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Serious humility admitting that his guide for hiring developers probably changed the entire field for the worse. I tend to agree, and I've moved to an internsh

Serious humility admitting that his guide for hiring developers probably changed the entire field for the worse. I tend to agree, and I've moved to an internship model myself for hires.

monknomo 3y ago
How does the internship model work with more senior folks? I totally see it for entry level, but above that, I am fuzzier on how this would work
- chesong 3y ago
  I'm also curious as well. How long would you make the internship? Are you finding that more tenured engineers are rejecting the internship offer?
- JackMorgan 3y ago
  These days for senior devs I just hire them as contractors. The W2 software engineer model is fine when you've got a stable long term project, but for how fast this industry moves there's a lot of "internal startup" work that doesn't work well for W2 employees. I'm finding way more interesting work and learning a lot more just floating around being the "internal startup" guy. I've built up a couple clients who know I can deliver and will try to schedule my time in advance for new initiatives. When I need more people, I'll just hire them for a week and see if they work out. When I was hiring for W2, I'd pair program with them using a web based code editor for two hours. We'd split the work and I'd try to get them to relax and give them a chance to show off. Usually within a two hours I'd know if I was talking to quality. If they hated pairing, they weren't going to work well on my teams anyway, so I'd make it really clear pairing was pretty much the only nonnegotiable. Everything else was on the table as negotiable, but not that. This kept expectations aligned. The ones who could pair and knew what they were doing were really easy to spot after a few hours. New hires should treated like like pounds on an airplane. I want as few as possible to get the job done and provide resiliency to a team. A team of three always gets more done than a team of six, etc etc. So I'd aim to hire that one good person over just trying to hit some magic number. Although clearly I got pretty tired of all the W2 games and drama. I got tired of being told to hire X people when X/3 would objectively get more done, then later being told to layoff Y people because we were spending too much. That cycle got real old after a couple loops. Now I'm just out as a free agent with a lot of contacts who can put together a new product quickly. I've got my squad for bigger projects and they've got me. I like this a lot better. However, if you need stable income, it's not the best, you have to be really disciplined to store up grain in the good years to have it through the lean years.
thenoblesquid 3y ago
What kind of results is that producing? Or what's the biggest difference you've found using the internship model for hiring?
HumblyTossed 3y ago
So, you don't hire many sr devs then?
neilv 3y ago
Given the culture of frequent job-hopping in tech... Do you do the internships with the assumption that most won't produce value worth the energy put into mentoring them, before they leave? Then make great offers to the ones who stand out as most promising, before they leave?
chrstphrknwtn 3y ago
Yep, internships are the way to go. Especially if you can get them to work for free because that's the prevailing expectation for internships in the USA with no regulation whatsoever. As a business owner, it's really great because I can capitalize on the desperation of the workforce.
- JackMorgan 3y ago
  Nah I always pay them fair market rate for their experience level. It's a job after all. The idea that they'd work for free is toxic.
sumtechguy 3y ago
It is amazing how warped his idea became too. It was 'hey simple test' to weed out 'cant program at all'. Which was his beef. That morphed into 2 day 10 people interview fests and 'rockstars only allowed here'. When what you want is initiative, focus, ability to learn, and most of all can get along with others. Fizz Buzz does not test for that.
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  > Fizz Buzz does not test for that. No, but it's decent for what it does. You're criticising the wrong thing.
  - sumtechguy 3y ago
    It was warped into leetcode. Which is way overdoing it. I can see how my point was not clear.
    - robertlagrant 3y ago
      Yeah I agree that it's definitely not the same now, but I think a very simple programming test is still a good idea, and I disagree with Joel if he thinks he should be taking the blame or the credit for what interviewing has become.
      - sumtechguy 3y ago
        I dont disagree. Most people totally missed what his message was. Which was basically 'lets add a small bit of standards here, and here are things to look out for'. Then as engineers we went bonkers with it and wildly bikesheded the thing.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
mixmastamyk 3y ago
I prefer to call it my "farm team." Meaning they are still in training but will get promoted soon or wash out.

