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I tried hiring on these traits in the past, one challenge there is that almost everyone self-identifies as this kind of person (and it’s probably even true, to
by synu 4y ago
I tried hiring on these traits in the past, one challenge there is that almost everyone self-identifies as this kind of person (and it’s probably even true, to an extent.)
It’s hard in the end to evaluate effectiveness of T-shaped people across a wide spectrum of potential tasks, but I am curious if others have figured it out.
- neilv 4y agoMight be easier to hire people who show technical strength at something, demonstrate picking up something else to some degree, and (most importantly, IMHO) are up to functioning as part of a team. We need people motivated by helping the team achieve success, not only looking good on their individual metrics and deliverables. Everyone adaptively focused on the collective goal can be so much more easily and efficiently aligned with team success. If someone seems to think like a team member, and apparently can pick up multiple things, at that point, I might just ask them what they think about the role I'm starting to imagine for them. (I'm thinking like an ideal-ish startup here, because other kinds of organizations in general usually seem too inefficient to bother worrying about whether some person can pick up new things as they're needed.)
- Jensson 4y ago> Might be easier to hire people who show technical strength at something Yeah, hire for intelligence and curiosity. An intelligent and curious developer probably studied algorithms to a useful level, if you don't understand them well you either aren't smart or you lack the curiosity to look into new topics. A generalist developers who isn't even at that level in their subjects isn't worth their salt, I'm not sure why anyone would want those. A person who mainly knows different frameworks like rewact, angular, spring, mongo, sql and rails isn't a generalist, they are just your average specialist web developer, hire them if you want to maintain web stuff but not for anything interesting.
- neilv 4y agoI think your argument might be interpreted as encouraging Leetcode interviews, which I'd disagree with.
- Jensson 4y agoThe algorithms they ask for in interviews are so low level that any programmer could learn them in a couple of months, that is generalist level and not specialist level. Not all developers who pass them are generalists, but the people who don't aren't generalist developers. They could be generalist problems solvers who dabbles a bit in programming, but they aren't generalist developers.
- neilv 4y agoHN has been over the Leetcode interview discussion a thousand times, and it's more complicated than a sentence can argue, so we can agree to disagree on Leetcode interviews. :)
- Jensson 4y agoMost objections to leetcode are from specialist developers who argue they aren't specialists at algorithms. I'd expect most generalist developers to know algorithms well. Why? Generalists steps up when specialists are outside of their speciality. Very few teams has specialist algorithm experts, so instead generalists has to step up and solve those problems. If you don't step up in those situations then you aren't a generalist developer, I'm sorry to say it. Most developers are specialists, like most people, including the people here.
- dinkumthinkum 4y agoI don’t know. I think this whole discussion is very vague if go by the example in the article, it sounds unlikely the developer described as the wildcard in the article would do very well on LeetCode.
- Jensson 4y ago
- Manjuuu 4y agoEveryone can self-identify as they like, the real ones in this case are easy to spot just asking them to tell you some stories of absurd problems they solved. They always have a boatload of war stories.
- Reebz 4y agoExactly. The real ones, with experience, can regale with numerous stories of their trials and tribulations. Critically, it won’t come across as boastful, because they’ll detail how they loved the challenge, the context, and the solution.
- Manjuuu 4y agoYes.
- mgkimsal 4y agoAn issue I’ve found is that often these stories don’t tend to be believed. To the untrained ear, they sound like typical BS everyone throws around. Tiny example: I joined a company and a nightly process was data import. The import was starting to take longer than 25 hours, threatening the “daily” aspect, and on the verge of causing logistical problems because of this. The problem had been looming for months and has taken more time from multiple folks than anyone anticipated, impacting other projects’ timelines. It wasn’t on my plate, but I overheard others talking about it. I took a look, and spent a couple days testing out ideas. I got a 25 hour process down to 30 minutes. Had to do it myself first to prove it, because just making suggestions to the “experienced” folks was dismissed with “that’s not how this works, you don’t understand”. After I got it to 30 minutes, the same folks “optimized” my process down to about 25 minutes, then didn’t overly acknowledge the approach I’d used to make this manageable again. I’ve had pushback on this story like “well, there was probably something you’re leaving out. Everyone likes to think their contribution is the most important, but things are a team effort. We’re not all superheroes”. If you ask for war stories, be prepared for dailywtf-level stuff sometimes.
- Manjuuu 4y ago