
Why you're having trouble hiring developers - remyp
http://jeremyphelps.com/blog/why-youre-having-trouble-hiring-developers.html
======
olfactory
I recently overheard a "startup mentor" telling a CEO that developers are very
smart and sometimes persuasive, but that they don't have a clue what is going
on and need to be told exactly what to do.

She then went on to tell the CEO that she took an intro to javascript class
and she felt that doing that gave her great insight into how long things
reasonably ought to take developers to finish.

It's amazing that this kind of mindset exists today. While it often makes
sense for startups to take on technical debt (as well as management debt and
other practices that don't scale well) the issue is rarely that developers are
clueless, it's that the project cycle does not include a proper accounting of
tech debt and the compounding interest that it generates.

The simple answer is to first establish the minimum guaranteed lifespan of the
business based on funding that is guaranteed, and work backwards to determine
what milestones are necessary to extend that timeline and create a profitable
(or venture backed) business. If the only option is to take on technical debt,
plan for when it will be paid off.

I've seen many cases where an early team rallies to ship a product and takes
on technical debt so that it can be viewed as having shipped successfully,
only to find themselves mired in the debt a few weeks after launch, during
which time they lose a lot of credibility and some may even end up burning out
and quitting the team.

If you are hiring junior engineers, that may mean you are taking on technical
debt... maybe even architecture debt. This may be a smart decision, as long as
you are aware you are doing it and have a plan to pay it back before it
becomes too costly.

~~~
ericmcer
Technical debt is also more costly to pay in terms of morale. Slogging through
painful refactors for weeks on end can pretty quickly make me start to resent
my job and question whether this is a product I want to work on.

~~~
flukus
My morale goes up if I ever get to actually repay some of that debt. More
often than not developers are discouraged from paying it back, having to add
new features or quick hacks instead, making it worse. In my company we can't
spends weeks refactoring because there is no new business functionality to tie
it to and IME that is the norm.

At the moment I'm working on a story that requires a massive refactor of a
core process, I'm loving the process of cleaning up the spaghetti but I'm not
sure if the business will accept the risk of the changes.

------
cgore
_" we expect people to act like an owner"_

This has got to be the most stupid thing I've ever heard in an interview. Okay
then, I'll act like an owner. Make me an owner. Oh, wait, you didn't mean it
like that?

~~~
hkarthik
The sentiment they are trying to get across is that they want someone who
won't let problems lie and who will proactively execute on fixes without
waiting for permission or being assigned the work by a tech lead or manager.

Couple of examples of this:

1\. Speeding up a test suite by identifying the slowest parts and optimizing
it so every developer that runs the test suite benefits.

2\. Making deploys more stable or getting them to zero down time so you're not
forced to deploy during off hours and impact your customers.

Wanting people who will do things like this is often expressed as "ownership",
but I think it's the wrong term. It's more about making the team more
efficient and productive.

~~~
flukus
> The sentiment they are trying to get across is that they want someone who
> won't let problems lie and who will proactively execute on fixes without
> waiting for permission or being assigned the work by a tech lead or manager.

And I assume they schedule time for such activities? Or do they expect you to
do it on your own time? Or do they expect you to do that in addition to what
you're already being paid for? Will they reward you for your effort or will
you just kick off a round of bullshit on why you made an unnecessary and un-
requested for change?

Everyone wants their devs to take ownership, but very few create the right
business structure to make it possible.

~~~
hkarthik
> Everyone wants their devs to take ownership, but very few create the right
> business structure to make it possible.

Totally agree on this point. In most companies, this work is not glorified and
ends up being done on "stolen time" from the employee, or not done at all.
It's a sad state of the industry.

I'd say this is where the more engineering-focused companies tend to excel a
bit more since they are more likely to schedule the time and reward folks for
doing it.

If you're evaluating companies for fit, its a good idea to ask questions
around how this work gets done (asking for specific examples) to see if you
glean if it's valued or not.

------
chrisbennet
Here's another question that bugs me:

 _" Why do you want to work for Acme Corp?"_

Employers need to remind themselves that the interview is a _date_ \- the
company needs to let the candidate know why they might want to work for
("marry") Acme Corp, not the other way around. What would you think if you
were on a real date and the other person said:

"Why do you want to marry me?"

~~~
mason55
I think it's valid question, the issue is just in the presentation.

If you ask it with the attitude of trying to find people who are 1000% in love
with the concept of working at your very specific company then I think you're
deluding yourself. Unless you're a world-famous company or your company has a
very niche mission, it's unlikely that the applicant cares about working for
you specifically.

If, however, you ask it in the context of "why are you looking to leave your
current job and why does this one interest you" then there's a lot of room to
figure out where the applicant's expectations don't align with reality.

I work for a small enterprise SaaS company in NYC. We get a lot of people
interviewing who are coming from a long career working in banks. I always ask
why they want to go from working in a bank to working at a company like ours.
Sometimes it turns out that they won't get what they're looking for if they
come work with us and that's a discussion worth having.

It's all about managing expectations

~~~
rafiki6
So why isn't the question phrased "What are your expectations of how we work
here?" or something along those lines? If the goal of the question is to
address the motivations of the person applying for the job to determine if
there's any mismatch with the companies mission than "why do you want to work
here" is absolutely the wrong test.

