3 ms·

"Hiring the best engineers" Every company can't have the best engineers. They cost too much and they're a finite resource. I would argue that the quality of en

"Hiring the best engineers" Every company can't have the best engineers. They cost too much and they're a finite resource. I would argue that the quality of engineers is just going down, too, as the hiring pool is flooded with people who've had zero tech experience, and then took a bootcamp and "churned on algorithms" to finally land a tech job. You probably will end up with poor to average engineers, and you'll have to deal with that. "Building solid long-term foundations from day one" You have average engineers. The foundations they make are not going to be solid. And even if they could make solid foundations, your founders won't care. They just want to ship ship ship ship ship. So your foundations aren't going to be solid... and you'll have to deal with that. "Tracking metrics to guide decision-making" Never seen it done well. If you have the time and staff to properly do this, you're either crazy lucky or are swimming in cash. Those days are probably gone... and you'll have to deal with that. "Keeping teams small and independent" Remember Conway's Law? The more teams you have, the more fractured your architecture becomes. Obviously you can't have one infinitely big team, so the key is to have as few teams as you can get away with. Integrate them tightly - same standards, same methods of communication and work. Eliminate monopolies of knowledge. Enforce workflows that naturally leads to everyone being more informed. (For example, every team having stand-up on a video call means none of the teams have any idea what the other teams are doing) There's actually a lot of evidence-based research and practical experience out there, that's been around for decades, that shows how to maintain the productivity of organizations, regardless of whether they're growing or not. But they're not trendy, so nobody working today gives a crap. Actual productivity gets ignored while managers pat themselves on the back and start-ups churn out banal blog posts with the same lame advice that thousands of startups have used and still completely failed to maintain velocity with. We all know how startups today really get by: burning through staff and money, and luck.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
robocat 4y ago
> Every company can't have the best engineers. They cost too much and they're a finite resource. Your argument assumes there is an efficient market for engineers, and it also assumes that an engineer’s productivity is independent of the company environment. There are multiple counterexamples of startups that have built great teams for cheap money. There are many reasons why great engineers can be underpriced or under-productive, and many reasons why mediocre engineers can be overpriced. You can get the best engineers if you have the smarts to do so. Currently on the front page are two relevant links: (1) a CEO’s opinion on what that takes for the funnel (not engineering specific): https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/learnings-of-a-ceo-matt-schulman-pave https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/learnings-of-a-ceo-matt-sch... (2) a CTO’s? opinion on how companies fail to catch the best engineers: https://blog.southparkcommons.com/startup-engineering-hiring-anti-patterns/ https://blog.southparkcommons.com/startup-engineering-hiring... It definitely is not easy - and it takes unusual skill to succeed - but that doesn’t make the advice wrong but only extremely difficult. If you lack the skill, then partner up with somebody who does, or find a mitigating strategy, or don’t become a C*O for a startup. Edit: I am an engineer and I hate rah-rah thinking, but if you don’t have enough belief, and you poohpooh all the advice of others, then perhaps you lack the temperament to be a founder. I was a successful founder, but only by joining with others with the skills I lacked as a cynical engineer-type. I think it is amazing that engineers are now regarded as critical - I am from a decade when MBAs were the hot thing!
- majormajor 4y ago
  > > Every company can't have the best engineers. They cost too much and they're a finite resource. > Your argument assumes there is an efficient market for engineers, and it also assumes that an engineer’s productivity is independent of the company environment. You're arguing something different than what you're replying to. The original post asserts you should hire the "best" engineers. Best is a word with a strong connotation of there being some absolute quality scale independent of the company environment. And then you absolutely run into a problem where everybody can't hire the best, especially if you're not in a position to offer the best compensation or have the current state of your company look like the best possible destination for everyone. There's just not that many of them, after all, by definition. A smart founder (or manager anywhere, for that matter) will try to hire great engineers for their situation. This requires more self-awareness and critical thinking than just locking in on a few people and spending a year wooing them, like the article describes. How many people you hadn't fixated on could've turned out great for them in less time than that year?
lifeisstillgood 4y ago
>>> There's actually a lot of evidence-based research and practical experience out there, that's been around for decades, any pointers will be read / researched, or at least skimmed :-)
- maerF0x0 4y ago
  What 3 things have you tried and why didnt they work?
  - lifeisstillgood 4y ago
    Ok maybe it was not clear but I was looking for pointers to the research Edit: https://study.com/academy/lesson/organizational-design-theory-principles-definition.html# https://study.com/academy/lesson/organizational-design-theor... is a surprisingly good coverage of the major parts that I remember from way back when. I have to admit that the research then and what I know now is a) reportage like rather than predictive (ie describing org design as opposed to having good predictive power and b) lacking some meaty meta theory - why is this design bad

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

robocat 4y ago

> Every company can't have the best engineers. They cost too much and they're a finite resource. Your argument assumes there is an efficient market for engineers, and it also assumes that an engineer’s productivity is independent of the company environment. There are multiple counterexamples of startups that have built great teams for cheap money. There are many reasons why great engineers can be underpriced or under-productive, and many reasons why mediocre engineers can be overpriced. You can get the best engineers if you have the smarts to do so. Currently on the front page are two relevant links: (1) a CEO’s opinion on what that takes for the funnel (not engineering specific): https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/learnings-of-a-ceo-matt-schulman-pave https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/learnings-of-a-ceo-matt-sch... (2) a CTO’s? opinion on how companies fail to catch the best engineers: https://blog.southparkcommons.com/startup-engineering-hiring-anti-patterns/ https://blog.southparkcommons.com/startup-engineering-hiring... It definitely is not easy - and it takes unusual skill to succeed - but that doesn’t make the advice wrong but only extremely difficult. If you lack the skill, then partner up with somebody who does, or find a mitigating strategy, or don’t become a C*O for a startup. Edit: I am an engineer and I hate rah-rah thinking, but if you don’t have enough belief, and you poohpooh all the advice of others, then perhaps you lack the temperament to be a founder. I was a successful founder, but only by joining with others with the skills I lacked as a cynical engineer-type. I think it is amazing that engineers are now regarded as critical - I am from a decade when MBAs were the hot thing!

majormajor 4y ago
> > Every company can't have the best engineers. They cost too much and they're a finite resource. > Your argument assumes there is an efficient market for engineers, and it also assumes that an engineer’s productivity is independent of the company environment. You're arguing something different than what you're replying to. The original post asserts you should hire the "best" engineers. Best is a word with a strong connotation of there being some absolute quality scale independent of the company environment. And then you absolutely run into a problem where everybody can't hire the best, especially if you're not in a position to offer the best compensation or have the current state of your company look like the best possible destination for everyone. There's just not that many of them, after all, by definition. A smart founder (or manager anywhere, for that matter) will try to hire great engineers for their situation. This requires more self-awareness and critical thinking than just locking in on a few people and spending a year wooing them, like the article describes. How many people you hadn't fixated on could've turned out great for them in less time than that year?

lifeisstillgood 4y ago

>>> There's actually a lot of evidence-based research and practical experience out there, that's been around for decades, any pointers will be read / researched, or at least skimmed :-)

maerF0x0 4y ago
What 3 things have you tried and why didnt they work?
- lifeisstillgood 4y ago
  Ok maybe it was not clear but I was looking for pointers to the research Edit: https://study.com/academy/lesson/organizational-design-theory-principles-definition.html# https://study.com/academy/lesson/organizational-design-theor... is a surprisingly good coverage of the major parts that I remember from way back when. I have to admit that the research then and what I know now is a) reportage like rather than predictive (ie describing org design as opposed to having good predictive power and b) lacking some meaty meta theory - why is this design bad