lynnetye

The questions are written in a way to tease these values apart. It's so easy to say you are [thing], but do you actually translate those values into daily routines, practices, and operations?

The team profiles on Key Values (www.keyvalues.com) are precisely what you just described. Teams self-select their top 8 values and are forced to rank them. Limiting their selections is a way for them to implicitly say/admit what they are not, and then they are asked to qualify their selections in their profiles. How convincing / genuine / accurate / sincere they are depends on the reader.

You know where to find me!

Man, I wish you sent me these about 6 years ago! It was hard to get out of my own way, and over my misery, but I was able to!

Thank you for sharing these :D

In the strangest way, I really welcome this comment.

There's not much anyone can say to me that comes close to the confusion, guilt, and pressure I felt making the decision to leave grad school. If I can provide some context: I'm a Chinese American whose parents and older sister are all tenured academic professors (in molecular biology, theoretical physics, and neuroscience). Becoming a professor was my dream, so I was also deeply saddened when I realized I couldn't devote my life to pursuing scientific truth and discovery.

But turns out, it just isn't for me.

I was miserable in academia, and that misery felt like a betrayal to everyone I knew, loved, and respected. To make things worse, I was also good at it (https://neurotree.org/neurotree/publications.php?pid=57690&s...). When it came down to it, I felt like I was living someone else's life, and I knew that my ability to make a positive impact on the world would be severely limited by how unhappy I was.

To this day, I feel obligated to be on the side of making things better rather than worse, and want to help people in whatever way I can. And while I'm no longer developing therapies for Parkinsonian patients, I do believe that I am still helping people. Key Values at its core is about helping people evaluate their personal values, find teams that will energize them, and feel genuine happiness from spending their waking hours doing work they love with people they love.

Now I feel inspired and excited, and I feel like the work I do is incredibly rewarding. I promise you I'll be able to do more for the world because I feel this way.

Listen, I get it. It's annoying that so many people today are so privileged, and here we are complaining about all of the amazing options we have. But this is our reality. If you don't love how you spend your waking hours, it is your responsibility to exercise your privilege and figure out what will. At the end of the day, the only person who has to live with every decision you make is you. So make sure you choose wisely.

Everyone wants to make a meaningful contribution to society, but that's just too vague of a desire. Maintenance and cleaning staff are some of the most overlooked and undervalued contributors, and thanks to Homejoy, I will forever go out of my way to express my gratitude to them.

Lastly, just for the record, I was not an engineer at Homejoy. I was both a city and regional manager, and I worked very closely with the cleaning professionals who serviced the Bay Area. I guarantee there are at least 100 people in the Bay who will tell you that I was the one who taught them how to clean a toilet. I scrubbed hundreds of toilets alongside them, and several of them continue to be friends of mine.

It's really hard for me to maintain two separate personas (which is why I have always highly valued "Friends Outside of Work") so I'll do my best to keep it as real as I can in my newsletters. Thanks for giving me a chance!

Re: too many tags, I get really mixed feedback on this. In some ways, my goal with Key Values is to expose people to the diversity of engineering cultures that exist! While it may be overwhelming, it says a lot about what's out there and will hopefully provide encouragement for people and help them get excited about changing jobs (when it is otherwise a pretty dreadful experience). Woops, I'm rambling! tldr: you're right. Some day, I'll A/B test this.

Ahh! That's what Key Values does (aka the main product and homepage)! I will suggest companies on the Culture Queries results page in time, but decided to launch it before adding that feature. It's validating to hear you ask for it though. Thanks!

I've been trying really hard to put myself in the shoes of the user. This is exactly what I would have done, so there you have it.

I giving everything else for free, so I decided it'd be okay to ask for an email address. While I hope you won't, you can always unsubscribe. (Ps. I replied to a similar comment elsewhere.)

Who doesn't love it when the HN stars align?

Good luck! And let me know if there's any help/advice/resources I can give you.

Did you find my easter egg?!

You can always refresh the page. I actually removed the second CTA yesterday to help focus user attention. You probably already know this, but most people don't do what you did ;)

- Awesome. I wasn't sure if it came off too strong, so I only did it for a few. But I can definitely incorporate more "don'ts" as I add content and edit existing questions!

- Interesting thought, though I might disagree. The big names are people who haven't interviewed for a job in a really long time (in some cases, never have) and might not remember what it's like to be an applicant. I don't necessarily think you should ask questions just to impress an interviewer, you should also ask questions to get very needed answers to inform your decision.

- I really appreciate your saying this. I still feel like I need to state that up front, but I will say that my confidence has grown so much in the last 8 months.

Thanks so much for your thoughtful feedback and kind words!

I'm currently not charging for my service, so I decided that asking for an email address was fair. I was torn about how many questions to give "for free." I started with 9, but went down to 6 since I don't think interviewees have enough time to ask more than 2-5 questions in an interview any way.

Fair enough though. I'm also very stingy with my email address. Thanks for the feedback!

That is amazing. Which one was it?!

Hm. I'll try to debug that, thanks for telling me.

Key Values helps job-seeking engineers find teams that share their values. I'm not currently charging for my service, but will likely charge a monthly subscription to companies to post their profiles (and also charge to help curate them). Down the line, it's possible I'll always take a placement fee, but not set yet.

Very likely... I'll take a look, but so far, you're the only person who has done that

Hi everyone, Lynne here! I built Key Values and launched it on HN 3 months ago. It's been a lot of fun as a solo founder, but definitely challenging too. One thing I'm trying to do is provide more valuable tools for anyone wanting to take a culture-first approach to their job search. So, to help people make the most of their interviews, and as an alternative to traditional content marketing, I built Culture Queries.

