10 ms·

In-demand tech skills are the last thing to look for in IT hires

• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• throwaway19170 5y ago
  I sometimes worry that I'm somehow becoming more and more of a jerk as my career progresses, instead of less. Maybe I'm just sick of this career.
  • breckenedge 5y ago
    I hate the term "jerk". It's really just not specific enough to categorize, or correct, bad behavior. I am always concerned about coming off as a narcissist or elitist. I was turned down recently after a well-executed technical interview because the company was concerned that I might be a jerk, which is actually great feedback. They based this on a "vim-mode sucks" comment I left in the notes section of online editor they were using to conduct the technical round when it froze up. Whoops. I’ve definitely been a jerk sometimes in the past, and it’s something I work on frequently with a psychiatrist. I’ve also worked for some very successful narcissists in the past, so I don’t have a lot of great examples to reference. And my socialization skills sometimes come off as stilted since one of my parents is on the spectrum. Emotionally it can be hard to tamp down on frustration, but I’ve gotten a lot better since I started seeing a psych a few years ago. I really hope people can get back to treating each other like human beings rather than labels.
    • angrais 5y ago
      Let's play a game. Imagine you're s senior dev and interviewing another Dev today. They do well technically, but write comments in their codebase that critique your decisions (such as choice of tool, questions asked, framework used, etc). What's your thoughts on this person? I'd not say jerk, but I would think they're not taking the process seriously. A technical test certainly isn't a place to make jokes as you don't know how they'll be perceived. Play it safe. Anyway, your third paragraph ... It reads to me like you're passing blame on others rather than reflecting and acknowledging your choices. For example, " since one of my parents ...". No. _your_ social skills and decisions are yours. Likewise, you blame past narcissists you've worked for for not having good role models? You should know right from wrong, and making such comments during an interview is wrong.
      • breckenedge 5y ago
        I fully accept my responsibility for my actions. Don’t know how else to reply to your comment except to say that.
• dep_b 5y ago
  > Entrepreneurs need to guard against the temptation to hire an antisocial or unempathetic talent, no matter how brilliant I think the same about the products of antisocial or unempathetic companies. Hence my “no Oracle” policy.
  • lumost 5y ago
    People work at companies for a variety of reasons. You never know if you're hiring someone who hated the culture of Oracle but wanted a job in their region working on DB technology. Or they come in via acquisition, or Oracle was simply the only job which would take them at their current pay - or they were ignorant of the reputation.
    • the_only_law 5y ago
      I think GP was meaning they don't use Oracle products
      • pjmlp 5y ago
        I guess he keeps his own custom Linux kernel clean from Oracle paid commits, and doesn't use any product that might have Java underneath.
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    • runnerup 5y ago
      I think the poster you replied to may have meant "no B2B contracts with Oracle, etc"
      • deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
    • DeathArrow 5y ago
      I think the poster is saying he wouldn't work for Oracle.
• abadger9 5y ago
  on a tangential note, i was fortunate to work at netsuite early in their development (00-10) and it was the best professional experience of my life. Their low attrition rate speaks to the caliber of their leadership
• blueslurpee 5y ago
  >Sure, in the ’80s, it might have been possible for one person to do it all: systems administration, database, coding, design. But in today’s world, database administrators, infrastructure engineers, coders, designers, project managers and others — whether on staff, on contract or with a vendor or service provider — must work together to execute projects quickly, securely and reliably. Tech today is a team sport. I find actually the opposite to be true. The leverage of individual engineers is only growing with the advent of SaaS and the proliferation of API's. Then of course there are the stories of small engineering teams with Unicorn exits, e.g. Instagram, WhatsApp, etc.
  • hadsed 5y ago
    i agree. the overhead of teams and external dependencies is often just too high--you're far better off if you can keep things small but mighty
  • Oddskar 5y ago
    We didn't have APIs 10 years ago? I agree with the article. As we build more complex products we need to be more specialized and work together. Maybe not the case if one is working at a startup trying to cobble something together that looks like a working product by customers and investors.
    • pjmlp 5y ago
      We had APIs since Sun RPC, they just keep being rebooted. The 2021 version is REST/gRPC for SaaS products.
      • Oddskar 5y ago
        REST? Didn't you get the memo? We've all moved on to GraphQL because Facebook use it and that means we all should use it. It also enables our UI components to easily fetch data themselves. Because that's a great architectural pattern that we've discovered.
