

Traits Needed In Your First 5 Engineering Startup Hires - eladgil
http://blog.eladgil.com/2010/02/hiring-first-5-engineers-what-sort-of.html

======
j_baker
"Have the candidate come in to work with you for a day. "

I'd only agree to this if I got paid for it. Interviewing is one thing, but
actively contributing to a company's codebase is another. I don't think it's
asking too much to get paid for what I do.

Plus, it would be difficult for me to shake the impression that such a company
is cheap and is trying to get free labor. If they're not going to pay me a
day's pay, how can I trust them to pay me a yearly salary or provide me the
tools I need? How likely are they to be in business a year from now?

~~~
sorbits
_“actively contributing to a company’s codebase”_

You think you will provide value which exceed the knowledge you might gain
from learning about their systems and working/talking with their other
employees, etc.?

It is a great chance to get to work with new people if the domain is exciting.
I would welcome such opportunity w/o demanding money for my “services” which
probably consists of asking _a lot_ of questions :)

~~~
barrkel
Such "opportunities" to donate work for free quickly get old.

~~~
sorbits
If I were seeking a job, the primary motivator would be having
peers/assignments from which I can learn, I will gladly invest a day of my
time to ensure the place I am going to spend the next many months/years of my
life, is actually an interesting place — even if the other party might (also)
get something out of it.

Though if I know in advance that the “trial day” will consist of me _“donating
work for free”_ then I doubt it is a place for me.

This might sound like a cliché, but money is the last thing on my mind when
selecting a job or employee (I am presently an employer), and I am somewhat
surprised by the point assignments given to the parent and grand parent
comments.

~~~
j_baker
"Though if I know in advance that the “trial day” will consist of me “donating
work for free” then I doubt it is a place for me."

It sounds like you and I actually agree for the most part. Both the hirer and
the hiree have the same problem: hiring is almost like extracting War & Peace
from a newspaper. Is it necessarily fair for me to turn somebody down for
wanting me to do a "trial day"? Of course not. But I have to go on what I have
to go on. Just like it's not fair for an employer to hire me using a cover
letter, a resume, and a couple of hour-long interviews.

So if a company asks me to work for free for a day, should I draw the
conclusion that they're really wanting to evaluate me well or that they're
cheapskates who won't pay people for doing work? Just like you'd probably
rather turn away a superstar than hire a dud, I'd rather turn down a kickass
company than work for a crappy one. So I'm probably going to go with the
latter.

Don't get me wrong, money _isn't_ what I'm in this for either. But that
doesn't mean I should let people take advantage of me.

~~~
sorbits
Presumably we have different views of what was originally meant with _“come in
to work with you for a day”_ , seeing as this has now turned into _“work for
free for a day”_ ;)

Of course the intent was not to just get someone in to work for free, but more
like when you take a first meeting with a new accountant or similar, you may
ask him lots of questions related to your situation, and he will answer you
based on his knowledge and experience. Most will not charge for the first
meeting, presumably under the assumption that providing the client with useful
information only increase the chance of having the client pay for future
services.

Similarly if you come work with me for a day, and I am impressed with your
abilities, you can be rather sure I will hire you. If I am not impressed by
your abilities, I am almost certain that you will have learned something from
the experience (either about your own skills or the tech. we work with), so
for the client I would say this is win/win.

------
ChillyWater
Is it just me or does the misuse of the label "Engineer" bother anybody else?

Do people who work in software startups generally take Physics, Chemistry,
Calc 1-4, Diff Eq, Statics, Dynamics and so on while at University?

I was a little squeamish calling myself an engineer since I never took the
certification exam to become a Professional Engineer after graduating with a
BS in Aerospace Engineering...

~~~
mechanical_fish
_Do people who work in software startups generally take Physics, Chemistry,
Calc 1-4, Diff Eq, Statics, Dynamics and so on while at University?_

As a Ph.D. in EE, who did indeed take all of these things before becoming a
software engineer [1], I feel eminently qualified to say:

Engineering is a thing you do. It is not the name of a course, a piece of
paper, or a certification exam. Don't let the maturity and professionalization
of other forms of engineering blind you to the real meaning of the word. I
believe there was a time, in the 18th and 19th centuries, when there were
significant numbers of engineers who were "practical men" and didn't go to
college. They were engineers, and so are we.

An engineer is someone who designs and builds machines that do work. [2] And
software engineers design and build machines -- some of the most complex
machines ever built by conscious mind. We count.

\---

[1] I highly recommend studying all of these things, by the way. They are not
just useful subjects, but very beautiful ones. Don't neglect biology, either.

[2] People who build machines that look pretty are artists. People who
understand _why_ the computing machines work are computer scientists. Nothing
stops one from being all of these things at the same time -- indeed, many
people, including myself, think that it helps a lot -- but neither art nor
science are synonymous with engineering.

~~~
asmithmd1
"Engineering is a thing you do. It is not the name of a course, a piece of
paper, or a certification exam."

Actually it is a piece of paper. In every state in the United States you have
licensed by the state to call yourself and engineer and sell engineering
services. The same as doctors, nurses, lawyers, barbers, and whatever other
professions states deem required to have licenses.

~~~
Daniel_Newby
"In every state in the United States you have licensed by the state to call
yourself and engineer and sell engineering services."

And those laws almost universally ignored.

