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Ask HN: What attracts you to an engineering role?

3 points by danpalmer ↗ HN
We're in the process of iterating our engineering jobs pages, the way we describe our roles, and the way we describe the company as a whole, and we want to make sure it appeals to the right people.

- When reading about a potential software engineering role and company, what attracts you and makes you more likely to apply?

- What concerns do you have about companies you haven't heard of before that might prevent you from applying?

- What else might persuade to apply (or dissuade you from it)? Description of the interview process? Detail on the company culture and values?

14 comments

[ 4.8 ms ] story [ 42.9 ms ] thread
PaulHoule
The #1 problem is bullshit.

People that go through a huge amount of effort to "hire the best" and then they buy either a bright and shiny mac laptop or a cheap and cruddy dell laptop, and then they blame you for complaining that the build takes 50 minutes, etc...

You can't be a "10x" developer if there is ANY bullshit in the job.

random778
Can't support this enough. Management bullshit. Appoint an engineer who has developed some empathy and START TRUSTING HIM. If you're not an engineer you will very like fuck this up. Getting someone to give you the right words for recruitment doesn't translate into understanding what drives an engineer.
danpalmer
I am an engineer, but I realise that what matters to me will be different to what matters to many others. The point about empathy is an interesting one though - might try and highlight the empathy we have in the company, thanks.
danpalmer
Good point.

We would like to think we hire good people, give them the tools they want, and then empower them to make changes. If you're complaining that the build takes 5 minutes, the general response would be "then make it faster". Is this a good approach? How do you think we can get that across effectively?

I agree that bullshit slows people down. What would show you that a company has less bullshit than others?

PaulHoule
It sounds simple, but note that I said "50 minutes", not 5, which is a big difference. Specifically, in a 1.5 week sprint cycle involving about 40 maven modules with complex inter-dependencies, a 380-step procedure to deploy into production and that is fragile enough that simply getting it to work at 95% reliability in 50 minutes was a huge advancement over the state when I showed up.

(The previous developers "looked" productive because they could work on things a module at a time, but they went in a circle for two years because they were incapable of delivering a fully integrate working system)

In this particular case the company was using an "agile" process except this what not bought into by many of the key people, including the superstar developer, lead manager, product manager, etc. It did mean however, that if I wanted to speed up the build, I would have conversations about "How does this benefit the customer?" which would degenerate into "does the customer want to get this product at all?" It would mean not doing anything else for a sprint cycle, for one thing.

Now that particular case required an organization to gain some size and lumber along for a long time to build up a huge code base, but bullshit happens in small organizations too.

danpalmer
Yeah, that situation sounds pretty bad. Thankfully I think we're a long way from that, and I'm sure that will come across in our hiring process.
TaiFood
As an orphan from the semiconductor industry, proficient with hardware, assembly, firmware, and light software coding I think prospective employers neglect seemingly non-qualified engineers that might answer phones or work in receiving while updating specific skills that engineering needs but is disconnected with HR who filters prospects with a laser focus to ensure immediate productivity.

We need to recycle great engineers who are unable to predict the exact programming skills that would lead to NEAR term employment.

How can we address the lack of a domestic engineering ecosystem?

kafkaesq
Instant turnoffs:

- Boasts of "epic" nerf gun (and/or laser tag) battles, foosball tables, office kegs, or other non- or anti-perks;

- Group selfies of your whole team wearing brightly colored T-shirts and forced smiles at some company outing. What is this, day camp?

- Mandatory linked-in profiles and / mug shots on the company website. Where did this trend come from? What happened to privacy?

- Tightly-packed open plan offices

- "unlimited vacation"

danpalmer
Can I ask your opinion on these in a bit more detail?

- non-perks: we mention that we hang out on Friday evenings and sometimes have a drink, and we celebrate when we do important things, is this too much? Are there better ways of writing that?

- Interesting point, I see what you mean, and we do have a team photo (no matching t-shirts). Will think about this.

- Profiles: We want to link for those who want it, which currently happens to be the whole team - how do you suggest we convey that those are optional?

- Office: This is a tricky one, the open-plan office is currently under discussion among the team, although we aren't that tightly packed.

- Unlimited vacation: I think we might just not mention this one. We do have unlimited vacation, but the founders set a very good example, and it's used much more as a 'flexible' vacation policy. I think we can explain how it gets used, but maybe not on first read of a hiring page. What do you think?

kafkaesq
Perks: the point I was trying to make is many ostensible culture perks that startups like to run up their flag poles tehse days have a decidedly "bro"-ish bent (that, and that effusive mentions of alcohol consumption at the work place aren't necessarily taken as positive signs... even by those, like myself, who do like to drink). But the wording you've chosen is far more restrained, and I see no problem with it.

Profiles: a little phrase to the effect of "These are just the team members that like having their profiles posted posted on the company's website. If you join us, having your profile listed here is strictly optional" would do quite nicely. I'd be delighted if more companies would include a similar disclaimer -- otherwise, one really has to wonder about risking a butting of heads (or worse) by objecting to such a form of public disclosure.

Vacation -- "We offer competitive salaries, comprehensive benefits and a flexible vacation policy." None of these requires further explanation on the website itself (provided they are meant as they sound), but it's good to have detailed responses ready when people ask.

I actually specifically look for the phrase "flexible vacation policy" because I like to ask for exactly that (i.e. some possibility of negotiating for more than the woefully default offered in the U.S.), again without raising eyebrows or arising suspicions of being under-committed or work-shy (when in reality, it means exactly the opposite).

random778
I don't see how the discussion around an open plan office is tricky. Simply googling it will give you droves of articles like this one

http://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/why-your-company-will-bene...

as well as research such as this review of research on the topic:

http://www.lapa.co.nz/assets/NewsAttachments/openplanoffices...

danpalmer
I've read a lot of these things, and while I recognise there is some research in favour of private offices, I also think it's currently very 'trendy' to say that open spaces are bad, and I think a lot of the discussion is very developer-focused. Most of the people in our office are non-developers, and while the developers like quiet, our creative teams get far more enjoyment (and seemingly productivity) as a result of being able to talk and bounce ideas off each other much more.
random778
Do you have experienced engineers/developers who can mentor junior employees?
danpalmer
That would be a really good selling point, thanks for mentioning it, but we're not looking for really junior developers at the moment. That said, we would be a good place for mentoring on launching a startup, so we might mention that.