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1. It is impossible to be, at the same time, a "good engineer" and "difficult to work with". FAANG can hire 30 people to work next to one toxic person so their

1. It is impossible to be, at the same time, a "good engineer" and "difficult to work with". FAANG can hire 30 people to work next to one toxic person so their impact can be 1/30th the pain. 2. Interviewing. FAANG can waste 30+ engineering hours on each candidate because of how much money they can burn. Don't do leetcode interviews. Find someone who you think is good, hire them, if they're not good let them go. Don't make a soul crushing interview process. 3. Open office / an office. It's a complete waste for most startups (unless you're a hardware company and can't send the hardware units to each dev). It's a sunk cost and "back in my day"-ism in FAANG.

JasonCannon 5y ago
>2. Interviewing. FAANG can waste 30+ engineering hours on each candidate because of how much money they can burn. Don't do leetcode interviews. Find someone who you think is good, hire them, if they're not good let them go. Don't make a soul crushing interview process. The only "algo" I have people do is a simple Fibonacci algo. Other then that, we chat about development. It's fairly easy to determine if someone knows how to develop software, and I'm just trying to find people with the right attitude that I know I can work with. Then I give them a few months, if they don't cut it, then we part ways. That's happened once.
- JasonCannon 5y ago
  Not sure why I got downvoted for this. I assume because of the other comment saying that doing this is "cruel" which it isn't. At all. If someone lies and says they know how to develop, can talk about development in depth, but can't actually develop any software that's on them. I've had to fire people who did stupid algorithims and harder interviews after a few months just like the one time that I've done so with my current technique. In all cases, it's been because the person I interviewed lied. In the cases with stupid algo tests they studied how to leetcode, and not how to actually develop software.
dyingkneepad 5y ago
Hiring someone just to fire them later because you didn't bother to interview properly is extremely cruel!! Seriously, don't do that.
- mrfusion 5y ago
  It’s more about finding a balance than being fire-happy. Consider: 3 days of all hands interviews and super stressful with a 5% chance of being fired. Vs One two hour, non adversarial interview with an 8% chance of being fired. I made up the numbers but it’s an example of where the approach would make sense. Just as an example.
- gravypod 5y ago
  I personally want to find a company that has some OSS software and do a paid contract to improve the software. Some reasonable contracting rate for 1 to 3 PRs. Basically, everyone wins. You get a good signal and you don't impose something unreasonable on the candidate
- mrfusion 5y ago
  You could always state it up front that it’s your process. I for one would gladly take that deal. I interview horribly but I’ve been extremely valued anywhere I ended up working.
- noufalibrahim 5y ago
  That's a mischaracterisation. You don't hire someone (which is an expensive and time consuming process that's meant to add value to the business) just to fire them. You hire someone to integrate them into the team so that the overall value that you can deliver increases. And it's not that I didn't "bother" to "interview them properly". It's that my (and all) filtering processes are imperfect and sometimes bad candidates slip through. Given that interviews are an imperfect process both ways, it makes sense to keep a period of time where both parties can shake hands and leave if it's not working out. If the new employee doesn't like some aspect of the company that he or she didn't know about after working, they should have an option to leave. Same with the employer. I've had several experiences with candidates who've gotten in using fabricated credentials and other dishonest means and sometimes plainly in bad faith. Given the small size of my company and my limited resources to conduct interviews, these kinds of false positives are things I have to live with. Now, I have two options. Keep this person (who's not going to leave and not going to accept feedback on things they need to improve on) thereby hampering the functioning of the team as a whole or let them go. I want the second option open and I'm upfront about it. I tell them openly that there will be a probation period after which we'll make the job permanent and during this period, I try to conduct regular one on ones and communicate with the new hires to see if anything is wrong on my end. It's not a perfect system and I'd love to improve on it but it works for me, for my company, employees, and clients and there it is. And while it sounds "cruel" in theory, in practice, it has reduced false positives quite a bit. I've had to do this just once in the past few years (and that too in an area that I'm not very familiar with - marketing). Usually, being upfront about this gives candidates the message and people who are acting in bad faith make excuses and leave.

JasonCannon 5y ago

>2. Interviewing. FAANG can waste 30+ engineering hours on each candidate because of how much money they can burn. Don't do leetcode interviews. Find someone who you think is good, hire them, if they're not good let them go. Don't make a soul crushing interview process. The only "algo" I have people do is a simple Fibonacci algo. Other then that, we chat about development. It's fairly easy to determine if someone knows how to develop software, and I'm just trying to find people with the right attitude that I know I can work with. Then I give them a few months, if they don't cut it, then we part ways. That's happened once.

JasonCannon 5y ago
Not sure why I got downvoted for this. I assume because of the other comment saying that doing this is "cruel" which it isn't. At all. If someone lies and says they know how to develop, can talk about development in depth, but can't actually develop any software that's on them. I've had to fire people who did stupid algorithims and harder interviews after a few months just like the one time that I've done so with my current technique. In all cases, it's been because the person I interviewed lied. In the cases with stupid algo tests they studied how to leetcode, and not how to actually develop software.

dyingkneepad 5y ago

Hiring someone just to fire them later because you didn't bother to interview properly is extremely cruel!! Seriously, don't do that.

mrfusion 5y ago
It’s more about finding a balance than being fire-happy. Consider: 3 days of all hands interviews and super stressful with a 5% chance of being fired. Vs One two hour, non adversarial interview with an 8% chance of being fired. I made up the numbers but it’s an example of where the approach would make sense. Just as an example.
gravypod 5y ago
I personally want to find a company that has some OSS software and do a paid contract to improve the software. Some reasonable contracting rate for 1 to 3 PRs. Basically, everyone wins. You get a good signal and you don't impose something unreasonable on the candidate
mrfusion 5y ago
You could always state it up front that it’s your process. I for one would gladly take that deal. I interview horribly but I’ve been extremely valued anywhere I ended up working.
noufalibrahim 5y ago
That's a mischaracterisation. You don't hire someone (which is an expensive and time consuming process that's meant to add value to the business) just to fire them. You hire someone to integrate them into the team so that the overall value that you can deliver increases. And it's not that I didn't "bother" to "interview them properly". It's that my (and all) filtering processes are imperfect and sometimes bad candidates slip through. Given that interviews are an imperfect process both ways, it makes sense to keep a period of time where both parties can shake hands and leave if it's not working out. If the new employee doesn't like some aspect of the company that he or she didn't know about after working, they should have an option to leave. Same with the employer. I've had several experiences with candidates who've gotten in using fabricated credentials and other dishonest means and sometimes plainly in bad faith. Given the small size of my company and my limited resources to conduct interviews, these kinds of false positives are things I have to live with. Now, I have two options. Keep this person (who's not going to leave and not going to accept feedback on things they need to improve on) thereby hampering the functioning of the team as a whole or let them go. I want the second option open and I'm upfront about it. I tell them openly that there will be a probation period after which we'll make the job permanent and during this period, I try to conduct regular one on ones and communicate with the new hires to see if anything is wrong on my end. It's not a perfect system and I'd love to improve on it but it works for me, for my company, employees, and clients and there it is. And while it sounds "cruel" in theory, in practice, it has reduced false positives quite a bit. I've had to do this just once in the past few years (and that too in an area that I'm not very familiar with - marketing). Usually, being upfront about this gives candidates the message and people who are acting in bad faith make excuses and leave.