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Comment by beachstartup | Hacker News Reader

here, i'll paraphrase for you, since i'm a "real world" hiring manager as well, with a business that i keep anonymous/secretive on hn.

"a reliable person who can actually, really, like, totally for real drive a problem to resolution and then go spend time with family. if there's an emergency, they pick up their phone and try to help."

this is a small percentage of the population, but big enough. it's why we (based in california) have a 75% remote workforce. hint: we still pay california $. that's how you retain talent. everyone on my team lives in huge houses and i live in an apartment.

you'd (well maybe not you, but you know what i mean) be surprised at the number of super-intelligent ("smart") people who can't solve problems when the pressure is on.

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That pitch is great, if rarely seen.

My job entails emergencies from time to time, and it's rewarding to solve an issue at the customer, before it gets out of hand, while still solving problem on the long-term roadmap during the day.

What I do regret is the complete lack of remote, meaning I will pretty much leave this job soon, as my fiancée is currently living on the other side of the planet.

It's great to see companies that do care for employees well-being in other ways than office perks, and I'd love to see more of that in the future. Are you still looking for applicants?

> Are you still looking for applicants?

i don't recruit on hn. i will say this though: most people like you, if given the opportunity to work for a smaller, unknown firm for less money remotely, and a larger well known 'famous' firm for more money on-site, they will usually choose the latter even if they really want to work remotely.

in other words, "i want to work remotely" usually really means, "i wish i had all the upsides of BigCo with none of the downsides."

> I don't recruit on hn.

I can't blame you on that one.

Still, I want to address something. Remote work is a different paradigm, it doesn't make a lot of sense to compare the two of them. The upsides are pretty different, and so are the downsides.

I'm sure some people do not realise it requires a wildly different skill set, as well as a different mindset, to work remotely. The first thing that comes to mind is communication, the next is processes, and that's not the end of the list.

I'd take the job getting me closer to my loved ones any day over a job at BigCo personally, especially considering I feel strongly about the upsides. To each his own, I guess.

I can see why HN would trend towards the "don't wants".

Are you willing to share any communities or other resources you do use for recruiting? No pressure at all here, just curious.

well, most people check craigslist, no matter what their station in life/career.

That's because super "smart" people are taught that they will have 2-3 weeks to prepare for their biggest problems. In real life, big problems happen overnight, and you wake up to shitstorms. That said, some brilliant people emerge from Ivy Leagues, too.

Funny. I've spent most of my professional career trying my damndest to ensure that those shitstorms do not happen in the first place. :-)

(Not always successfully -- I have to admit -- but I try).

This is a very good argument, and something many devs/managers don't understand well enough.

I've seen a couple of such shitstorms where we had to hack on production systems to get them back to work quickly before thoroughly fixing the actual problem. Almost always, it could have been prevented with proper unit testing, code reviewing and more thought-out deployment processes.

An ounce of prevention beats a cure. The "smart" people are the ones that know taking the extra time to set up tests, controls before production, effective logging and documentation, are the ones that DONT have to wake up overnight to shitstorms.

I used to be surprised but after witnessing this many times it doesn't surprise me anymore.

Not surprised at all. I wish more people would emphasize at least _working_ on social skills or real-world problem solving. We would all benefit from this.

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