There is a middle around between seeking camaraderie by total bad-mouthing of the executives and singing praises of the management while wagging your tail vigorously.
From the article:
> When you receive a new headcount, you need to prioritize hiring experienced, self-sufficient, autonomous engineers who can tolerate (even better, strive) in high-stress environments and are experienced enough to contribute immediately.
Yeah, such people would be able to spot and smell "this BS" from a mile and trying to sell it to them by re-packaging won't exactly help raise motivation. I would wager that most of them can probably appreciate the truth behind "this is what we are paid to do so we need to do the best we can for what needs to be done" - they are probably exercising that discipline in their personal lives too.
I think both things are true. If you're on the struggle bus then you should prioritise self-sufficiency in the hiring process (as the post suggests) and be honest about what people are walking into (as you kind of suggest). But I think no amount of honesty will help if you hire someone who needs some amount of hand-holding when your team doesn't have the bandwidth to provide it.
Seems obvious - don't hire people when you can't give them what they need to succeed in-role. But I think the blog author wasn't trying to say much more than that with the sentence you quoted.
From the article:
> When you receive a new headcount, you need to prioritize hiring experienced, self-sufficient, autonomous engineers who can tolerate (even better, strive) in high-stress environments and are experienced enough to contribute immediately.
Yeah, such people would be able to spot and smell "this BS" from a mile and trying to sell it to them by re-packaging won't exactly help raise motivation. I would wager that most of them can probably appreciate the truth behind "this is what we are paid to do so we need to do the best we can for what needs to be done" - they are probably exercising that discipline in their personal lives too.