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The amount of written material (work samples, writing samples, free-form essay responses) they request is staggering. There is no guarantee they will read your

The amount of written material (work samples, writing samples, free-form essay responses) they request is staggering. There is no guarantee they will read your responses with the same care you put into writing them - almost certainly they won't, since they have actual work to do and an honest reading of over a dozen responses, on technical subjects, is easily a huge chunk of a day. At least with a real-time interview, if you're wasting my time, I'm wasting an equal amount of yours. There is an incentive for the interviewer to get the signal they need to make a decision and respect the candidate's time, since it's their time too. This hiring approach won't scale, for them, or the people they need to hire, if they expand, so at some point they will be forced to change it. Until then, I think the better approach if you're interested in a place like this is to be so awesome they have to call you first.

steveklabnik 3y ago
It is true that we ask a lot upfront. But just to be clear about a few things: > There is no guarantee they will read your responses with the same care you put into writing them Multiple people review every single submission. > almost certainly they won't, since they have actual work to do an honest reading This is why there is such lag time in even getting a response; you are correct that it takes a tremendous amount of work, but also that there's a tremendous amount of non-hiring work to do. We are not always perfect at balancing these things, and the queue can grow. > so at some point they will be forced to change it. I am in full agreement that as companies grow and change, their processes must also grow and change. That doesn't mean that the initial processes are inappropriate. That's the nature of building something new. We will see at what point changing this process makes sense. It's worked decently well from the first founders (who themselves underwent this process, with each other) up to our current size of about sixty. And speaking purely for myself, the problem as I see it is that we have to say "no" to some wonderful folks, not that we struggle to find people to apply.
- slillibri 3y ago
  With the large up front ask, do you put an equal amount of time and effort into explaining why you pass on a candidate? My biggest issue with tech hiring is the complete and utter lack of feedback of any sort.
  - steveklabnik 3y ago
    I am not personally involved in rejecting candidates, but I have heard anecdotally that people have found what gets sent out to be nicer than what they've heard from others. Have you gotten more feedback in other industries? To be honest, I thought that general standard is essentially silence. But it's been many years since I've worked in not-tech.
    - pclmulqdq 3y ago
      Most companies are totally silent on what went wrong for legal reasons, although many will give you the courtesy of saying "no" instead of ghosting you once you have had an interview. It does seem a little bit suboptimal to ask so much upfront from people who you would never hire. A company with a similarly large early screening form, Reservoir Labs, does a first resume screen before sending an invitation to respond to their screening questions. I would suggest that you do the same out of politeness to candidates.
      - bcantrill 3y ago
        We're not going to do a resume screen, because too often we have found that a resume does not accurately predict the quality of the materials (in both directions!). People are certainly welcome to not apply to Oxide; the world is large, and this company emphatically isn't the right fit for everyone! Indeed, part of the reason that we chose to make this process public is to allow people to better decide if it's worth the investment of time and energy -- or not!
        rbanffy 3y ago
        I would advise caution at hiring someone who is excessively willing to go through an immense set of hoops just to get hired, as this might indicate a disproportionate willingness to work for you. Honestly, it feels suspicious. It’d probably be better to invest the (substantial) work done in reviewing the submission in a more structured interview process where the traits can be better assessed.
- rbanffy 3y ago
  > Multiple people review every single submission. This puts you in a vulnerable position to attacks with generative AI. Assume a person using such a tool could generate a relatively large number of credible submissions in addition to their own as a way to limit your ability to assess possibly real competition.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
Aurornis 3y ago
> There is no guarantee they will read your responses with the same care you put into writing them - almost certainly they won't, Nothing is guaranteed in hiring. Demanding that another person “waste time” sitting in front of you before you’ll answer questions is strange. Wouldn’t you rather answer the questions on your own time without someone else putting you on the spot? It’s not very rational to avoid applying to a company just because you think they might not read what you wrote. > Until then, I think the better approach if you're interested in a place like this is to be so awesome they have to call you first. So answering a few questions is too much work, but becoming so “awesome” that you’re top 0.01% of industry talent who maintains a public profile so prevalent that they seek you out is the better way to apply? Applying to a company and investing a few hours interviewing is accessible to everyone. Becoming a high-visibility, industry leader with active public profiles that attract companies is very, very hard.