~~~
dozzie
>> "why are you looking to leave your current job and why does this one
interest you"

> So why isn't the question phrased "What are your expectations of how we work
> here?"

Because it's not the same question at all. I don't know what to expect from
your work practices yet, but (a) you work at a big scale and I'm interested in
that, or (b) you use Erlang/Ada and I'd like to use that professionally, or
(c) you make CNC machines and I'd like to move to writing industrial hard-
realtime code, or a number of similar reasons before you even know what the
company looks like from the inside.

------
PaulKeeble
I see these every single day in my inbox, the amount of bad indicators in job
specs is impressive, I nope out within the first few lines on 95% of the
specs. At least they are being upfront about the mess they are in and it is
going to be a bad place to work. The alternative is nothing other than a very
basic technical list and those are worse as they give me no reason to enquire
either, hiding the bad is even worse. One yesterday contained so many little
nope moments in it:

"Christmas contract"

"a few outstanding issues that need ironing out"

"Critical Path web app"

"system is reflective of an Excel spreadsheet"

"two junior and one senior developer"

"senior developer is cutting down his working days"

"mentoring element"

"based in the office to help out the junior developers"

"3 years + experience"

"Experience mentoring"

"for 3 months"

"terrible pay"

"interviews immediately on Skype"

"start immediately"

~~~
arwhatever
Once saw a humorous tweet asking, "Are you compatible with our ongoing bad
decision making, and can you save us?" but can't find it right now.

------
jakebasile
Missing is "your torturous interview process that consists of a worthless
online test, a 10 hour homework assignment, and a grueling whole day interview
with whiteboard trivia unrelated to your day to day work has a high rate of
false negatives".

~~~
FLUX-YOU
Yep.

In particular, stay away from anyone funded by Vista Equity Partners because
they enforce IQ tests during hiring for all of their companies. That's
overlaid on top of a whiteboard assessment.

~~~
jakebasile
Wait, aren't IQ tests during hiring illegal in the US?

~~~
dragonwriter
> Wait, aren't IQ tests during hiring illegal in the US?

No. _Any_ filter in hiring that adversely impacts a protected class and is not
closely adapted to the work being done is illegal as a violation of the law
prohibiting discrimination against the protected class.

The case in which this legal principle was established involved an IQ test
being adopted as a direct replacement for an overt policy of racial
discrimination, but IQ tests _as such_ are not illegal (indeed, a much more
recent case has upheld a police department using such a test and treating a
too-high score as a _negative_ factor in hiring.)

Of course, the pervasive mythology that IQ tests are prohibited itself makes
them riskier, because an applicant who is turned down is likely to have
encountered the myth or talk to someone who has, and seek legal help to
challenge an IQ test, where they would be less likely to do so for other
tests.

------
FollowSteph3
It should really be re-phrased why you’re having trouble hiring developers at
the rates you want because if for example you paid double market rates you
would most likely be rejecting a lot of good developers. Money isn’t the only
thing but it’s definitey a very big issue.

~~~
matwood
Exactly. Every single problem can be worked around with more money. Market
rates are simply tables stakes to hire, and how much I require goes up from
there.

Obligatory reference:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XGAmPRxV48](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XGAmPRxV48)

------
rafiki6
Compensation simply and purely. I'm taking a risk coming to join your start-up
that has a high likelihood of failure. Pay me as such. You as the founder
likely aren't taking as much of a risk as me an employee would be, especially
if you didn't put your own money and are mostly operating on other's money.
Not only do I lose the opportunity cost of a big-co with a safe job and stable
hours, but I also have almost no control of decisions or outcome despite how
much you the owner want me to feel like an "owner". Don't delude yourself into
thinking your special and deserve more compensation than any of your early
employees. A lot start-ups seem to forget this and tend to offer senior
skilled people paltry "stock options" that are points of a percentage.

------
PretzelFisch
Also deciding to pass on someone because they don't fit your mythical 10x
unicorn developer vision

------
_e
Is $30k salary + 30% equity considered good compensation for a recent college
grad?

~~~
remyp
At 30% equity I'm guessing they're very early on and expect you to build the
whole thing. Probably not a good role for a junior unless you really know what
you're doing.

Feel free to send me an email if you need career advice.

------
Y7ZCQtNo39
Compensation seems to be surprisingly missing from this list. If I work at a
FANG company, and you're just getting started, chances are you won't be able
to compete nearly as well as compensation. That's not to say that compensation
is the only thing people work for -- though it is a large part -- but you must
offer something especially unique to set yourself apart.

~~~
solipsism
The very first section is _Let 's (briefly) talk about pay_.

~~~
Y7ZCQtNo39
It wasn't a part of the numbered list of things. The author didn't even treat
it as a first-class thing to be talking about when considering "trouble hiring
developers".

~~~
jabzd
It was a preface to that list, as in "if you don't solve this one, don't
bother reading the rest of the list." That makes it the most important
thing...that's how I read it anyways.

~~~
mcondit
Yes, I believe that is definitely what the author was going for. If you don't
pay market rate for development, you're 9 out of 10 times going to regret it.