        • 5y ago
• Jensson 5y ago
  > A good technologist has grace. He will respectfully probe for intent in a way that doesn’t put the requester on the defensive. He will make it clear that this is a partnership, and that getting the job done is high on his list of priorities — it’s just that he needs some information in order to do a good job for you. Sounds like a very toxic environment. What would put the tech worker that much on their toes, what would happen if they stepped out of line? Would the manager get angry because it looks like the tech worker tries to be lazy? Do people get angry when you ask questions unless you make it absolutely sure those questions are to help solve their problem? I'd really hate to work in such an environment where tech workers needs to tip-toe around issues because people gets angry if you don't. Maybe it would be easier if you focused on hiring managers with soft skills first instead of putting in so much effort hiring tech workers with much better soft skills than those managers?
  • hluska 5y ago
    I see your point but I'll caution you that I don't think this cat has any experience building software, so his concept of how things flow is a little off. I'd completely ignore this entire paragraph and just focus on becoming an active listener and learning how to ask questions.
  • wvenable 5y ago
    People are people and many don't understand or are actively afraid of technology. They have jobs to do and if they don't know you, they may be skeptical about what you can do for them. They might even have been burned in past by developers who promise but don't deliver. Knowing how to talk to people to get your project done is a great skill.
    • Jensson 5y ago
      > Knowing how to talk to people to get your project done is a great skill. Right, so why would your company hire people who are so bad at talking to people that the developer has to go to such lengths to save that persons project? I wouldn't want to work there.
• zabzonk 5y ago
  > I’ll expand that to include prima donnas, misanthropes and garden-variety narcissists. Pretty much the definition on an "entrepreneur".
  • rl1987 5y ago
    I.e. a lot of the people doing the hiring?
  • dang 5y ago
    "Don't be snarky." "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith." "Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
• DeathArrow 5y ago
  >Hiring a developer? Check out the GitHub “repository,” which is essentially the portfolio site for coders. I have almost nothing in my Github repo and I code for 20 years. Neither do most of my colleagues. Artists might have portofolios, programmers most likely won't have.
  • dehrmann 5y ago
    I suspect most profiles are either toy projects people desperate to get into the industry wrote or prolific open source developers who are only a fit for a handful of roles at a big company (think Linus or Guido) and will continue doing essentially the same work, but for a patron. A handful of companies develop in the open (Gitlab), and some roles work on public SDKs. My profile is a grab bag of forks for PRs and library side projects people might (and have!) found useful.
    • rikroots 5y ago
      I first started with GitHub because a recruiter told me I needed a portfolio of some sort to demonstrate my skills to potential employers. Given that I'd been applying for graduate/junior roles in the industry for over three years with frustratingly little success at getting to face-to-face interview stage, I decided to build some side projects to show people what I could do. I got my first professional coding job a year later. I lucked out by finding an employer who not only looked at my GitHub, but was also willing to take a risk on hiring a 49yo junior. The side-project is still on-going: developing it keeps me entertained when the grind of regular work drains my enthusiasm for coding.
  • 908B64B197 5y ago
    > portfolio site for coders So many red flags here. It's true that some of the best devs in the world are active on GitHub. So what I started seeing are bootcamps trying to emulate that by having their grad work on (basically their homework) on github and the whole bootcamp becomes structured around building this "portfolio". Then when you interview more than one candidate from said bootcamp and actually pay attention to the repo they show you, you realize it's 80% similar. Actually, everyone from that bootcamp has almost the same code checked-in...
• donretag 5y ago
  Companies still do not know how to interview for hard skills, what makes you think they can do it for soft skills? Previous workplace disagreement? Easy to hide during an interview.
  • DeathArrow 5y ago
    >Companies still do not know how to interview for hard skills They put you trough leetcode or hackerrank.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• ryanmarsh 5y ago
  I’ll hire the crazy yet brilliant people any day of the week. It’s a leadership challenge and the work output is worth the time investment.
  • SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
    Genuinely asking what do you mean by crazy, because I think there’s a level of toxic that no leadership should be tolerating. (I’m thinking HR violating stuff like “can’t resist assaulting co workers”)
    • ryanmarsh 5y ago
      I meant crazy as in "tortured genius" not "a criminal". Assaulting someone is a crime, don't call HR, call the damn police.