The trouble is that the laws are so overbearing that they choked off the
supply of new licensees. The first people to get licensed, because that was
the entire industry at the time, were things like boiler and power engineers.
Suppose you were a young engineer and you wanted your PE license to design
metal detectors "properly". You'd have had to specialize in something like
power systems, sign up with whoever had a PE on staff, spend 6-12 months
sizing transformer windings and designing 50 kV relays (because most PEs
worked at places like that). Then you have to jump ship to work with a
different PE, because you need to accumulate an apprenticeship under four PEs
before you can get a license. Only then can you get your license and go back
to school to specialize in what you actually want to do. Finally, in your late
20s, with no job longer than a year, and just starting work on your passion,
you can _try_ to get a job in metal detection.

Most new engineers sensibly decided to just break the law. Even if the
engineering board were certain to catch up with you, it would be easier to
quietly move to another state in the middle of the night and start over. And
the actual odds are more like one in 10,000.

P.S. IIRC Texas scrapped a lot of their silly PE laws.

~~~
assemble
For a PE in KS, you complete an engineering curriculum. Take the FE test. Then
you study under any PE for four years. (Not four different ones for one year,
but I suppose that would work.) Finally, you have to pass another test. It's
not really too much to ask for the guy signing the blueprint that says the
power lines or building being put up won't kill anybody.

~~~
Daniel_Newby
That's a step in the right direction, and many jurisdictions seem to be doing
it lately. However it is still too much. They need more gradations, like how
medicine has a spectrum from phlebotomists (people who draw blood) to board
certified neurosurgeons. As it is, a handyman who uses Ohm's law to choose the
size of a wire has committed illegal engineering.

~~~
assemble
Generally, Electricians can do things similar to that if they follow the local
electric code. I've watched them work--they don't consult the building
drawings or whatever, and they can make some pretty extensive changes.

The PE license gets you the ability to sign off on drawings, so if there isn't
a drawing change involved, there isn't any engineering to sign off on.

~~~
Daniel_Newby
Read the actual laws. They generally require a licensed PE for any task that
(1) requires engineering or technical knowledge to complete correctly, and (2)
has an influence on life, health, or property, no matter how trivial. It's
like requiring personal trainers to be board-certified cardiologists.
Naturally everybody ignores this, and compliance consists of not drawing the
attention of the state engineering board.

Electricians follow a handbook rather than derive results from general
knowledge, so the PE laws don't apply. As long as the electrical code handbook
allows it, they can do it. Possibly at enormous expense, which is why you want
a power engineer to plan your factory wiring.

~~~
assemble
The laws vary from state to state. I'm not going to read them all. Here are
the laws in my state: <http://www.kansas.gov/ksbtp/statutes.html> Specifically
pertaining specifically to who does or doesn't need a license:
<http://www.kansas.gov/ksbtp/74-7035.pdf>

I've always thought a phlebotomist is similar to a licensed electrician.
(Assuming an MD is similar to a PE)

------
trunnell
_Not religious about technology (or anything really). This is useful at any
size company, but at a startup you really don't want to waste time debating
the merits of Python versus Java._

The take-away should be that start-ups prioritize completeness over
correctness. I think everyone agrees with that. Getting a feature out the door
is more important than whether that feature was built in Python or Java.

The question is, how do you get tons of features out the door at a sustainable
rate? I think the answer lies in finding passionate people-- hackers who some
people might call "religious about technology."

The real traits needed in your first hires are all related to aligning
peoples' passions:

1\. Hire people who passionately believe in the product. Make sure they are
well-aligned with the founder's vision. This reduces the chance of needing to
argue about completeness vs correctness.

2\. Hire a group of hackers who share the same vector of programming language
and programming culture. For hacker-entrepreneurs, this is easy: hire hackers
who share your values in technology choices. This reduces the chance of
arguing over the definition of correctness.

------
joelhaus
Good points in the article, but my favorite advice on this topic comes from
here: The Interview Question You Should Always Ask (
[http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2009/01/the_interview_question_you_s...](http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2009/01/the_interview_question_you_sho.html)
).

In short, here's the article's main argument:

 _After you have narrowed the pool of applicants down to those with the
skills, experience, and knowledge to do the job, ask each candidate one
question:

What do you do in your spare time? _

Would this conflict with point #7 (Do "just enough"), or can a passionate
candidate be taught to accept less than perfect results? Regardless, I have
trouble seeing how you can accurately measure a persons ability to accept
"just enough" without input from a trusted third-party.

------
indiejade
I'm going to go out on a limb here and disagree.

What most startups need is not _another_ engineer. What most startups need is
a business person who understands engineering. We can quantify value.

After attending the Hacker Fair 0 (Mtn View) . . . flying out there especially
for it, having my demos ready and talking to way too many "recruiter" types
who understand nothing about code, this really rang true. Technically-oriented
business people are not recruiters any more than engineers are recruiters.
Recruiters are people who read articles like this (parent) and manipulate
people to work, solving a company's problems for free. They're usually the
last ones a company must resort to to find talent.

I've yet to find a company intelligent enough to hire me.

~~~
j_baker
"I've yet to find a company intelligent enough to hire me."

Not to be rude, but do you think this attitude might have something to do with
it? I'm asking this because sometimes us geeks really don't know when we come
off as condescending.

Bear in mind that I say this as someone who has put my foot in my mouth and
said more stupid things than I would admit to publicly.

~~~
krakensden
I don't think he's being particularly condescending. I know I'm not very
bright, but I've walked away from recruiters simply because they were clueless
and condescending.

You can pitch me to work for peanuts, but if you're a slimeball, it's probably
not going to work.

~~~
j_baker
He could be absolutely _right_ , but whether or not he's right, statements
like that are likely to be interpreted as being about attitude than
circumstance.

