This strikes a chord because I struggle with social anxiety...I wouldn't want to go out for a beer with any coworker, only with friends I've vetted over months/years. I hope I am in any other way capable of being a good engineer. Should I not be hired because of it?
I think "wanting to go for a beer" is a pretty bad metric for many reasons, not the least of which is that I don't like drinking beer. A better metric might be: "If I need help would I regret asking this person?" or "If I had a disagreement would it be an overall positive experience?" I have worked with people who excel technically but that skill is largely offset by the negative effect they have on social interactions.
I don't think it's a bad metric (it really isn't a metric at all) but it's a bad example. It doesn't have anything to do with going out or drinking beer. I think there's a negative connotation because people interpret it as, "Less talented developers who can schmooze and socialize will get ahead". I don't think that's what this means at all. It's that writing software is a team sport and thinking that you can go it alone and that interacting with teammates isn't important is a flag right there. Your skills generally only effect yourself. If you're on a team of 10 your own personal skills are only 1/10 of the contribution. Worst case is you aren't that good but the damage is limited to 1/10th. If you've got problems interacting with people you can take out the entire team. Am I going to come in on Monday and have 5 developers at my door telling me about all the crap you pulled? Larry says you told him that you're just being honest but his code sucks. Susan says you revered her code and then made a monster commit touching nearly everything without telling anyone. Apparently you spent the entire weekend reworking the entire build system to some new system because according to you it's way better than what we are using and now no one can get any work done until they figure out what you've done nor did you get permission to even make the changes. Then to top it off insulted the entire team by implying they were too stupid to see how awesome what you have done is and they should be thanking you.
How are you going to fix this? If you were a weak developer there are things you can do to about that. Fixing a persons inability to get along with others is more difficult. So now they're in the position of firing you. You'd have to be really bad not to make it an unpleasant business and afterward it's going to take weeks to shake off the bad feelings.
As a hiring manager I'm never going be given a hard time for passing on what might have been a good candidate but I'm definitely going to hear it about hiring someone who makes their lives miserable on a daily basis.
See the problem now? That isn't a description of you but they don't know that but they've probably had experiences like that so they're simply playing the numbers at risk mitigation and when you give them reason to think that might be the way things are going to go they pass.
Thanks for writing this! We're all so different, socially, stage in life (kids for instance), ways of working, etc. not to mention thinking of how this applies to hiring women. "What? You don't want to grab a drink with me?" Lost for words.
Well, ignore the last bit then, but I hope you don't ignore the first part, I'm genuinely curious if you didn't like my suggestion and would use that beer thing to dismiss me as another "who doesn't get it".
If I had a physical discomfort and asked online for ideas what it could be, and someone said e.g. "it could be that you're lacking magnesium, you should confirm that with a professional.", I would do so. I already asked for advice, to dismiss people giving them would be, well what's the point of me asking?
It's a rule of thumb, not an absolute. This part I'm not being sarcastic abour: sorry if your social anxiety problems also include not being able to get nuance.
Oh well, boo hoo. This feels like one of those woke "Be careful what you say" speech police bullshit. Look at me, I called you "woke", I think I'm plenty left and progressive, but the whole speech policing that seems like done a lot by the left makes me roll my eyes at vast swathes of them.
On a less emotional side, dude used the term "social anxiety", he doesn't seem like he's lacking the cultural know-how. Don't be so condescending towards people... or to put it in your terms, did you ever consider not to be so condescending in your opinions of other people?
