doesn't have the best devs - or at least I bloody well hope they don't - because they're mostly working on ad conversion shite. That excludes a ton of people I know right off the bat.
SonOfKyuss 7y ago
> Those people aren’t the absolute best software engineers. There’s no proof that they are but there’s also no proof that they aren’t
- geggam 7y ago
  CVE list for android would be a good place to start ;)
  - izacus 7y ago
    Start with what exactly? Did you personally work on any other project at that scale with less CVEs?
    - geggam 7y ago
      What I work on has nothing to do with the fact googles products are no better or worse than others. Proving they are just normal people.
alain94040 7y ago
There is no proven method for sorting a pile of candidates such that the absolute best engineers will float to the top [for the sake of argument] -- yes, there is a method, if you want to find out the top few best engineers. Look at their experience. Jeff Dean, Linus, John Carmak. I think my algorithm fulfills the letter of your search criteria by finding a few 10X engineers in an ocean of regular people. Unfortunately, the 10X (or arguably, 100X in this case) engineers may not be enough or not be interested in the job opening you have.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

by maxaf 7y ago

esotericn 7y ago

They are the best at obtaining positions at Google. Which is what people talk about here. No-one ever mentions the fact that say, you're barred from cracking out `git clone` and making the next Linux. It's always commercial employment, which always has been and I am willing to bet always will be primarily a political field. Obviously Google doesn't have the best devs - or at least I bloody well hope they don't - because they're mostly working on ad conversion shite. That excludes a ton of people I know right off the bat.

SonOfKyuss 7y ago

> Those people aren’t the absolute best software engineers. There’s no proof that they are but there’s also no proof that they aren’t

geggam 7y ago
CVE list for android would be a good place to start ;)
- izacus 7y ago
  Start with what exactly? Did you personally work on any other project at that scale with less CVEs?
  - geggam 7y ago
    What I work on has nothing to do with the fact googles products are no better or worse than others. Proving they are just normal people.

alain94040 7y ago

There is no proven method for sorting a pile of candidates such that the absolute best engineers will float to the top [for the sake of argument] -- yes, there is a method, if you want to find out the top few best engineers. Look at their experience. Jeff Dean, Linus, John Carmak. I think my algorithm fulfills the letter of your search criteria by finding a few 10X engineers in an ocean of regular people. Unfortunately, the 10X (or arguably, 100X in this case) engineers may not be enough or not be interested in the job opening you have.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]