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> Most importantly, not every project (nor startup, nor business) needs "the very best" engineers. This is highly underrated wisdom. If you focus on always hi

> Most importantly, not every project (nor startup, nor business) needs "the very best" engineers. This is highly underrated wisdom. If you focus on always hiring "Rockstar developers," you'll find yourself in a miserable situation of competition and egotistical conflict. Hire your team, not your developers. Get your team working like clockwork with good systems and good relationships, and your company will be rockstar with whatever people you throw at it. Look at github, stripe, twitter, facebook—you think they only hire the absolute best developers? No, they have a top 2% just like you will—your goal should be to increase the competence of your entire company, not just ignorantly hire the best and fire the worst and hope for the best. Spot on. You're right about the other assumptions too (though the parent may not have been that serious about them). IMHO stereotyping introverts or extroverts as being better or worse at certain tasks is a huge --ism to avoid, especially in our field. I see 'extrovertists' and 'introvertists' battle it out all the time with their propaganda and ignorant beliefs about people, and no one wins. It's far better and more productive to be a humanist and find a good balance. Both extroverts and introverts can be valuable to your team; both extroverts and introverts can be great programmers and workers. You should strive to hire a mix, or stop using it as a metric and naturally get a mix, since these traits like many others generally fall on a normal distribution. Don't trust your assumptions about yourself, and don't apply them to others. They're probably wrong.

lifeisstillgood 14y ago
Totally agree - imagine you could hire Linux Torvalds. He is a great programmer but his best work was sending emails to others for 12 years. This leads to an interesting thought - if you hired Linus and he started spending all his time emailing sarcastic notes to the other developers, how quickly would he get fired for "not focusing on developing code"? Perhaps the key for CEOs is not to grow culture but to hire people who will grow it for you. You dont get to choose the culture, or even direct it. The funny Finnish bloke will. You just pay him.
- justincormack 14y ago
  And then he goes and creates a version control system when you just wanted a kernel....
  - calinet6 14y ago
    ... and also he created the kernel, and a way to manage its development better. I don't see the problem. People who make cool stuff and solve problems in their spare time are the ones you want working for you. Even if they waste time sometimes going off on tangents, it's probably honing their skills and improving something relevant to your company or their own work abilities. No problem, you want that. Trust them to do the right thing.
greghinch 14y ago
Exactly. This is where having good engineering leadership can come in. A "mediocre"* developer can often be coaxed into producing great product with a little support from things like paired programing and code reviews. You'll probably increase his/her value and abilities in the process. So you need your lead to be awesome. But the rest can just be good people who know how to code. * this would be someone who may not fully grasp all the concepts and sometimes writes bad code, but is open to learn and listen. There are developers who write bad code and are arrogant/confrontational about their abilities. Those should be identified and fired as quickly as possible. They will sink your ship.
- alexko 14y ago
  The problem here is that the awesome lead will not stay long in a company where all other people are mediocre. Awesome people want to work with other awesome people. There should be a critical mass of them to keep them from leaving.
  - greghinch 14y ago
    Or if you're a startup you give your awesome lead enough equity to have skin in the game, and the authority actually to lead and shape the team.
  - calinet6 14y ago
    This is relatively true, but at a small company (< 5 programmers) some people do like the role of "lead" and will stay with it as long as the people they work with aren't total idiots.

lifeisstillgood 14y ago

Totally agree - imagine you could hire Linux Torvalds. He is a great programmer but his best work was sending emails to others for 12 years. This leads to an interesting thought - if you hired Linus and he started spending all his time emailing sarcastic notes to the other developers, how quickly would he get fired for "not focusing on developing code"? Perhaps the key for CEOs is not to grow culture but to hire people who will grow it for you. You dont get to choose the culture, or even direct it. The funny Finnish bloke will. You just pay him.

justincormack 14y ago
And then he goes and creates a version control system when you just wanted a kernel....
- calinet6 14y ago
  ... and also he created the kernel, and a way to manage its development better. I don't see the problem. People who make cool stuff and solve problems in their spare time are the ones you want working for you. Even if they waste time sometimes going off on tangents, it's probably honing their skills and improving something relevant to your company or their own work abilities. No problem, you want that. Trust them to do the right thing.

greghinch 14y ago

Exactly. This is where having good engineering leadership can come in. A "mediocre"* developer can often be coaxed into producing great product with a little support from things like paired programing and code reviews. You'll probably increase his/her value and abilities in the process. So you need your lead to be awesome. But the rest can just be good people who know how to code. * this would be someone who may not fully grasp all the concepts and sometimes writes bad code, but is open to learn and listen. There are developers who write bad code and are arrogant/confrontational about their abilities. Those should be identified and fired as quickly as possible. They will sink your ship.

alexko 14y ago
The problem here is that the awesome lead will not stay long in a company where all other people are mediocre. Awesome people want to work with other awesome people. There should be a critical mass of them to keep them from leaving.
- greghinch 14y ago
  Or if you're a startup you give your awesome lead enough equity to have skin in the game, and the authority actually to lead and shape the team.
- calinet6 14y ago
  This is relatively true, but at a small company (< 5 programmers) some people do like the role of "lead" and will stay with it as long as the people they work with aren't total idiots.