
How Braintree Interviews Exceptional Developers - thehammer
http://www.braintreepayments.com/devblog/how-braintree-interviews-exceptional-developers
======
dangrossman
Will an exceptional developer really go through a phone interview, several
hours of unpaid coding, a code review, another hour long phone interview,
another interview where they must prove "strong opinions about software
practices", an interrogatory lunch, an afternoon solving made up logic
puzzles, then a pair coding session?

That sounds like torture to me. Don't exceptional developers' portfolios and
resumes say enough that they don't need to suffer through all that to get a
great job? Are the exceptional developers really the ones applying for your
job in the first place?

This isn't the worst interview process I've ever read about. I've heard of
developers applying to jobs at Microsoft getting 3, 4, 5 levels of interviews
before finally getting a job. But most of the developers I met at Microsoft
were competent, not exceptional. Exceptional developers didn't need to waste
their time with that kind of process and they know it and they moved much more
fluidly between jobs.

~~~
brass_cannon
I'm not a developer, so I can't confidently comment on the value of specific
code evaluation techniques. In other disciplines however, it can often be
fairly easy to sort out the talented folks from the merely competent through a
brief screening and interview. The trouble with such a shortened interview
process is it's inability to determine if this person will be a good fit with
the company's culture and team. Similarly, it can be difficult for a
prospective employee to make an informed decision as to whether or not he will
actually enjoy working at that company.

You can make a very good case that these types of extensive, saturating
interview processes do more to determine one's overall fit with the company
than their role specific abilities. You could also argue that this is just as
important an indicator of one's success with a company as their role specific
abilities, assuming some sort of baseline level of competency.

~~~
bmj
One thing indicator I like use for "cultural fit" (as we don't have a lengthy
interview process for our team) is how much the interviewee asks about our
team. Are there any questions? A few generic questions? Or some deeper,
probing questions about expectations, design decisions, framework decisions,
and general culture? If I'm considering a new position, I want to know as much
about my potential employer as they want to know about me.

------
DanielRibeiro
Zach Holman, from Github[1], had an interesting insight[2] into coding
problems and interviews:

 _I think programming riddles, games, and brain teasers are a great way to
hire. First one to say "fuck this" and walk out gets the job._

[1] <http://zachholman.com/posts/scaling-github-employees/>

[2] <https://twitter.com/#!/holman/status/154986236640112641>

------
kstenerud
What I'm seeing here is overengineering of the interview process.

There are three things you want to figure out:

1\. Are they able to do the work, and if so, can they do it well?

2\. Are they a cultural fit with your company?

3\. Do their goals align well enough with yours? (do they have a genuine
interest in the space you're in, are they just using you as a stepping stone,
etc).

Points 2 and 3 can be discerned by the phone interview, the in-person
interview, and the lunch.

Point 1 can be discerned by looking at and talking about a non-trivial open
source project that the candidate has built. Basically, you want to dig into
architectural or technical difficulties they faced (you always have these in
non-trivial projects), and how they surmounted them. The finished product is
more than enough to gauge competence and discover excellence. It's only if
they DON'T have anything big they can show you that you need to resort to
coding assignments.

Logic problems and brain teasers are a relic of a (thankfully) bygone era of
bad hiring practices. There's no evidence to support the theory that people
who do well at brain teasers do well at architecting and building
applications. All you end up doing is potentially pissing off the candidate.

In the end, you need to understand that it's a two-way street. An exceptional
candidate is likely to have many offers to choose from. Waste their time, and
they'll go with someone else, leaving you with two kinds of people: Those who
have a keen enough interest to suffer through your interview process, and
those who are desperate enough to suffer through your interview process.

------
sjtgraham
Off-topic but if there is anyone from Braintree reading this, I'm interested
to know how you feel about Stripe and FeeFighters Samurai entering the market
at a more competitive price point with lower barriers to entry (i.e. fill in a
form and go vs. laborious and involved merchant application process) given
that your pricing has remained resolutely more expensive.

~~~
dan_manges
We’re not surprised to see other companies entering the payments market. There
are two primary service providers that a tech start-up needs: a hosting
provider and a payments provider. There have been good hosting options for a
while, but as Braintree identified a few years ago, the choices for payments
were not that great.

On the price points, it will depend on your volumes for which pricing is more
competitive. Here’s some insight into the approach that we took with our
pricing as we bootstrapped Braintree:

[http://www.braintreepayments.com/inside-
braintree/reaching-y...](http://www.braintreepayments.com/inside-
braintree/reaching-your-target-market-through-pricing-constraints-and-self-
selection)

[http://www.braintreepayments.com/inside-braintree/three-
less...](http://www.braintreepayments.com/inside-braintree/three-lessons-on-
acquiring-customers-in-a-complex-industry-with-complicated-pricing)

Regarding the customer signup process, we think there is value in getting to
know our clients and their business when they sign up with Braintree. It helps
to make sure we can deliver the rave-worthy support our customers have come to
expect. As with everything we do at Braintree, nothing is ever good enough for
us and we’re constantly striving to make things better for our customers.

