Or Developers who have good credentials but are uninterested and I need to micromanage and push them a lot.
Who amongst the 2 should I hire?
The experienced developer on the other hand has little motivation to become interested…
But what if… senior engineers were hired for senior engineer jobs? Junior for junior, etc? The lifecycle of a job at startup can tolerate this more than an enterprise situation, but it’s still pretty clear to me in most cases.
This issue tends to be viewed as a balance-sheet salary issue in the end. You sort by (value, salary) and then (salary, value) in some spreadsheet. But if you’re firing someone for being too expensive, you hired the wrong person to begin with.
I’ve noticed a trend for years of sucking up top talent because they might go somewhere else.
But I myself have been on both sides. I have hired and been hired a couple of times for skill, then I or they didn’t know what to utilize the position for. They hoped good = results.
In one case, my job title changed twice between the handshake and my first day. And that’s just the quippiest to relate!
So I think the hiring side has some work to do on actually crafting the teams they want to build a bit better.
“Awesome Python Ninja” was a funny job description for about 30 seconds 10 years ago. I keep seeing that, if phrased more professionally.
Get the person you want for the job. “Picking talent” as an idea is like hoarding two of each animal on an ark. The real world is much more fluid than a Flood.
But honestly, as a more experienced developer I don't NEED to be as interested as I did when I was a newbie. Back then I used to have to work much harder, because every task involved learning a lot of new stuff. You need the excitement to keep you motivated. Not to mention you are making less money.
I build web UIs and honestly, no matter what the finer points of the design, most companies want a lot of the same things out of their UIs. Forms, tables, modals. You build these things 10 or 100 times, and it just becomes a thing you can do with or without motivation. The janitor doesn't need to be have a deep internal motivation to make sure the trashes are empty, and neither do I to implement a responsive table. The paycheck is enough to get me to come in and make sure that all the pixels show what they're supposed to show and the button clicks do what they're supposed to do.
The ideal answer is you hire the skilled worker and you manage and lead them to success. You dont micro-manage. You dont delegate responsibility. You are there to remove any blockers and any unnecessary cognitive load. You are there to help them, help you, reach the business goals. You work for them. So hire the best most skilled people, and if you manage and lead properly, you challenge them and utilize them, you wont have a bunch of skilled workers uninterested in doing your job for you.
And how is a manager supposed to react without micro management when basic things are not covered ? Like not being organized, not doing the work, not answering messages
First, I take your claim seriously that it’s an either-or decision. Then, clearly I'd hire the "proactive" one. As a manager you simply don’t have time for micromanaging or you should be doing something else.
Second, I question your either-or. Why not try to find interested and experienced candidates? Sure, I don’t know anything about your business. It may be extraordinarily hard to make it happen. But that’s the job of the manager: develop to workplace in a way so that it becomes attractive instead of micromanaging.
However, the proactive developer will eventually become skilled enough to not need constant cross-checks, whereas the uninterested developer will continue to coast without further intervention.
(Although, I would ask - why are they uninterested?)
Are you sure?
Good luck.
Good credentials doesn’t mean much.