3 ms·

Okay, I have interviewed hundreds of people in the last decade, and I can tell you that most are not good enough. There are companies that are downright abusing

Okay, I have interviewed hundreds of people in the last decade, and I can tell you that most are not good enough. There are companies that are downright abusing H1B for wage suppression, but as a startup founder, I will try my hardest to avoid hiring people who I have to squeeze their salary's worth and still get mediocre results (nothing to do with citizen or not - I had this experience with a Canadian contractor - just not worth it). I have been successful in liberating money from VCs and create jobs, and I want the best people that money can buy. Turns out, there are great American and non-american candidates who are willing to work for the money I can offer. Also in my experience, I hardly even get resumes from Americans for backend jobs. Frontend is different and I get a LOT of American resumes. Our frontend engineering, PS, CX, Sales and Marketing is all-american, and backend is a mix of american, greencard, H1b - because thats all I get in the resume pipeline. If I have to cut costs, I will have to cut the team in US and move the jobs to a low cost region regardless of their citizenship status.

dowager_dan99 2y ago
>> If I have to cut costs, I will have to cut the team in US and move the jobs to a low cost region regardless of their citizenship status. Read that sentence again. If you're hiring an American team in the Us, and cutting in the US, it's not regardless of citizenship - unless you're abusing the H-1B program
lubujackson 2y ago
"Not good enough" or not good enough to pass your leet code gauntlet that has nothing to do with the day-to-day role? Because those aren't the same thing. Also don't discount interview stress - I read that psychologically the most difficult thing to do is be on stage in front of people and do complex math problems... which is basically what live coding tests are.
- afavour 2y ago
  I hate leet code gauntlets too but I don't see what it has to do with hiring immigrant workers. No matter your status you are equally vulnerable to failing a code gauntlet test.
- mgkimsal 2y ago
  Math problems usually have one right/wrong answer. Many interview 'challenges' have multiple ways of doing something correctly. Without necessarily knowing any more about the context of a problem beyond a few sentences, you work with what you've been given. You can deliver a working solution but if it's not the way they were expecting... you're out of the running.
  - fijiaarone 2y ago
    You really haven’t done much math, have you. Even 2+2 can be solved multiple ways.
- throwaway7783 2y ago
  I hate leet code and it's ilk, and I don't want anyone to go through that useless stuff. But I believe a good engineer can suss out another good engineer in a conversation or two. At least that has been my experience with people I have hired and people those people have hired. When you hire anyone, there is always some bar of "good enough". It is different for different orgs and even people, but it is there. Otherwise you'd end up hiring the first candidate you encounter, no?
_DeadFred_ 2y ago
I wonder what your investors would think if they found out you can't manage and need to 'hope you find suitable talent' and that you are incapable of growing it?
- seneca 2y ago
  > I wonder what your investors would think if they found out you can't manage and need to 'hope you find suitable talent' and that you are incapable of growing it? Not hiring mediocre talent is a key part of management.
- renewiltord 2y ago
  Every company talks about finding talent. VCs are very familiar with this because many startups don’t have familiarity with this stuff. It’s not surprising to have a VC help hire for roles the startup is unfamiliar with hiring for. An investor is not someone’s boss. Once they’ve handed over the capital, they’re very invested in making sure that there aren’t any blockers to the company’s success.
- throwaway7783 2y ago
  They know how I work, because I'm on the board and constantly update them. I built this company from slides to 5M ARR in 4 years. Granted, I have made hiring mistakes - good engineer, bad attitude that affected the team, good engineer not bought into what we do, one or two mediocre engineers that I couldn't suss out. But I've rectified them and have found good engineers in reasonable time. Unfortunately you have to take my word for it. Not sure how you assumed I cannot manage with no context.
PittleyDunkin 2y ago
> Okay, I have interviewed hundreds of people in the last decade, and I can tell you that most are not good enough. Me, too. I straight-up disagree; I think interviewing is just so broken it gives a false impression of quality issues in the labor pool. Realistically if you have a handful of core skills you can ramp up to basically any problem with enough time. That's time on the order of months, maybe, not years. Companies just don't want to bother training anyone anymore. Why bother when you can just complain endlessly and hope some politicians throw cheap labor your way? In that sense you're absolutely right, but the whole "quality" thing is completely unrelated. > I have been successful in liberating money from VCs and create jobs, and I want the best people that money can buy. I think people seriously overestimate the difference engineer quality makes. Most products can be built with mediocre talent. I'm sorry, that's the truth. We all love to have strong opinions on who we should hire and I say "almost anyone, just throw meat at the problem". Most problems are solved with time and not cleverness. Startups are definitely more sensitive to quality, but startups don't make up much of the labor pool, and they don't pay competitively with much larger companies that don't need the quality. I'm being a little hyperbolic here—you do need people with experience and ability to see red flags to lead the flock—but not by much.
- throwaway48476 2y ago
  This is the truth that peoples egos can't seem to handle.
- UncleOxidant 2y ago
  Add in that in the search for the perfect candidate that has all 16 bullet point requirements you'll come across folks who have, say, a solid 13 of them, but they'll get passed over waiting for the perfect candidate to come around. Which can take many months... years even. In the meantime you could have been bringing up one of those 13-point candidates getting them up to speed on those 3 missing bullet points. And you'd likely have gotten to a desired level of productivity faster than by waiting for that perfect candidate while wringing your hands that there just aren't enough qualified people out there.
  - 2y ago
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
fijiaarone 2y ago
You’re right, most people are not good enough, and the H1-Bs are worse.
- throwaway7783 2y ago
  That is a sweeping statement. They (or should I say "We") are no worse than anybody else. If your point is that "worse" people should not come in to the country on H1B because H1b is meant for "better" people, I will probably agree.
snozolli 2y ago
most are not good enough What is the basis for your claim? Unless you've followed up with those you rejected in order to gauge their performance on comparable tasks, you're just talking about confirmation bias. I've never heard of anyone actually producing objective measurements of hiring practices vs. actual worker performance. I've just heard a hundred different versions of confirmation bias. Maybe Google has some useful data. I know that they dropped GPA requirements when they looked at data and found that it had no impact on job performance...

