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Top talent means different things to different businesses and many people forget or don't see that. Most companies don't need and are probably actively hurt by

Top talent means different things to different businesses and many people forget or don't see that. Most companies don't need and are probably actively hurt by people that would be considered top talent at Facebook or something; they need people who can churn away on boring stuff (maintenance, crud, ...), reliably and in a predictable way from 9-5, 4-5 days / week. And like that kind of job and want to do it for decades and decades on end for you; people who don't reload LinkedIn looking for 'new challenges with the latest framework' 20x a day. I would like to hire almost only 'top talent' like that. I like to have 1-2 top performers that 'could've or did' work for Google etc but the rest, no; it's actually risky to have those people in that position because they get bored too quickly, job hop, like new things too much, want to redo stuff they think is badly done etc. Money is not really a thing that binds them either (maybe if you go crazy town, but who besides the FAANGs can pay that?): I had people walk off that were paid US wages in Spain by us (work from home, before covid) because they 'found a more interesting opportunity for their career'. That's not top talent to me. Edit: and that similarly goes for how you define mediocre; I think my toptalents are your mediocre. I'll have your mediocre please!

OJFord 5y ago
> And like that kind of job and want to do it for decades and decades on end for you; people who don't reload LinkedIn looking for 'new challenges with the latest framework' 20x a day. Interesting, I associate 'latest framework' more with trying to keep the monotonous job interesting (or perhaps misguided attempt at keeping sharp) than with 'new challenges'...
- gmadsen 5y ago
  Part of it, is it seems that once you are in web dev, its hard to leave. So you try to make it interesting as best as you can, with "latest frameworks". I personally find all of of web dev to be monotonous
  - shagie 5y ago
    Once you are a {something} dev, it is hard to leave. That {something} can be web, embedded, ML, etc... it doesn't matter. The problem is twofold. First, your skills in {something} are appreciating more than the other skills. If you're a web dev trying to transition to embedded, the skills as a web dev will let you get a more senior spot than going back to a lower experience embedded. As a $150k/y web dev, would you rather go to $175k/y sr web dev or $125k/y embedded? It's not that its hard - just that the skills that you've invested time into don't have value and you're going to need to go back to being "just" a competent programmer who needs to learn the domain for anything you switch to. Secondly, there's the "why are you switching" problem. If you are switching from web to embedded, the question will come up "why are you switching to a different domain." When that question gets asked, many candidates exhibit a more whimsical or capricious nature of just wanting to do something different. At which point the interviewer is looking at "competent, but likely to leave in a year or two because they got bored" vs "less experienced, but interested in the domain." The second candidate is probably a better choice. The way to solve that is the personal project and demonstrate that you're interested in the domain at more than a "I'm bored with what I currently do."

OJFord 5y ago

> And like that kind of job and want to do it for decades and decades on end for you; people who don't reload LinkedIn looking for 'new challenges with the latest framework' 20x a day. Interesting, I associate 'latest framework' more with trying to keep the monotonous job interesting (or perhaps misguided attempt at keeping sharp) than with 'new challenges'...

gmadsen 5y ago
Part of it, is it seems that once you are in web dev, its hard to leave. So you try to make it interesting as best as you can, with "latest frameworks". I personally find all of of web dev to be monotonous
- shagie 5y ago
  Once you are a {something} dev, it is hard to leave. That {something} can be web, embedded, ML, etc... it doesn't matter. The problem is twofold. First, your skills in {something} are appreciating more than the other skills. If you're a web dev trying to transition to embedded, the skills as a web dev will let you get a more senior spot than going back to a lower experience embedded. As a $150k/y web dev, would you rather go to $175k/y sr web dev or $125k/y embedded? It's not that its hard - just that the skills that you've invested time into don't have value and you're going to need to go back to being "just" a competent programmer who needs to learn the domain for anything you switch to. Secondly, there's the "why are you switching" problem. If you are switching from web to embedded, the question will come up "why are you switching to a different domain." When that question gets asked, many candidates exhibit a more whimsical or capricious nature of just wanting to do something different. At which point the interviewer is looking at "competent, but likely to leave in a year or two because they got bored" vs "less experienced, but interested in the domain." The second candidate is probably a better choice. The way to solve that is the personal project and demonstrate that you're interested in the domain at more than a "I'm bored with what I currently do."