- TulliusCicero 3y ago
  > Nothing is guaranteed in hiring. Demanding that another person “waste time” sitting in front of you before you’ll answer questions is strange. Wouldn’t you rather answer the questions on your own time without someone else putting you on the spot? No, because if that's the process, for all you know they're requesting answers from 1000 people for one position. With synchronous interviews, you have reasonable confidence that there's a limited number of people they're going through this process with, that you have a decent chance at the position.
  - Aurornis 3y ago
    > No, because if that's the process, for all you know they're requesting answers from 1000 people for one position. Why would any company engage with 1000 candidates and request these samples from them with no expectation of reading them? I don’t understand this desire to assume the absolute worst, even when it’s illogical for the company to do so.
    - TulliusCicero 3y ago
      > Why would any company engage with 1000 candidates and request these samples from them with no expectation of reading them? Because there's little downside to do doing so. And of course they would read some of them, they do need to hire someone, but they might not read all. > I don’t understand this desire to assume the absolute worst, even when it’s illogical for the company to do so. It's not necessarily illogical. They can just blast out "give us samples" to a large number of people, and then filter out most of them based on whatever they feel like later on. It also means that later on they can brag about they're so elite that "they only hire 0.1% of the people they interview", if the company culture bends that way.
datadeft 3y ago
There is that and the other side as well. There are so many open positions even if I like where Oxide is going I might not apply because there are so many things that can go wrong with such hiring process. I liked the Amazon, Google hiring process circa 2015. Come in for a day after passing some basic loops and see if we can work with each other.
hiAndrewQuinn 3y ago
I continue to feel that the best interview material is to simply do good work, in public, as much as possible, and let the network effects eventually tilt in your favor.
- Aurornis 3y ago
  So just have infinite free time and spend it all working on open source and hope that somebody you want to work for will notice and reach out? Seems like a lot of work relative to just applying to jobs.
  - hiAndrewQuinn 3y ago
    You could also spend infinity squared free time reaching out to each possible employer.
silverlyra 3y ago
I’m not sure if they read the responses I wrote with any care at all (in 2021); I never heard anything back beyond the “we got your submission!” auto-reply. I am still kinda salty about it; I was proud of the writing and presentation samples I sent in, and was hopeful I was a good fit.
- steveklabnik 3y ago
  I am sorry we failed you. As I've mentioned elsewhere in this thread, we are not perfect. There have been some times where some things have slipped through the cracks, and speaking for myself (and a few others), I have not been happy when that has happened. I am not sure what was in your specific case, but that doesn't change the fact that that is us not living up to what we set out to do.
neilv 3y ago
The time investment specific to this one employer seems to be a big weeder for interest and time availability, which is partly a problem. One anecdatum, but which might not be that unusual: When I applied (while working a very time-consuming and stressful key role), I had a small amount of time to catch my breath and context switch, that I could passably focus on thinking about other companies or interviewing. So I decided that I had to choose between applying to Oxide and spending the same time prepping for a certain FAANG's Stanford fratbro shibboleth hazing rituals. I decided to go with my heart, and with the opportunity that seemed more inspiring, rather than a bit jerky. After suffering through the "tenure packet" assembly headache, I waited, and waited, and then got a rejection email, without even a screening call. And a key sentence in the rejection email actually came across as snide, given that the writer seemed strong verbal. Which made me doubly regret not spending the same time practicing the FAANG's Leetcode whiteboard performance art. (I ended up taking a comparable principal engineer job at an even more exotic hardware&software company, where they could hire people just by having very experienced other engineers, managers, and execs talk with them, no nonsense.) The bad experience with the bespoke tenure packet also biased my decisions on my current search. One very interesting place I looked at, the extensive screening with a very knowledgeable person went exceedingly well, but when they presented me with the hiring group's systems programming take-home (huge time investment, with a dozen cleverly-spec'ed hard problems to nail, basically solving most of their hard software systems problems), and I didn't have time for that, I demurred. I also now have even less tolerance for the Leetcode cargo-culting, and any other obnoxiousness, while having more appreciation for wise and intuitive hiring teams. One factor, put loosely and jokingly, but there's a lot of truth to it: "If you like me, you must be good people."
- UncleOxidant 3y ago
  > spending the same time prepping for a certain FAANG's Stanford fratbro shibboleth hazing rituals... Which made me doubly regret not spending the same time practicing the FAANG's Leetcode whiteboard performance art. Lol, Do you have a blog? I would subscribe to your substack.
  - neilv 3y ago