Serious humility admitting that his guide for hiring developers probably changed the entire field for the worse. I tend to agree, and I've moved to an internship model myself for hires.

monknomo 3y ago

How does the internship model work with more senior folks? I totally see it for entry level, but above that, I am fuzzier on how this would work

chesong 3y ago
I'm also curious as well. How long would you make the internship? Are you finding that more tenured engineers are rejecting the internship offer?
JackMorgan 3y ago
These days for senior devs I just hire them as contractors. The W2 software engineer model is fine when you've got a stable long term project, but for how fast this industry moves there's a lot of "internal startup" work that doesn't work well for W2 employees. I'm finding way more interesting work and learning a lot more just floating around being the "internal startup" guy. I've built up a couple clients who know I can deliver and will try to schedule my time in advance for new initiatives. When I need more people, I'll just hire them for a week and see if they work out. When I was hiring for W2, I'd pair program with them using a web based code editor for two hours. We'd split the work and I'd try to get them to relax and give them a chance to show off. Usually within a two hours I'd know if I was talking to quality. If they hated pairing, they weren't going to work well on my teams anyway, so I'd make it really clear pairing was pretty much the only nonnegotiable. Everything else was on the table as negotiable, but not that. This kept expectations aligned. The ones who could pair and knew what they were doing were really easy to spot after a few hours. New hires should treated like like pounds on an airplane. I want as few as possible to get the job done and provide resiliency to a team. A team of three always gets more done than a team of six, etc etc. So I'd aim to hire that one good person over just trying to hit some magic number. Although clearly I got pretty tired of all the W2 games and drama. I got tired of being told to hire X people when X/3 would objectively get more done, then later being told to layoff Y people because we were spending too much. That cycle got real old after a couple loops. Now I'm just out as a free agent with a lot of contacts who can put together a new product quickly. I've got my squad for bigger projects and they've got me. I like this a lot better. However, if you need stable income, it's not the best, you have to be really disciplined to store up grain in the good years to have it through the lean years.

thenoblesquid 3y ago

What kind of results is that producing? Or what's the biggest difference you've found using the internship model for hiring?

HumblyTossed 3y ago

So, you don't hire many sr devs then?

neilv 3y ago

Given the culture of frequent job-hopping in tech... Do you do the internships with the assumption that most won't produce value worth the energy put into mentoring them, before they leave? Then make great offers to the ones who stand out as most promising, before they leave?

chrstphrknwtn 3y ago

Yep, internships are the way to go. Especially if you can get them to work for free because that's the prevailing expectation for internships in the USA with no regulation whatsoever. As a business owner, it's really great because I can capitalize on the desperation of the workforce.

JackMorgan 3y ago
Nah I always pay them fair market rate for their experience level. It's a job after all. The idea that they'd work for free is toxic.

sumtechguy 3y ago

It is amazing how warped his idea became too. It was 'hey simple test' to weed out 'cant program at all'. Which was his beef. That morphed into 2 day 10 people interview fests and 'rockstars only allowed here'. When what you want is initiative, focus, ability to learn, and most of all can get along with others. Fizz Buzz does not test for that.

robertlagrant 3y ago
> Fizz Buzz does not test for that. No, but it's decent for what it does. You're criticising the wrong thing.
- sumtechguy 3y ago
  It was warped into leetcode. Which is way overdoing it. I can see how my point was not clear.
  - robertlagrant 3y ago
    Yeah I agree that it's definitely not the same now, but I think a very simple programming test is still a good idea, and I disagree with Joel if he thinks he should be taking the blame or the credit for what interviewing has become.
    - sumtechguy 3y ago
      I dont disagree. Most people totally missed what his message was. Which was basically 'lets add a small bit of standards here, and here are things to look out for'. Then as engineers we went bonkers with it and wildly bikesheded the thing.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

mixmastamyk 3y ago

I prefer to call it my "farm team." Meaning they are still in training but will get promoted soon or wash out.