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Comment by sokoloff | Hacker News Reader

> To me it hints that Engineering MoM is not a very technical position.

Is a manager-of-managers ever a very technical position? I am one and almost nothing I do as part of that job requires any differentiated technical ability. An Excel pivot table is as a complex as I’d need to get by.

(I do technical items on the side so as to not lose my mind, but I’m not surprised by the hiring loop not being very technical.)

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I’m a manager of managers at my current big tech employer and here we are still required to be quite technical. I’d think that a startup 1/25 the size would benefit from this approach, hence my surprise. I don’t know how to do pivot tables though.

Maybe a hot take: if you have a Manager-of-Managers role, you aren’t a startup any more.

There are startups with over 50 engineers you know ;) At sr manager role you are for sure not technical though even if you did get asked coding/design questions in interview loops (there are exceptions)

At what point does an organization stop being a "startup" and become a "private company"?

When its inertia has reached a point where it can continue to succeed not because of its actions, but in spite of them.

Immeditely added that to my favorite commebts. Short, crsip and it contains so much truth!

That is so nicely put. Worthy of Ambrose Bierce himself, I reckon.

when you become consistently profitable and sel-sufficient.

Obviously it’s pretty tricky to define but I’d say anything that doesn’t have an already established or rapidly growing customer base/revenue is a startup. If you can shutdown all r&d and it’s still going to be viable business for a while then it’s not a startup

When it stops taking VC money?

I disagree. If you have 50 people, you’re just a business

A company with over 50 engineers that wants to be seen as a startup is a red flag for me. I usually stop reading their job postings as soon as I can detect this.

Is every job posting you look at is for a company that runs a version of lamp stack and 90% of workforce is sales? Then, sure

Of course not.

You'd need more like 300+ to have a manager-of-managers who isn't a director or VPE.

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