steveklabnik 3y ago

It is true that we ask a lot upfront. But just to be clear about a few things: > There is no guarantee they will read your responses with the same care you put into writing them Multiple people review every single submission. > almost certainly they won't, since they have actual work to do an honest reading This is why there is such lag time in even getting a response; you are correct that it takes a tremendous amount of work, but also that there's a tremendous amount of non-hiring work to do. We are not always perfect at balancing these things, and the queue can grow. > so at some point they will be forced to change it. I am in full agreement that as companies grow and change, their processes must also grow and change. That doesn't mean that the initial processes are inappropriate. That's the nature of building something new. We will see at what point changing this process makes sense. It's worked decently well from the first founders (who themselves underwent this process, with each other) up to our current size of about sixty. And speaking purely for myself, the problem as I see it is that we have to say "no" to some wonderful folks, not that we struggle to find people to apply.

slillibri 3y ago
With the large up front ask, do you put an equal amount of time and effort into explaining why you pass on a candidate? My biggest issue with tech hiring is the complete and utter lack of feedback of any sort.
- steveklabnik 3y ago
  I am not personally involved in rejecting candidates, but I have heard anecdotally that people have found what gets sent out to be nicer than what they've heard from others. Have you gotten more feedback in other industries? To be honest, I thought that general standard is essentially silence. But it's been many years since I've worked in not-tech.
  - pclmulqdq 3y ago
    Most companies are totally silent on what went wrong for legal reasons, although many will give you the courtesy of saying "no" instead of ghosting you once you have had an interview. It does seem a little bit suboptimal to ask so much upfront from people who you would never hire. A company with a similarly large early screening form, Reservoir Labs, does a first resume screen before sending an invitation to respond to their screening questions. I would suggest that you do the same out of politeness to candidates.
    - bcantrill 3y ago
      We're not going to do a resume screen, because too often we have found that a resume does not accurately predict the quality of the materials (in both directions!). People are certainly welcome to not apply to Oxide; the world is large, and this company emphatically isn't the right fit for everyone! Indeed, part of the reason that we chose to make this process public is to allow people to better decide if it's worth the investment of time and energy -- or not!
      - rbanffy 3y ago
        I would advise caution at hiring someone who is excessively willing to go through an immense set of hoops just to get hired, as this might indicate a disproportionate willingness to work for you. Honestly, it feels suspicious. It’d probably be better to invest the (substantial) work done in reviewing the submission in a more structured interview process where the traits can be better assessed.
rbanffy 3y ago
> Multiple people review every single submission. This puts you in a vulnerable position to attacks with generative AI. Assume a person using such a tool could generate a relatively large number of credible submissions in addition to their own as a way to limit your ability to assess possibly real competition.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

Aurornis 3y ago

> There is no guarantee they will read your responses with the same care you put into writing them - almost certainly they won't, Nothing is guaranteed in hiring. Demanding that another person “waste time” sitting in front of you before you’ll answer questions is strange. Wouldn’t you rather answer the questions on your own time without someone else putting you on the spot? It’s not very rational to avoid applying to a company just because you think they might not read what you wrote. > Until then, I think the better approach if you're interested in a place like this is to be so awesome they have to call you first. So answering a few questions is too much work, but becoming so “awesome” that you’re top 0.01% of industry talent who maintains a public profile so prevalent that they seek you out is the better way to apply? Applying to a company and investing a few hours interviewing is accessible to everyone. Becoming a high-visibility, industry leader with active public profiles that attract companies is very, very hard.

