Ask HN: How do you find companies that hire for broad experience and aptitude?
...as opposed to a specific list of tools and for x years of experience with this or that technology
Smaller tech companies usually will have more of a need for broad experience and aptitude because they don't have departments of XYZ specialists like large companies often do.
Then filter by stuff that interests you in some way. It doesn't have to be a passion, in my opinion, since you are working on someone else's product/passion. It would help but just being excited about whatever it is they build helps.
It would be cool if you could put postings out there like "Hey do you like coding? like working with others? like __some_domain__? We do __some_domain__ using XYZ tech, come talk to us." I believe the HR folks like to put requirements down because it gives them something to filter on that is easily defensible should employment law get in the mix.
What location? What company? Please could you provide some details?
https://www.mckinsey.com/careers/search-jobs#?query=software
I’d encourage you to figure out what YOU want to work on and find companies that give you the opportunity to do those things. That said, this is a difficult question to answer because I’ve always looked at those requirements as what I’ll wind up doing for that particular company. I wouldn’t want to take a role that didn’t clearly define what I would be working on, and most companies are going to expect you to work on some platform/product/whatever consistently.
But generally startups require them. The early stage ones especially, but plenty of established ones do too. Research also benefit a lot from breadth.
I noticed American companies are much more likely to specialise, because the market rewards the best. Developing countries are likely to have lots of markets that are poorly addressed, so they get into research more.
Good luck in your search.
It’s a long tail problem.
Two things you can do that will help is to make your hiring process much more data driven, and to put your people who would be working with them on the team of people that will be doing the interviews, and give them extensive training on how to properly perform those interview panels.
You could also follow that up with take-home example work, for some cases.
But the real trial is those first few weeks and months, where they have to know that they are being carefully evaluated, and where if things don’t work out then you can make sure that you can easily let them go.
I recently joined a new employer in October, so I am acutely aware of this situation.
If you have a better anagram for FAANG -> MAANG, I’d love to see it.