I'll continue adding questions over time, so feel free to contribute some if you have any! Thanks in advance for your feedback, and I'll be around to answer any questions you might have.

Ps. This is my first attempt at side project marketing (so much fun), and I highly recommend it to other developers.

More about engineering at Signal: https://www.keyvalues.com/signal

Really cool team and company culture: https://www.keyvalues.io/signal

More information about one of the engineering teams at Udacity: https://www.keyvalues.io/udacity

Such a diverse and interesting team: https://www.keyvalues.io/coffee-meets-bagel

A great inside look on the PicnicHealth team and what it's like to work here: https://www.keyvalues.io/picnichealth

This is exactly what motivated me to build Key Values!! These are things people end up learning during the in-person interview (or during the first week). I don't see why we have to write cover letters, do phone screens, do take home tests, or go through coding challenges before learning this information. My goal is to reorder the steps and give job-seekers insight to a team's values before making the decision to apply/interview. If anything, it allows us to ask better questions when we first speak to or meet with interviewers.

You're not wrong. Hiring has just become a numbers game and I think this is part of the problem. Recruiters blast a thousand engineers with the same dry email. Engineers apply to a hundred different companies. A lot of companies don't consider applications without a personalized note or cover letter, and for good reason. They too want a personalized message.

Let's compare it to dating. A lot of people like dating apps where you can rifle through hundreds of options within minutes. But most people would agree that a matching process that is more personal and human leads to longer lasting relationships.

Despite how many people play the numbers game, there are tons of people who don't, myself included. (And I happen to mean that for both my personal and professional relationships.)

I support this ;) Thanks!

You're so spot on. Some companies do not introspect deeply enough, nor do they have the desire! I've met some of them and guess what –– they don't end up creating a profile on Key Values. Honestly, I think it says a lot about team who put in the time and care to create a profile. The exercise of selecting 8 values and qualifying them signals a real desire to invest in people, culture, and to make sure values actually translate into behaviors.

Re: your example, I see it as my job to encourage them to communicate who they are loudly and proudly! There's pressure on both sides (job-seekers and employers) to check all of the boxes. It doesn't make sense to do that at all though.

Mmmm not quite sure what you're thinking of, but I'm talking about starting w/ baby steps.

"Do exciting work that has real impact, learn a lot, and have fun doing it."

Do you know how many companies say that on their job descriptions?! All of them.

Here are some examples of being (mildly) divisive and using strong language:

- "We consider it a disqualifier if a candidate does not value our mission to grow and sustain local food systems" (Good Eggs)

- "All of our communications are out in the open, and we have a rule that you cannot send emails to a fellow Remixer and instead must communicate over Slack where everyone can see. (Emails are only used for people externally.)" (Remix)

- "We advocate that everyone leans towards releasing and reverting. It is better to revert small changes than to spend time perfecting code. While this might rub some people the wrong way, we believe that the best way to learn is by doing." (Amplitude)

All of these things will either resonate w/ an individual and make them really excited about applying/joining, or turn them off because it doesn't quite align w/ their personal values/preferences/goals.

There are two problems:

For employers, it's casting a wide net and then struggling to filter out "noise" quickly. Employers will use pass on great engineers and interview not-so great ones (see parent comment). Instead of saying, "Work for us, we're the best!" why don't engineering teams say, "We prioritize speed over quality, are great for individual contributors, and prefer asynchronous comms over lots of meetings. Work for us if this sounds like you."

For job-seekers, the problem is applying to dozens to companies that you don't even want to work for (and just don't know it yet). If I value quality over speed, prefer working in teams rather than independently, and believe in-person meetings are incredibly valuable, then I would know not to even both applying to the company above.

I'm a web developer who has been thinking about engineering hiring and culture a LOT over the last 6 months. I'm confused about employers' desire to cast a wide net, only to filter through applicants thoughtlessly. Instead, why don't engineering teams save time and energy by articulating their specific engineering values, and sharing that information up front? Be honest. Say divisive things. This will allow job-seekers to self-filter. Your goal is not to attract every software engineer. Your goal is to attract the people you are most likely to hire. (Career pages can be fluff, and job descriptions are dry and uninformative beyond a list of technologies.)

I've been working on Key Values (https://www.keyvalues.io) for many months now trying to do just this: surface details about actual team members, day-to-day processes, and a team's engineering culture. At least this way, we as engineers can be more informed when deciding where to apply, where we'll devote hours/energy interviewing. Of course engineers might be skeptical or have questions, but at least we have something to respond to.

Ultimately, neither job-seekers nor employers want to waste time and energy interviewing people they aren't culturally aligned w/. Maybe the lesson here is that engineers should seek out the teams that care about what they care about, whether it's mentorship, high quality code, or work/life balance. I know it's controversial (especially here in HN), but is salary really more important than doing work that is exciting/challenging/energizing/stimulating or feeling valued/appreciated/respected/passionate?

"Growing by word of mouth has worked great." <-- That's the dream right there.

I'm turning 30 soon too. What I care about and look for in a job has changed over the years (and my guess, will continue to change).

I was all about the company mission, working somewhere that was growing quickly, and getting hands-on experience. After I burned out a bit, I looked for work/life balance and was focused on making and saving money. After a couple of years, I missed the excitement, passion, and long hours. While I'm definitely hoping to turn Key Values into a revenue-generating business (ie. money is on my mind), I'm really motivated by challenging myself with something new, learning, and this mission to help match companies and job-seekers.

But trust me, for the previous 2 years, I was mostly about the money too. (Maybe 60% money, 40% learning the skills to try and start a business of my own.) If I hadn't made money a priority, I wouldn't have been able to do what I'm doing now.