dowager_dan99 2y ago

>> If I have to cut costs, I will have to cut the team in US and move the jobs to a low cost region regardless of their citizenship status. Read that sentence again. If you're hiring an American team in the Us, and cutting in the US, it's not regardless of citizenship - unless you're abusing the H-1B program

lubujackson 2y ago

"Not good enough" or not good enough to pass your leet code gauntlet that has nothing to do with the day-to-day role? Because those aren't the same thing. Also don't discount interview stress - I read that psychologically the most difficult thing to do is be on stage in front of people and do complex math problems... which is basically what live coding tests are.

afavour 2y ago
I hate leet code gauntlets too but I don't see what it has to do with hiring immigrant workers. No matter your status you are equally vulnerable to failing a code gauntlet test.
mgkimsal 2y ago
Math problems usually have one right/wrong answer. Many interview 'challenges' have multiple ways of doing something correctly. Without necessarily knowing any more about the context of a problem beyond a few sentences, you work with what you've been given. You can deliver a working solution but if it's not the way they were expecting... you're out of the running.
- fijiaarone 2y ago
  You really haven’t done much math, have you. Even 2+2 can be solved multiple ways.
throwaway7783 2y ago
I hate leet code and it's ilk, and I don't want anyone to go through that useless stuff. But I believe a good engineer can suss out another good engineer in a conversation or two. At least that has been my experience with people I have hired and people those people have hired. When you hire anyone, there is always some bar of "good enough". It is different for different orgs and even people, but it is there. Otherwise you'd end up hiring the first candidate you encounter, no?

_DeadFred_ 2y ago

I wonder what your investors would think if they found out you can't manage and need to 'hope you find suitable talent' and that you are incapable of growing it?

seneca 2y ago
> I wonder what your investors would think if they found out you can't manage and need to 'hope you find suitable talent' and that you are incapable of growing it? Not hiring mediocre talent is a key part of management.
renewiltord 2y ago
Every company talks about finding talent. VCs are very familiar with this because many startups don’t have familiarity with this stuff. It’s not surprising to have a VC help hire for roles the startup is unfamiliar with hiring for. An investor is not someone’s boss. Once they’ve handed over the capital, they’re very invested in making sure that there aren’t any blockers to the company’s success.
throwaway7783 2y ago
They know how I work, because I'm on the board and constantly update them. I built this company from slides to 5M ARR in 4 years. Granted, I have made hiring mistakes - good engineer, bad attitude that affected the team, good engineer not bought into what we do, one or two mediocre engineers that I couldn't suss out. But I've rectified them and have found good engineers in reasonable time. Unfortunately you have to take my word for it. Not sure how you assumed I cannot manage with no context.

PittleyDunkin 2y ago

> Okay, I have interviewed hundreds of people in the last decade, and I can tell you that most are not good enough. Me, too. I straight-up disagree; I think interviewing is just so broken it gives a false impression of quality issues in the labor pool. Realistically if you have a handful of core skills you can ramp up to basically any problem with enough time. That's time on the order of months, maybe, not years. Companies just don't want to bother training anyone anymore. Why bother when you can just complain endlessly and hope some politicians throw cheap labor your way? In that sense you're absolutely right, but the whole "quality" thing is completely unrelated. > I have been successful in liberating money from VCs and create jobs, and I want the best people that money can buy. I think people seriously overestimate the difference engineer quality makes. Most products can be built with mediocre talent. I'm sorry, that's the truth. We all love to have strong opinions on who we should hire and I say "almost anyone, just throw meat at the problem". Most problems are solved with time and not cleverness. Startups are definitely more sensitive to quality, but startups don't make up much of the labor pool, and they don't pay competitively with much larger companies that don't need the quality. I'm being a little hyperbolic here—you do need people with experience and ability to see red flags to lead the flock—but not by much.

throwaway48476 2y ago
This is the truth that peoples egos can't seem to handle.
UncleOxidant 2y ago
Add in that in the search for the perfect candidate that has all 16 bullet point requirements you'll come across folks who have, say, a solid 13 of them, but they'll get passed over waiting for the perfect candidate to come around. Which can take many months... years even. In the meantime you could have been bringing up one of those 13-point candidates getting them up to speed on those 3 missing bullet points. And you'd likely have gotten to a desired level of productivity faster than by waiting for that perfect candidate while wringing your hands that there just aren't enough qualified people out there.
- 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

fijiaarone 2y ago

You’re right, most people are not good enough, and the H1-Bs are worse.

throwaway7783 2y ago
That is a sweeping statement. They (or should I say "We") are no worse than anybody else. If your point is that "worse" people should not come in to the country on H1B because H1b is meant for "better" people, I will probably agree.

snozolli 2y ago

most are not good enough What is the basis for your claim? Unless you've followed up with those you rejected in order to gauge their performance on comparable tasks, you're just talking about confirmation bias. I've never heard of anyone actually producing objective measurements of hiring practices vs. actual worker performance. I've just heard a hundred different versions of confirmation bias. Maybe Google has some useful data. I know that they dropped GPA requirements when they looked at data and found that it had no impact on job performance...