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Comment by juujian | Hacker News Reader

The even bigger challenge is that hiring experts in any domain requires domain knowledge, but hiring has been shifted to HR. They aren't experts in anything, and for some years they made do with formulaic approaches, but that doesn't cut it anymore. So now if your group wants to get it done, and done well, you have to get involved yourself, and it's a lot of work on top of your regular tasks. Maybe more work because HR is deeply involved.

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>hiring has been shifted to HR

Well, unless you know sufficiently senior people. But I suspect that is a deeply unsatisfactory answer to many people in this forum.

My long term last, only technically-adjacent, job came through a combination of knowing execs, having gone to the same school as my ultimate manager, and knowing various other people involved. (And having a portfolio of public work.)

Personal networks only disadvantage those who have none.

I suspect many people who don't have strong networks for whatever reason resent that. To which you could probably tack on not having gone to the "right" schools or having a public portfolio.

also hard on introverts who already get punished in workplaces that promote ppl based on proximity and visiblity.

Well, they also promote people based on impact and, with rare exceptions, if you're holed up in a corner someplace you're probably not having a huge amount of impact.

Reality is that the ones quietly holed up in the corner are usually doing all the unsexy maintenance-type work that the extroverts don't want to do (because it's not sexy).

Nobody cares about that work... until it doesn't get done. And so, nobody doing it gets promoted.

Or it gets outsourced which is what often happens.

Communicating the importance of your work is a professional skill.

And if it actually isn't very important, you should probably find something else to do or move on in some other way.

If it was all about impact then ppl wouldn't be paying thousands of dollars to learn to play golf with their bosses. But you knew that already.

Is closing deals on the golf course even still a thing these days? I suppose it probably is in some circles but I haven't seen it in a couple of decades of tech industry life when it was more likely to be fun runs or skiing.

closing deals with your boss? what does that even mean.

Getting a promotion?

But my broader point was that golf course socializing seems like mostly a different world today, at least in my tech circles, relative to other venues.

Dealing with people and communication can be learned.

I get it. By nature I was very much an introvert except for certain scenarios when I was in my comfort zone until at least my mid 30s. I was an only child, the stereotypical short, fat kid with a computer growing up in the 80s (still short, became a gym rat, part time fitness instructor and only stopped the latter as my other obligations became greater). Horrible dating life and a bad first marriage before turning 35 (happily remarried since then).

It became apparent that to get ahead in my career, “codez real gud” was going to limit my career. I slowly learned how to “act like I like people”.

But you can only add so much value to an organization typing on a keyboard. There is a reason that every single tech company promotes based on “impact”, “scope”, “dealing with ambiguity”. Those all require soft skills.

Well put. I'm an introvert, I can't do math, I won't travel, etc. are all things that some people claim as if it's the unchangeable nature of things. If that's their chosen path, so be it. But they should understand it will probably be pretty limiting because the world they live in.

Yes they are unchangeable. I've tried many many times to break out of it; it works for a while but i revert back to my base behavior.

We know what kinds of temperament a dog has within few months of it being a puppy ( and who the puppy's parents are). Why would it be different for humans.

Claim that Our temperaments ( and our likes/dislikes for travel) are all learnt is a bizzare blank slate claim that doesn't track with my life experience and what i've seen in the world.

I hated small talk traditionally. It was very much a learned trait. One of the best conversation openers is “what keeps you busy?” and then ask open ended questions.

Ask about their favorite travel destinations or even what are some interesting things about where they live.

On the other hand, step outside your comfort zone and try something different so you have something to talk about interesting.

https://tynan.com/letstalk/

You didn’t become a software developer overnight. You won’t become a great conversationalist over night either.

“How to Talk to Anyone”

https://www.amazon.com/How-Talk-Anyone-Success-Relationships...

(not an affiliate link)

People can certainly decide that certain activities aren't their thing.

I don't want to push to give presentations at international events is certainly a valid decision for any of a number of reasons.

So is preferring to spend more time on coding than managing/mentoring/etc.

But it all has consequences and some branches will lead to more promotions/money/etc. than others. And you may be perfectly fine with that. But go into with eyes wide open.

> Why would it be different for humans.

Because animals typically live in a way more static and uneventful environments, and they have much more limited mental capabilities?

Humans (and other animals) aren't a completely black slate - but unlike most animals, humans have very complex societies that affect their behaviors throughout their entire lives. A few years in a different environment start to change people. Kids (with their still-growing brains) adapt faster, adults - not so much, but the traces will be evident. Move a not-too-fucked-up Russian to the Pacific Northwest, and they will eventually start to smile now and then.

Also, thanks to the language, humans can think things up even when alone, drive themselves crazy in all the weird ways, then overcome all that self-inflicted stress and possibly develop some behaviors as a result.

base temperament is irrelevant then?

My shy cat could've been a party animal like her sister :)

Of course it's relevant, by definition of "temperament". The question is how much of our (very complex) behavior is biologically based and independent of learning.

For a cat, it probably plays a significant role. Cat behaviors are complex but still much more simpler than humans. And changes are rare. Although I've heard of a "lazy" apathetic cat moving into a house with giant outdoor catio and becoming drastically more active, almost like a different kitty.