TulliusCicero 3y ago
> Nothing is guaranteed in hiring. Demanding that another person “waste time” sitting in front of you before you’ll answer questions is strange. Wouldn’t you rather answer the questions on your own time without someone else putting you on the spot? No, because if that's the process, for all you know they're requesting answers from 1000 people for one position. With synchronous interviews, you have reasonable confidence that there's a limited number of people they're going through this process with, that you have a decent chance at the position.
- Aurornis 3y ago
  > No, because if that's the process, for all you know they're requesting answers from 1000 people for one position. Why would any company engage with 1000 candidates and request these samples from them with no expectation of reading them? I don’t understand this desire to assume the absolute worst, even when it’s illogical for the company to do so.
  - TulliusCicero 3y ago
    > Why would any company engage with 1000 candidates and request these samples from them with no expectation of reading them? Because there's little downside to do doing so. And of course they would read some of them, they do need to hire someone, but they might not read all. > I don’t understand this desire to assume the absolute worst, even when it’s illogical for the company to do so. It's not necessarily illogical. They can just blast out "give us samples" to a large number of people, and then filter out most of them based on whatever they feel like later on. It also means that later on they can brag about they're so elite that "they only hire 0.1% of the people they interview", if the company culture bends that way.

datadeft 3y ago

There is that and the other side as well. There are so many open positions even if I like where Oxide is going I might not apply because there are so many things that can go wrong with such hiring process. I liked the Amazon, Google hiring process circa 2015. Come in for a day after passing some basic loops and see if we can work with each other.

hiAndrewQuinn 3y ago

I continue to feel that the best interview material is to simply do good work, in public, as much as possible, and let the network effects eventually tilt in your favor.

Aurornis 3y ago
So just have infinite free time and spend it all working on open source and hope that somebody you want to work for will notice and reach out? Seems like a lot of work relative to just applying to jobs.
- hiAndrewQuinn 3y ago
  You could also spend infinity squared free time reaching out to each possible employer.

silverlyra 3y ago

I’m not sure if they read the responses I wrote with any care at all (in 2021); I never heard anything back beyond the “we got your submission!” auto-reply. I am still kinda salty about it; I was proud of the writing and presentation samples I sent in, and was hopeful I was a good fit.

steveklabnik 3y ago
I am sorry we failed you. As I've mentioned elsewhere in this thread, we are not perfect. There have been some times where some things have slipped through the cracks, and speaking for myself (and a few others), I have not been happy when that has happened. I am not sure what was in your specific case, but that doesn't change the fact that that is us not living up to what we set out to do.

neilv 3y ago

The time investment specific to this one employer seems to be a big weeder for interest and time availability, which is partly a problem. One anecdatum, but which might not be that unusual: When I applied (while working a very time-consuming and stressful key role), I had a small amount of time to catch my breath and context switch, that I could passably focus on thinking about other companies or interviewing. So I decided that I had to choose between applying to Oxide and spending the same time prepping for a certain FAANG's Stanford fratbro shibboleth hazing rituals. I decided to go with my heart, and with the opportunity that seemed more inspiring, rather than a bit jerky. After suffering through the "tenure packet" assembly headache, I waited, and waited, and then got a rejection email, without even a screening call. And a key sentence in the rejection email actually came across as snide, given that the writer seemed strong verbal. Which made me doubly regret not spending the same time practicing the FAANG's Leetcode whiteboard performance art. (I ended up taking a comparable principal engineer job at an even more exotic hardware&software company, where they could hire people just by having very experienced other engineers, managers, and execs talk with them, no nonsense.) The bad experience with the bespoke tenure packet also biased my decisions on my current search. One very interesting place I looked at, the extensive screening with a very knowledgeable person went exceedingly well, but when they presented me with the hiring group's systems programming take-home (huge time investment, with a dozen cleverly-spec'ed hard problems to nail, basically solving most of their hard software systems problems), and I didn't have time for that, I demurred. I also now have even less tolerance for the Leetcode cargo-culting, and any other obnoxiousness, while having more appreciation for wise and intuitive hiring teams. One factor, put loosely and jokingly, but there's a lot of truth to it: "If you like me, you must be good people."

UncleOxidant 3y ago
> spending the same time prepping for a certain FAANG's Stanford fratbro shibboleth hazing rituals... Which made me doubly regret not spending the same time practicing the FAANG's Leetcode whiteboard performance art. Lol, Do you have a blog? I would subscribe to your substack.
- neilv 3y ago