I don't want to think about how many of the folks I've hired I wouldn't have had I watched over their shoulder as they were pressured to solve problems on my te

I don't want to think about how many of the folks I've hired I wouldn't have had I watched over their shoulder as they were pressured to solve problems on my terms. I have a feeling that for many of them I'd have left such an exercise with the impression that they were complete idiots. Many of my best team members weren't people that were so effective at solving computer science problems or even very effective in their editor (I'd actually cringe to watch some of them edit code) but knew when to ask questions of our client or have a theory of mind of our customer in order to know what to build and be able to self-direct. Conversely, some of my least favorite colleagues would probably fare well in this, but they would tend to rabbit hole creating complex solutions to simple problems or the wrong problem. Maybe the projects I work on aren't technical enough and overlap with politics too much, but I've never found a gig that wasn't like that.