trentnix

And that discernment, at least in part, comes from understanding what that code is really doing.

I get 45 minutes face-to-face to develop an opinion as to whether or not a candidate can do the job well. I value candidates who’ve not only asked “what?” but have also asked “why?”

I’ve no doubt my approach has filtered out people who would have done good work. I’ve certainly passed people through that didn’t work out for various reasons. But generally, my approach has served me well so far.

Many developers find themselves in a position of being a subject matter expert in a particular business or industry, and that becomes the primary value they deliver. They remember where that error message originates or why that column in the database is named so strangely. They know the lingo and business quirks inherent to their industry.

Over time they lean more and more on that knowledge and the extent of their software development is mostly spotting patterns in the existing codebase and regurgitating those patterns repeatedly. Their programming muscles atrophy while their subject matter expertise grows. But that knowledge doesn't always transfer well.

I've fallen prey to this trap (personally) on more than one occasion, getting lost in what I was doing instead of seeking to better understand what I do.

> What are you recruiting? Language experts, or coding experts? As you seem to be confusing the two.

I'm recruiting problem solvers, and I think it's necessary to understand the tools you are using to solve problems at least one level deeper than autocomplete shows.

Frankly, I think developers are getting good at combining Google search results into a codebase that reads more like a ransom note of copied-and-pasted snippets than a deliberate engineering effort. When I ask a candidate to convert an input string of digits to its output integer (e.g. "001234500" to 1234500) equivalent and they don't seem to discern that's an important distinction, it raises red flags.

Sure, tools and language (e.g. Javascript) often abstracts much of the details away, but my experience is that those developers with a familiarity of those details and why they matter (even if they might need an occasional reminder from a search engine) are a cut above.

On the flip side, I’m interviewing candidates with a decade of experience (per their resume) that can’t discern the difference between basic data types and how they are stored with the very language they claim expertise.

Once upon a time the stereotype was that hiring developers is hard because they can’t communicate. Now candidate after candidate is able to communicate like they are a professional podcaster but they can’t seem to solve problems well.

If you’re skilled, don’t despair. Most companies are terrible at hiring and terrible at business as well. Those rejections from the gauntlet of flaming hoops they make your jump through are doing you a favor.

Rejection is God’s protection and all that. And I like to think that’s right.

I saw that site and my first thought was "wow I suck at web design". My second thought was “wow this guy's work is inspiring”.

I'm generally unaware of the drama between he and Elon, and frankly I don't really care. I'm glad our world has them both.

Agilists frequently argued investing time and energy into crafting requirements is an “anti-pattern”, so being unprepared became the Right Way To Work TM. This is 100% dead-ass wrong.

Companies like Capital One will inevitably be seduced by the next great idea and will avoid hiring real leadership at the product and team level at all costs.

Decision-makers got to their lofty corporate positions because of how well they play the game will do everything in their power to make sure the game continues.

I used Magic Plan on my iPhone to map the floor plan with LiDAR, converted the result to a 2D PDF, and imported that into SH3D. I then drew walls and doors and windows on top of that, effectively recreating the existing home. Then we started experimenting.

SH3D proved to be invaluable at understanding how to utilize existing walls and unproductive space to minimize renovation costs. Being able to “walk through” the various plans we considered was invaluable. And I couldn’t be happier with how my plans worked out.

SH3D has some rough edges and took some time to master. But the learning curve was worth it.

I re-read it whenever I sometimes fall into as it reminds me design and craftsmanship are the most important aspects of building great software.

https://web.stanford.edu/~ouster/cgi-bin/book.php

It certainly isn’t the fault of those being hired, but it might have given them a chance to find employment somewhere that truly needed their skills and didn’t see them as “headcount”.

You'd think somewhere, in at least one of these larger tech companies, there would be a leader boldly proclaiming "this is our time to increase our investments and beat our competitors!" But it turns out there is even less diversity of thought in tech leadership than there is racial and gender diversity.

That said, Gitlab may be making a very prudent decision given their circumstance. I don’t know enough to conclude one way or the other. But considering what they are doing so closely mirrors what nearly everyone else is doing, skepticism is warranted.

