It's interesting how many red flags a company can throw up so quickly. Often before you've even finished browsing their website.
The only thing that matters is professionalism, work-ethic, and skillset (and my personal favorites, politeness and personal-space respect).
Age, race, gender, nationality should not matter in any way for hiring decisions. But then again, I fall into the "leave it be" side of human freedom and anti-discrimination efforts, rather than the "let's meddle and try fix it with reverse-effects" camp.
Here is a "diversity team" http://diversify.github.io/images/diversify-group.jpg
Beware of hypocrites abusing "diversity" for PR reasons.
> Diversify was a weekend event at Spotify in Stockholm, where 40 tech students of diverse backgrounds came together and designed, wrote code, and found new friends.
Maybe having students to this is in part pointless, but that picture is not of a group of Spotify employees working on diversity issues.
Does this non-medical phd demand to be addressed as doctor? (Yes, this happened.)
Does he or she seem willing to do his or her share of the scut work?
Is he or she a failed academic who is getting an industry job and going to be a pain about it, or is this what he or she wants to do?
How much supervision does the candidate require? Initiative? If he or she runs out of work, is he or she going to to sit there and do fuck-all until I notice or will the candidate be proactive about getting more to do?
I understand some of our code is under tested, but unlike TDD wankery, there is a real business cost to spending a bunch of time writing tests and, since those systems are either mostly finished / slowly changing, or on their way out, is this candidate going to be difficult or suck it up and deal? (Yes, this happened. See also scut work and/or the realities of living in our fallen world.)
We've made a decision to standardize on scala/java and js/some frontend package I'm not sure of. I understand this isn't react or the new hotness; does this candidate seem like he or she will throw a fit then spend two months working on a service in a language nobody else uses (yes, this happened. And he was surprised when he was terminated. There were other issues but this was the proverbial straw.)
Hygiene. This should go without saying, but apparently I am cursed. If I can smell you in an interview, we're done. (And yes, this has happened.)
One more set of edits as the bad memories come back:
You look at my two female data scientists and a female engineering peer and the one female office manager and ask why there are so many secretaries working here? Yes, this happened.
You call one of my female directs "sweetie." Yes, this happened.
We're talking on the phone and you couldn't be arsed to spend 10 minutes on our site and come up with a 1-2 sentence summary of what the company does. You can be wrong, but you must demonstrate minimal interest. And to be clear about the level of detail: if I were airbnb and you said platform to allow people to rent out their homes for short stays, that would be awesome.
Also, "sweetie", really? When I was younger (teens) I offended someone by saying "Ma'am"[1], but I'm pretty sure I would have took a swat to the head from my parents if I ever said "sweetie".
1) I'm pretty sure at this late date (20+ years ago), she was a bit ticked that I used "Ma'am" instead of "Miss" implying she was older than she was. I'm pretty sure she was between 18 and 20, and I was 15 and looked a lot older.
It looks to me like a laundry list of requirements that they wouldn't admit in polite company or want to have documented in their company records, or advertise on their website.
They wouldn't want to put off any investors with bad breath, a PhD, or a penchant for saying 'sweetie', after all.
Also, one of the items clearly advertises an objective deficiency in their working practices. It's pretty plain why they'd want to keep that under wraps.
So yea, less about culture and more about having a list of hidden requirements.
I had a feeling that somewhere along the list of "candidate must not make us put up with any of their bullshit" there would be something saying "candidate must be willing to put up with a metric ton of our bullshit".
either mostly finished / slowly changing, or on their way out
Test driven development is a practice that is most valuable on legacy code. Only doing it on new code and not old code is ass-backwards. If anything it should be the other way around.
A half assed hack job to support remaining customers will likely only end up alienating them when you inevitably break stuff they rely upon with duct tape. Alienated customers tend to drop you forever and run into a competitor's arms. YMMV but that's always been my experience.
Just a note: sometimes this is BO caused by medication. You want to avoid saying "I didn't hire you because you smell" because that may be a result of a protected characteristic. A reasonable adjustment would be that the person has a trusted friend who will tell them if they smell or not, and will shower before they get to work and will use deodorant products.
A bit less common would be "fish odor syndrome" or Trimethylaminuria. http://www.channel4embarrassingillnesses.com/conditions/fish... You probably don't want to be cruel to people who suffer from an illness that they have no control of.
Since some food and medicine can cause your pee to smell really weird it makes sense it can screw with the smell of your sweat too.
WTF is wrong with that!?!? It is polite to address someone the way they want to be addressed. I address my PhD holding colleagues as Dr. very often though none are medical doctors. I can't imagine how this is an issue for anyone ever.
But if everybody at the company is on a first-name basis but you insist on having everybody call you Dr. Smith, you're being unreasonable.
"We're on a first name basis here" is cultural, unlike the other stuff mentioned, so there's that. But its pretty bizarre.
Would you also fire them for wearing business attire instead of shorts because "this is a casual environment?"
This is what Miss Manners says:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/miss-manners-...
DEAR MISS MANNERS: My future sister-in-law just graduated with her PhD She told me to call her “doctor,” but I was always told that if you don’t work with someone directly in their field, that doesn’t apply.
Is that true? I understand it’s out of respect, but I have never addressed other persons with their PhD as “doctor.” They also put PhD at the end of their names, teach at universities and don’t go by “doctor.”
GENTLE READER: There are two attitudes that individuals and universities take toward the use of the title “doctor” for those who hold PhDs.
One is that having been earned, it should be used, not only in professional situations when needed for identification, especially in academic positions, but also socially.
The other is not to use it — not socially, but especially not in academic positions, because that level of education being assumed, it need not be expressly mentioned. As one professor (namely, Miss Manners’s Uncle Selig) once put it, “A PhD is like a nose — everyone has one. It’s only conspicuous if you don’t have one.”
Which form of snobbery is preferable, or perhaps more effective, others can decide. Obviously, your prospective sister-in-law espouses the first-named approach. And she is covered by two rules:
1. Address people as they wish to be addressed.
2. Try not to annoy your relatives unnecessarily.
i.e. it's a big fat euphemism.
Just say "no prima donnas" on your list of requirements. Most people will be able to read between the lines and know that you're looking for servility, fealty and obedience in your employees. I, for one, would be happy to screen you out based upon those words. I'm pretty sure you wouldn't like me, I wouldn't like you and I wouldn't want to waste your time or mine interviewing with you. Those three words would save us both a lot of trouble.
I always refer to those who have earned an MD as 'physicians' or 'surgeons.'