8 ms·

Interesting, he still sees fixing engineering hiring as the biggest opportunity in SaaS: https://capiche.com/q/whats-the-biggest-opportunity-for-a-saas-business

by maguay 7y ago

Interesting, he still sees fixing engineering hiring as the biggest opportunity in SaaS: https://capiche.com/q/whats-the-biggest-opportunity-for-a-saas-business-that-you-currently-see https://capiche.com/q/whats-the-biggest-opportunity-for-a-sa...

pmiller2 7y ago
I’m not surprised. Just look at how many “eng hiring is broken” threads on here. If software could help you hire candidates that are 10% more productive and stay 25% longer (numbers pulled out of my ass) than the candidates you hire now, how much do you think your company would pay for that?
- ScottFree 7y ago
  I'm a little surprised. In that same comment, he says he took a swing at it and missed. He spoke about the failure of starfighter at length at the time[0]. He made it sound like there would need to be a fundamental social shift in the industry for large scale changes in hiring practices to occur. Or maybe I read too much into it. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11691568 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11691568
  - mikekchar 7y ago
    To a certain extent, I think there is truth both ways. There is a huge amount of opportunity, but it's a bit like developer training: badly needed, but basically impossible to scale effectively. What you really want are agents, rather than recruiters, really. Developers change jobs every few years and are always on the look out for either better or newer opportunities. Having an agent that is skilled at assessing those opportunities, good at negotiation and good at matching opportunities to a list of clients would be amazing. But you can't hire 20-40 sales people and bang random people off the internet into jobs at scale. It's an opportunity for an individual, or a small team, not for a VC. And, yes. Boy would I like an agent to negotiate my next raise and find me a better job if my current employer says no....
- raghus 7y ago
  In addition to hiring new engineers, another challenge companies have is to get existing hires who have more context for the company's problems either get better or get more current with newer technologies.
- kristopolous 7y ago
  Honestly it's the wrong problem. Having passionate, eager, focused, organized, willing workers is essentially the only job of management. If that's not happening, switch out the managers.
  - granshaw 7y ago
    Eeehhhhhh, if the overall company doesn’t have a good culture or vision etc, there only so much management can paper over
    - kristopolous 7y ago
      Executives and founders are also managers.
  - pmiller2 7y ago
    You want me to be passionate about making rich people richer? How laughable. I show up for work and do my job to the best of my ability because if I didn’t, I’d starve on the streets with no health insurance.
    - kristopolous 7y ago
      A company I worked at ran out of money. All my people stayed. 1 month, 2, 3 went by. I found guaranteed positions for them based solely on my recommendation for more pay then if we had money, the people still stayed. They came in for work the same. Everything kept going. We eventually had a successful product, made money, and were able to backpay. If I was a disorganized manager giving meaningless drudgery and absurd requirements divorced from product and purpose they would have all left. There has to be a deeper mission, purpose, and vision that keeps people around and focused. That's the managements job. People aren't generally in tech for the money, there's better money in real estate, sales and finance with less work. Drive the passion and you'll drive the work. Programming is like movies, art, and music: great things rarely happen when people are just chasing dollars.
      - 7y ago
- jodrellblank 7y ago
  Given the tons of companies who barely seem to make any attempt to hold onto employees, talk to them, listen to them, support them, treat them like humans, give them effective tools, and the number of unhappy-at-work people, I'd have to guess.. .. that companies love spending money instead of changing anything, so I think they'd spend loads of investor money on it. How hard could it possibly be to get 25% longer than all the people who say you have to change jobs every 12-18 months? To be nice enough that people stay /four months/ longer??
- streetcat1 7y ago
  pay more.
- wolfgke 7y ago
  > If software could help you hire candidates that [...] stay 25% longer This is a very cultural thing. For example, in Germany it is frowned upon to switch companies too often. If your CV shows that you switch jobs every few years, this is considered a red flag since this candidate will not be very loyal to your company. I also ask myself whether the "company incentive structure" is the cause of switching jobs; if it is easier to get more pay by switching companies than by staying, then of course candidates will be prone to switch. So perhaps not what is broken (in terms of loyality) is "eng hiring", but the incentive structure of the companies that want to retain the engineers.
  - pmiller2 7y ago
    Why would you be loyal to a company?
sky_rw 7y ago
Is this really that groundbreaking of an opinion? Hiring has and will likely always be an expensive challenge for every industry.

by maguay 7y ago

pmiller2 7y ago

I’m not surprised. Just look at how many “eng hiring is broken” threads on here. If software could help you hire candidates that are 10% more productive and stay 25% longer (numbers pulled out of my ass) than the candidates you hire now, how much do you think your company would pay for that?

