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Comment by brooklyn_ashey | Hacker News Reader

I'd recommend blind auditions, just like the best professional orchestras use to hire "the best players". But they need to be blind from absolute beginning to sign the job offer. This culture fit nonse is nonsensical. If culture means that much in an almost entirely at-will environment- it is straight up discrimination. Have a probation period for the love of Pete! -just like the orchestras do. Why is this so hard for a bunch of really smart so-called scientists?

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Having worked with people who were eventually fired, I believe there's ample material behind "culture fit". It's stressful working with someone who rubs others the wrong way.

Maybe they're borderline sexist, but not enough where you can pin anything on them. Some people in the office will avoid that team or part of the office.

Maybe they're borderline reverse-sexist, where you disagreeing with them means you're obviously sexist.

That describes two people I've worked with who were fired. It really lowered team and office morale that they were around. I suppose I bonded with my coworkers over our bad experiences, but I think everyone else would've been happier and more productive without these toxic coworkers.

Those rare situations stink. I agree. But from my own experience with blind auditions and from the actual data on how they allow, for example, the percentage of women in symphony orchestras to jump from around 5% to more than 50% in the case of the New York Phil in particular and above at least 35% across the whole industry of orchestral music, I'd say they were resoundingly effective in diversifying professional music. Yes, there are a couple of instances I know of where musicians didn't make it past the probation period. But these instances are extremely rare. The audition to get a job is so difficult, it tends to weed out the un-humble and those whose focus is not mainly the production of great music. They know how to select for top skill and the auditions test for it. Part of that skill is the ability to be flexible, to identify vibe and style of your team, to blend when necessary and to take risks when called upon and above all to be a great collaborator with others of extremely high skill. The process tends to filter out the on-the-job jerks. Not every time, but mostly. And that is what probation review is for. It is for every player and is decided by committee. I think for the rare mistake, such diversity advocacy is well worth the occasional error as opposed to the current system which yields very poor diversity numbers in tech as we are all aware.

A more common situation are junior developers who are embarrassed by mentoring, and so vocally push back with anger that you would dare violate their ego. This is a bad cultural fit that needs to figure out their place in the universe or get the hell out.

Perhaps a blind audition would to for tech what it did for music: there aren't any "junior" orchestral musicians. If a musician makes it through to win the job (no matter their age or time spent as a professional) they don't need any mentoring. Winning a blind audition against 200 highly qualified players who are desperate for paid work and who went to Juilliard too (or the comparable) affords the winner instant respect on the job. It's only the "Michael Phelps" who make it through in orchestral music and everyone knows this. No intelligent musician already employed by that orchestra would ever think they could count on winning another audition in that orchestra or any other. With every passing year, employed players fear having to win their gig again against those who have spent months doing 7 hours of orchestral rep practice and nothing but. It is similar to whiteboarding but allows for no errors in a winning candidate. It is just too competitive. I suspect those who fear a blind audition in tech fear that their main/only real qualification is culture fit. Perhaps they fear they would not win in a skill-based audition. Every player does need to adjust to a new band though. It doesn't take long for a musician at that level. This isn't remotely the same as mentoring. Musicians don't get paid when they need mentoring like swes do. That happens in the practice room and at school and in apprentice programs which the musician pays for.

My last comment wasn't about genders of people you hire. One person was male and one female.

My point is about team and company dynamics. If someone seems off enough to their potential teawhy take that chance? There are plenty of good candidates out there and the cost of getting rid of a bad employee far exceeds the cost of deleting finding a good one.

I don't care about a candidate's gender, race or whatever else. I care how they'd get along with who they work with, which plays a large part in how we'll be productive together, or get in each other's way.

Well, there's this data: http://som.yale.edu/news/2017/04/in-new-york-times-prof-jaso... but it doesn't seem to be reaching the right ears. The thing is that a staggering lack of every kind of diversity persists within the tech sector. It is a much bigger problem than the occasional "wrong hire". There will always be some error... some bad hire that slips through any process as we perfect our hiring systems. The data from this study and the positive and highly effective blind orchstral auditions clearly show that we can still improve our strategies in finding the most skilled professional for the job. Perhaps we also need to work on expanding our notions of culture on the job and working toward becoming better engineers who can work with all types of people who want to produce great work. Perhaps you aren't aware of the closeness with wich orchestral musicians must work with stand partners, section members and the whole team and just how detrimental it can be for one person to have a problem so small as "plays great but moves around too much when playing" or "plays great but is an arrogant jerk during rehearsal creating bad morale"... and the thing is, we know there is probation review. It is an integral part of the hiring process. It isn't considered an error. We accept it as a phase. So why must software teams at companies with lots more wealth than a symphony orchestra expect to get it exactly right with a few wonky culture fit interviews and a relatively small whiteboarding section with the occasional take home project? They can and should find the funds to get serious about diversity in their industry. And frankly, with at-will contracts being the norm, every candidate is always "on probation".

So I read that article and the nytimes one it links to. It seems like both your symphony analogy and this study focus on individual performance. That's not how most software teams I've worked in are collaborative. People like Linus aren't suited for most teams, but they could probably get high GPAs.

I do think that measuring individual competence is important for software too. Gauging collaborative ability is still important though.

Actually, the probation period I mentioned that all major professional orchestras require of audition winners regardless of their accumulated fame or lack thereof, deals very thoroughly in the mysician's ability to collaborate. They are paid the standard salary and benefits for this period, just like every other player. Obviously, they can't rehearse or perform from within a Faraday cage, so this period is not "blind".It is the "at will" part of the orchestral contract- but a committee decides if they have collaborated well- a committee made up of the conductor, their section leader, section members and players of other instruments and administration. They get canned if they aren't consumate collaborative professionals. Like I said, they do get canned... it just happens very rarely. This period can last for six months to a year depending on the position and the orchestra. So it isn't part of the blind part, but unlike in engineering, if they pass this period, they have a solid contract. It then necomes much more difficult to fire them,although it still happens when there is good reason. As for the software interview-- man is that just kind of squishy and often poorly structured (not to the job- more like a hazing situation). And not blind, not usually inclusive, and downright structurally discriminatory in many cases. Why not structure these with the job in mind, toss the whiteboard in favor of their actual laptop and IDE (musicians audition on their own instruments, not on soundless replicas, and not with just any example of music from the entire repitoire- an set of excerpts and sightreading that directly apply to the job they will do)-keep it blind and pay them the usual salary for a probation period during which everyone on the team makes the effort to build a great collaborative relationship. Why not? Having been a pro orchestral musician and now software craftsperson, I can tell you these two gigs have a lot in common. The diversity people in music finally revolted back in the late 60s and got some positive change, just as diversity people are finally aiming to do battle with tech's ironically inflexible hiring culture and its general culture right now. It would be most helpful if more people got hip to diversity and inclusion being a more productive, stronger, and fulfilling way to go. Bit it needs to be met with eager interest rather than skepticism and pushback on experimental efforts to help it flourish.

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