Comment by iamdave | Hacker News Reader

Comment by iamdave | Hacker News Reader

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I find it much easier to deal with someone who has no relevant experience but cares vs someone who had 10 years experience but doesn't care

Why?

This is a legitimate, but deeply opinionated "why". You employing me and me working for you is a business transaction. Why should I care about your mission beyond giving enough 'care' to produce great work that helps you run your business, run it well, so much that you'll want to keep the relationship going, but maybe provides me with some learning opportunities and skills that if we part ways, I don't starve looking for the next opportunity.

That's it.

I don't care about whatever your mission was when you started the company, I don't care how you think you're saving the world by creating another conference call platform. In my 22 year career I have deeply truly cared about one company that employed me. One. And even then, it was still a transaction: we need your skills, I have those skills, let's trade and do good work together. That's all I need to 'care' about, IMO it's all the employer needs to 'care' about.

Caveat Lector:

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Maybe I'm jaded looking at a tech industry that doesn't seem to have a damn clue what it's doing when it comes to hiring, disaffected by all of these bullshit job requirements that are as far removed from reality as Earth is from one of Jupiter's moons, and offended by these job interviews that feel less like conversations and more like I'm trying to outwit a power hungry DM during a game of Dungeons and Dragons.

"Why should I care about your mission "

I don't care if you care about the mission of the company. It probably helps but I don't care that much either as long as the company doesn't do anything illegal or something I find ethically objectionable. I care whether you care about your craft and want to improve. I care if we can have interesting discussions about work and tech or if you just want to be told what to do next and never contribute anything interesting.

I spend around 40 hours a week at work so I want to make this as enjoyable as possible. To me that means mental stimulation and enjoying working with my team. From my experience people who respect each other and enjoy each other are vastly more productive than people who don't.

I get why you're jaded, and I certainly agree there is a lot of bullshit out there. Especially people who say they want passion, etc, but what they really want is cult-like devotion that can be exploited.

However, I think there are three big reasons that I don't want to hire people who are just clock-punchers.

One is the users. When I start in a new domain, I work hard to understand the people the product is meant to serve. And when I'm running teams, I work hard to make it so that everybody can develop empathy for the users. I don't believe it's possible to make great products without it.

Number two is the team. Google's research on good teams [1] matches my experience: you don't get good teams without people who care about their colleagues and what they're doing. I get the desire to think like a plumber, who just comes in to fix this one sink and then goes away again: that's easier and less risky. But software is a team sport. So I want people who care about their team members.

Number three is the bigger scale: infrastructure, process, culture. Anybody who just wants to focus on their contribution does that at the expense of paying attention to broader impact. I want to work with people who notice and care about that, who are interested in making tomorrow better than today. For themselves, for their colleagues, for the users. Because that shit doesn't happen on its own.

So yes, bullshit job requirements are bullshit. And any requirement can be bullshit given the context. But there are contexts which really caring is vital, and those are the places I want to work.

[1] https://rework.withgoogle.com/blog/five-keys-to-a-successful...

That's legitimate, and I would take you any day over someone who cared a lot but had no relevant skills. However caring about the business is absolutely a value-add. Don't get me wrong, you should be careful to avoid being taken advantage of, but generally you will have better career progression if you can inhabit the space between emotional disengagement and being a kool-aid drinking doormat—it's actually a pretty wide space.

However caring about the business is absolutely a value-add.

I can dig this, it absolutely is. It's definitely supplemental (emphasis critical).

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