> To be honest, I always assume good faith from people who offer me to sign some documents

Sure. And most people asking you to sign documents are doing so in good faith. But the contents of the documents themselves overwhelmingly bias toward the interests of the organization who wrote the contract.

Additionally, while the party asking you to sign may be doing it in good faith, they may not be the ones who end up pursuing enforcement. A contract should be evaluated based on its contents and never based on your trust of the individuals you are negotiating with.

I generally agree. Copycat layoffs are the result of “we have to do something” thinking, with little thought put into whether or not what’s being done is actually beneficial. Politicians are subject to these types of actions, as well.

If you do the same thing everyone else did and it doesn’t work, you don’t get blamed. You, like everyone else, was a victim of “circumstances”. But if you do something different and it doesn’t work, it’s your ass.

That said, these circumstances could provide cover for companies who need to shed poor performers or performers who’s cost-benefit is no longer positive to the company. But that requires more planning and forethought than I think any of the major players are applying.

But that doesn't change the reality that ad revenue related to search is the lion's share of Google's revenue. That makes them exceptionally vulnerable for a company of their size and breadth. And in that vulnerable area, anecdotally at least, the search quality feels as if it has regressed over the years.

Google was once the gateway to the web. Now they are the gatekeepers of the web.

Maybe I'm just nostalgic. Maybe things were never as good as I imagined they were. Maybe my expectations are unfair. But the Google of my memory was innovative. It delighted. That feels far removed from the Google of today.

Not to mention, Google has spent a decade using their defacto monopoly as leverage and optimizing for ads and clicks, often exploiting their own users in the process. The bar for better was lower than it should have been, and the market is hungry for an alternative. Google has some real challenging times ahead.

Use story points. Succeed with story points. But don’t try to convince yourself (or me) they aren’t just an analogue for time.

I don’t think this is right. It’s like a sports team: your system, your philosophy, your approach matters. Like in basketball, you might utilize the flex motion offense or you might use the Tex Winters’ triangle.

Good teams can succeed with both, but depending on your personnel and what you’re up against, you might find one strategy works better than the others.

Sounds familiar.

Back in my consultant days, we would encounter companies that wanted to be “agile”. They’d insist they were waterfall and it wasn’t working.

Truth is, if they’d actually been doing waterfall they’d have been performing far better. Instead, they were just chaos, reacting to one fire after another with no plan to get out.

Additionally, many teams were simply staffed with poor managers and poor engineers. There’s no consulting-fu or process-fu that was going to overcome that. You can’t win horse races with pack mules, my dad (a basketball coach) used to say.

100%

I interviewed with a company (not C1) earlier this year that had one of those “every team has a manager, every team has a scrum master” bits going on. I asked multiple times what the difference between the roles were, and couldn’t make sense of any of the answers I got (which were full of consultant-speak). I declined to move forward.

Like anything, I’m sure there are teams out there with this situation that make it work. But it sounds to me like a recipe for confusion, conflict, and atrophy.

It’s ridiculous how flippant and deceptive companies are about signing non-competes. Sometimes they neglect to mention it until you actually show up for work. So there you are, depending on this new job, standing in front of your new boss, compelled to create and maintain a positive relationship, presented with a legal contract that significantly damaged your leverage and alternate prospects.

That might even be criminal.

Often, I hear from some about how non-competes in some states are “non-enforceable”. But even when that’s true it doesn’t inoculate you from serious problems.

A friend signed a non-compete regarding professional services when he want to work (as an independent contractor, mind you) and was sued by the company after he left. He lawyered up and won, but the case took 18 months due to stalling and delays by the company. During that 18 months the judge had granted an injunction preventing him from providing similar services, leaving him effectively unemployed. It did great damage to his savings and the strength of his resume, which now had a significant gap.

As I said, he won! But he was awarded no damages, despite the victory. Seeing this play out convinced me that even you’re in the right, the process can be plenty of punishment on its own.

Unfortunately, I'm guessing we'll find out many vendors prefer to be ignorant (and theoretically powerless) as long as they move units.

I feel like a frog in the boiling pot watching the other frogs try to convince me there’s no danger. I hope you’re correct.