ScottFree 7y ago
I'm a little surprised. In that same comment, he says he took a swing at it and missed. He spoke about the failure of starfighter at length at the time[0]. He made it sound like there would need to be a fundamental social shift in the industry for large scale changes in hiring practices to occur. Or maybe I read too much into it. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11691568 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11691568
- mikekchar 7y ago
  To a certain extent, I think there is truth both ways. There is a huge amount of opportunity, but it's a bit like developer training: badly needed, but basically impossible to scale effectively. What you really want are agents, rather than recruiters, really. Developers change jobs every few years and are always on the look out for either better or newer opportunities. Having an agent that is skilled at assessing those opportunities, good at negotiation and good at matching opportunities to a list of clients would be amazing. But you can't hire 20-40 sales people and bang random people off the internet into jobs at scale. It's an opportunity for an individual, or a small team, not for a VC. And, yes. Boy would I like an agent to negotiate my next raise and find me a better job if my current employer says no....
raghus 7y ago
In addition to hiring new engineers, another challenge companies have is to get existing hires who have more context for the company's problems either get better or get more current with newer technologies.
kristopolous 7y ago
Honestly it's the wrong problem. Having passionate, eager, focused, organized, willing workers is essentially the only job of management. If that's not happening, switch out the managers.
- granshaw 7y ago
  Eeehhhhhh, if the overall company doesn’t have a good culture or vision etc, there only so much management can paper over
  - kristopolous 7y ago
    Executives and founders are also managers.
- pmiller2 7y ago
  You want me to be passionate about making rich people richer? How laughable. I show up for work and do my job to the best of my ability because if I didn’t, I’d starve on the streets with no health insurance.
  - kristopolous 7y ago
    A company I worked at ran out of money. All my people stayed. 1 month, 2, 3 went by. I found guaranteed positions for them based solely on my recommendation for more pay then if we had money, the people still stayed. They came in for work the same. Everything kept going. We eventually had a successful product, made money, and were able to backpay. If I was a disorganized manager giving meaningless drudgery and absurd requirements divorced from product and purpose they would have all left. There has to be a deeper mission, purpose, and vision that keeps people around and focused. That's the managements job. People aren't generally in tech for the money, there's better money in real estate, sales and finance with less work. Drive the passion and you'll drive the work. Programming is like movies, art, and music: great things rarely happen when people are just chasing dollars.
    - 7y ago
jodrellblank 7y ago
Given the tons of companies who barely seem to make any attempt to hold onto employees, talk to them, listen to them, support them, treat them like humans, give them effective tools, and the number of unhappy-at-work people, I'd have to guess.. .. that companies love spending money instead of changing anything, so I think they'd spend loads of investor money on it. How hard could it possibly be to get 25% longer than all the people who say you have to change jobs every 12-18 months? To be nice enough that people stay /four months/ longer??
streetcat1 7y ago
pay more.
wolfgke 7y ago
> If software could help you hire candidates that [...] stay 25% longer This is a very cultural thing. For example, in Germany it is frowned upon to switch companies too often. If your CV shows that you switch jobs every few years, this is considered a red flag since this candidate will not be very loyal to your company. I also ask myself whether the "company incentive structure" is the cause of switching jobs; if it is easier to get more pay by switching companies than by staying, then of course candidates will be prone to switch. So perhaps not what is broken (in terms of loyality) is "eng hiring", but the incentive structure of the companies that want to retain the engineers.
- pmiller2 7y ago
  Why would you be loyal to a company?

sky_rw 7y ago

Is this really that groundbreaking of an opinion? Hiring has and will likely always be an expensive challenge for every industry.