• macrowhat 5y ago
  Says... Netsuite...
• bob1029 5y ago
  Our interviews for tech hires have gradually evolved into an interrogation regarding a person's attitude towards work/peers more so than their knowledge about how to do specific tech things. Teaching a willing participant how to do virtually anything with a computer is feasible in 2021. We need people who are willing to engage difficult, fast-changing things substantially more than smart-asses who think they know everything coming in the door. There was an interview I was on last week where the candidate gave a ~3/10 response to an important technical question, but because their attitude and other soft skills were obviously excellent, we made a unanimous hire decision. It was clear to us that we could coach this individual to get them to 10/10 on the areas they need to be. At this point, we are no longer requiring any certificates or college education. If someone happens to have a degree in a hard engineering field we are happy to have that, but it's no longer something we gate-keep on.
  • Jensson 5y ago
    > Teaching a willing participant how to do virtually anything with a computer is feasible in 2021 You could become a billionaire in the coding bootcamp space if you know how to do this.
    • bob1029 5y ago
      The coding bootcamp space is largely a scam in my experience. I have never seen someone go through one of those and then go on to become an employed developer. The idea that you can cram programming into someone's head in a matter of hours/days/weeks is ridiculous. It is a natural exploration that takes time to stick. You will notice I did not describe any time constraints in my post. We have no problem investing years into individuals who posess the right attitude. Learning by example and exposure over time is the best way to become a master.
      • LMYahooTFY 5y ago
        For the record, I went through a "boot camp", though it was the longest one I could find that was feasible (9 months), and I've been hired as a developer. I think the program definitely bootstrapped me into this role. But I'm quite confident I only got it because I had a good attitude and was relatively humble, and the hiring manager had an attitude similar to yours. Do you work for a large company?
• photochemsyn 5y ago
  > "Generally, your best technologists are those who are really good at listening. They’re also insufferably curious, which makes them really good at asking questions after listening. They’re the best at ferreting out the real intention behind your stated intention, if you will." Unfortunately, this ability is not really what many employers want; if the technologist figures out that the real goal is to commit fraud or something unpleasant like that. Or how about being asked to implement a user complaint system with a deliberately unfriendly user interface? "I see you want me to build something crappy to limit complaint reports, is that it?" > "You’ve heard the maxim: Don’t hire… we’ll go with "jerks." I’ll expand that to include prima donnas, misanthropes and garden-variety narcissists." Yes, you want to reserve these types for the executive suite, where being willing to screw over the employees and your customers so that the shareholders can reap big quartery profits is a job requirement (rewarded with large executive bonuses). Narcissitic jerks with no empathy for others are ideal for this role. I would really like to see more tech businesses where the scientists and engineers, not some crew of shareholders and their pet executives, are the ones making the business decisions.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• kickopotomus 5y ago
  You could sum up this whole article to "don't hire assholes" but I am not sure why that should be limited to tech? You probably don't want assholes in your business/ops side of the organization either. Most of the gripes in the article sound like management/culture issues as opposed to developer issues. > Many business folks begin by asking for a specific feature or function. For example, maybe you want your billing system to send out customer payment reminders as text messages. Sounds straightforward. But a good technologist, before rolling up her sleeves, flexing her fingers and firing up a text message cloud service and a windowful of code, will ask questions. If every company is now really a tech company as the article claims, why is it only the responsibility of the developer to extract requirements/intent? I am not saying that developers should not try to clarify problems but why is the onus of clarity on the implementer instead of the requester? Should business folks not be expected to clearly communicate the business goal that they are trying to accomplish? > One bad actor can do more damage than you can imagine. I have seen a multimillion-dollar, high-stakes initiative almost derailed by one jerk who didn’t think he needed to prioritize a colleague’s project above his own and masterfully exhibited passive-aggressive behavior for weeks before getting called on it. A single point of failure in a multimillion-dollar, business-critical project sounds like a management issue to me. > Hiring a developer? Check out the GitHub “repository,” which is essentially the portfolio site for coders. That is going to be a mixed bag. My GitHub account is a graveyard of half-finished toy projects in different technologies I felt like trying out. I would not say it is representative of my proficiency.
  • whoomp12342 5y ago
    unfortunately, its hard to spot an asshole cross business. Lots of assholes are smart enough to not be an asshole to the right people