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To be fair, that would mean that your ability level is the median ability of the team you'd be joining, which doesn't sound all that far-fetched to me. If the s

To be fair, that would mean that your ability level is the median ability of the team you'd be joining, which doesn't sound all that far-fetched to me. If the skill level of new hires is always close to the median, the overall team ability should stay the same in the long run. This line of thought obviously depends on the assumption that you can measure the exact ability using just a single quantity.

QuercusMax 5y ago
Exactly. Who wants to hire somebody who's dumber than half their teammates? That's a recipe for failure. Assuming inaccurate measurement, you'll actually have some below median, so you need to bias upward or else you'll just end up with a bunch of mediocre eng.
- treis 5y ago
  The logical end to that is that you wouldn't hire half your employees again. When put that way it's pretty clearly an unreasonable standard.
  - crmrc114 5y ago
    Yep, and that point has been brought up ad-nauseum internally. Also Jeff did comment how he would probably not be hired by his own company. I personally saw the business pushing the scales to the point of 'just get them in the door, oh my god we are growing too fast and don't have time for your bickering'. Depending on the business unit and how hungry the hiring manager is that issue of raises the bar can just be a hand wave and 'get em` in'. For some technical positions you have a 'bar raiser' interview you who is often an IC who was promoted to Management ranks and has to serve penance by being the one to conduct countless BR interviews. 99% of them were pretty chill on the Clark/Fufillment side of the business. Cant speak to the Jassy/AWS side of the house. Their concept of BR may be more concrete. We rarely kept people out just because they did not 'raise the bar' since that is subjective as hell and personally I like qualified metrics. I never interviewed for the AWS side of the house since I knew I wanted free time, and a life.
    - whoknew1122 5y ago
      On the AWS side of the house, the bar raiser doesn't actually interview the candidate. The bar raiser is there as a neutral party to help facilitate hiring decisions and debriefs. It's the bar raiser's job to make sure that the hiring manager doesn't just hire people to fill seats. More than once, I've seen bar raisers override hiring managers when there was compelling evidence from the technical interviewers. At least in my org, you don't get the job if you don't raise the bar. Period.
      - crmrc114 5y ago
        That is crazy- with us BRs would just sit in on the POD like any other member and have the same voting authority as everyone else. I wonder when things split internally that Team Jassy and Team Clark starting doing things so differently. Thanks for the post man, that is crazy to learn.
kergonath 5y ago
That’s true if we assume that ability does not change with time. But if you have a spectrum of experience in the team, it might be unrealistic to expect rookies to match the median.

QuercusMax 5y ago

Exactly. Who wants to hire somebody who's dumber than half their teammates? That's a recipe for failure. Assuming inaccurate measurement, you'll actually have some below median, so you need to bias upward or else you'll just end up with a bunch of mediocre eng.

treis 5y ago
The logical end to that is that you wouldn't hire half your employees again. When put that way it's pretty clearly an unreasonable standard.
- crmrc114 5y ago
  Yep, and that point has been brought up ad-nauseum internally. Also Jeff did comment how he would probably not be hired by his own company. I personally saw the business pushing the scales to the point of 'just get them in the door, oh my god we are growing too fast and don't have time for your bickering'. Depending on the business unit and how hungry the hiring manager is that issue of raises the bar can just be a hand wave and 'get em` in'. For some technical positions you have a 'bar raiser' interview you who is often an IC who was promoted to Management ranks and has to serve penance by being the one to conduct countless BR interviews. 99% of them were pretty chill on the Clark/Fufillment side of the business. Cant speak to the Jassy/AWS side of the house. Their concept of BR may be more concrete. We rarely kept people out just because they did not 'raise the bar' since that is subjective as hell and personally I like qualified metrics. I never interviewed for the AWS side of the house since I knew I wanted free time, and a life.
  - whoknew1122 5y ago
    On the AWS side of the house, the bar raiser doesn't actually interview the candidate. The bar raiser is there as a neutral party to help facilitate hiring decisions and debriefs. It's the bar raiser's job to make sure that the hiring manager doesn't just hire people to fill seats. More than once, I've seen bar raisers override hiring managers when there was compelling evidence from the technical interviewers. At least in my org, you don't get the job if you don't raise the bar. Period.
    - crmrc114 5y ago
      That is crazy- with us BRs would just sit in on the POD like any other member and have the same voting authority as everyone else. I wonder when things split internally that Team Jassy and Team Clark starting doing things so differently. Thanks for the post man, that is crazy to learn.

kergonath 5y ago

That’s true if we assume that ability does not change with time. But if you have a spectrum of experience in the team, it might be unrealistic to expect rookies to match the median.