I'm not sure about humans - how much of our behavior is a true temperament and how much isn't despite tending to not change throughout one's life. I've seen introverts becoming eager activists after they went through some bad things, like war and prison. I've seen people who were jumpy and always nervous becoming relaxed after many years in safety.

> But you can only add so much value to an organization typing on a keyboard.

In my understanding, non-junior software development jobs never were about typing on the keyboard. Senior software engineer is a fancy name for a problem solver, and code is just a specialized tool they can build to possibly achieve the goal. It always was about talking to stakeholders, figuring out what the heck they actually want today, how it fits with what they think they want tomorrow, learning more about those stakeholders so you can guess what they will think they want next week. Only then it's thinking about it all it for a while, and only after that it's getting to press the actual buttons.

But I'm not sure those things require "soft skills" aka - in my understanding - being a people person. For me, it was a very simple learning process - I (as a junior) coded something, a manager came next month and said I have to rewrite everything again because things have changed. I hated it, so I started to think how to possibly avoid or minimize it and optimize my own processes.

And in my mental model, it's not about people (save for tiny companies where a whole department/role is a single person, so I have to account for their mental chaos monkeys), it's all about business. That's why I wrote "stakeholders", intentionally dehumanizing (with no negative connotations) the model.

Thinking about engineering leads I know who aren't about leading huge teams, it's still about mentoring, talking to people, making connections, often talking to external audiences, etc.

I think a lot of that is "soft skills." Maybe not becoming a stereotypical sales person. But it's also not don't ever bug me and let me code.

The way that most tech companies define levels - yes I’m simplifying slightly. I’ll provide citations:

Junior - you are told what to do (business objective) and how to do it (technical).

Mid - you are told what to do (business objective). But you are expected to use your experience to figure out the “how”. You should be able to lead a decently complicated feature/epic/work stream either by yourself or with others and mentoring other juniors.

Senior - You are expected to lead major projects that involve multiple epics with multiple developers, talk to “the business”, disambiguate, deal with XYProblems, communicate trade offs between time, cost, meeting requirements, etc. Now you also start having to deal with cross team coordination.

Staff - cross team impact, dealing much more with business strategy and setting technical direction.

As an IC, the only things you have at your disposal are your relationships and reputation. Both require soft skills.

Leveling guidelines:

https://www.levels.fyi/blog/swe-level-framework.html

https://dropbox.github.io/dbx-career-framework/

Believe it or not, extroverts also have to develop professional skills, sometimes even things that don't come naturally to them.

No question. Yet, social connection seems worth 10x or 100x competence in any particular circumstance and the effects compound. There are some real benefits from and needs to be prosocial and socially competent but I've regularly seen social competent but technically incompetent people advance far over technically competent but less socially agenda driving people (that are nonetheless socially competent). This only gets worse at scale and as you progress.

I love coding and do it reliably well with joy but as my career has progressed I've struggled more and more with getting a company to let me work at a "low level" or to navigating what seem like sociopathic behaviors to really contribute at my capacity.

What do you mean by 'low level'?

Are you talking about a traditional Staff / Principal engineering role or something different?

Sorry for my lack of clarity, yes. Pure code and technical contribution, up to mentoring, as opposed to holding architecture summits, politicking, and the like. I've been pushed into management and socializing without regard to my willingness.

As one, I have to say there's really nothing about being an introvert that prevents one from being affable and available. The idea is that human interaction does not boost the introvert's energy the way it does the extrovert's, not that it's impossible.

Self advocacy is part of the job.

And just because you’re an introvert doesn’t mean you are incapable of building soft skills. Talking to people is absolutely exhausting for me, but I force myself to do it and practice at it because I know it is important for my career.

I saw this at the big corporate (not faang/tech) place I work at. Engineers run and score interviews, but we don't make the final decision. That goes to HR and the hiring manager who usually has no technically background.

Yup, I have seen some really poor decisions as a result of this. I'm also curious - what will be the effect of AI assistance during behavior interviews, etc.

HR are experts in HR, which is to say they have a broader view of the institutional needs and legal requirements of hiring staffing than you do. It's always annoying when that clashes with your vision, but dismissing their entire domain is unlikely to help you avoid running into that dynamic again and again

> hiring has been shifted to HR

Not everywhere. At my company, HR owns the process but we -- the hiring tech team -- own the content of interviews and the outcomes.

I've never seen hiring completely in the domain of HR. HR filters incoming candidates and checks for culture fit etc, but technical competency is checked by engineers/ML folks. I can't imagine an HR person checking if someone understands neural networks.

HR involvement is unavoidable at big companies; and basics like "years of experience for payband" can cause issues. They fundamentally do not understand the job, but somehow have to ensure its not a biased hiring process.

Yes, and it is kind of necessary when hiring people from outside trusted networks. HR makes sure if people are who they say they are, background checks, and so on. Years of experience and so on are crude filters and should be bypassable by the team/hiring manager if the candidate meets the requirements. I know in large companies this can become political.

The big issue with the implementations I have seen is because HR aims to minimise the number of checks they do, so they can appear efficient.

So most aim to do as much resume filtering as they can first, then short calls, then background checks.

And the filtering and the call are areas where domain knowledge is relevant.

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