Dr. Matt Wood, who joined AWS in Europe in early 2010, pretty much against the opinion of a few people. He had a tremendous career at AWS, starting as a tech evangelist and ending up very high in the rankings.
If you happen to be at re:Invent these days and see him, tell him Simone says hi :)
It seems like the best people that my employers have hired are not just "better" but "different" than most other employees. Unfortunately, the criteria and methods that most firms use are designed to reduce the risk of a bad hire, instead of maximizing the odds of hiring someone amazing.
Software is a creative business, so someone thinking outside of the box can out-gun someone pumping out 10000 lines of code in a week. But companies are testing your ability to pump out nice enough lines of code. What about a coding test where you have to 'delete' the right lines of code. Or a whiteboard exercise where you choose what NOT to work on. Those things are not tested.
I wish I could replicate that hire on demand, but I did the same thing I always do.[0]
Now, he's not the only hire that has truly impressed me, but the company he joined soon came under a hard time. It wasn't under the best leadership[1] and he took the lead in a challenging project freeing me to handle other fires, his communication was so clear and timely I never worried. He managed code review and professional development without nagging, and he was adept at identifying strengths and weaknesses in the team. He was capable of understanding the shortcoming of the executive team, without bringing down the rest of engineering. Oh, and of course the architectural decisions he made and the code he produced was just rock solid.
[0] Ask for code samples, go through them with a fine tooth comb, filter early and aggressively. In the interview focus on technology decisions with questions agreed to beforehand that are tailored to the task and experience. Really try to make the experience relaxing. If in doubt, schedule a second in-person interview with some positive feedback from the first.
[1] I count myself in this as well. I was 27 and too young to be a C-level. I couldn't handle the stress of anxious dev team and an erratic and emotional CEO.
Friend of mine, highschool dropout, still living with his mother, no previous work experience as a dev. Told my boss she should hire him, brought him in one day, told him to just start coding, year later he's doing most the project/release management while still coding tons
Hired a business student to process Comstock satellite feed, asked "Can you program in C++?" "Yes," he lied, "can I come in this weekend to get a head start?"
He learned to program in C++ that weekend and hit the ground running on Monday. Two weeks later he came to me, asked "What is this 'new' and 'delete' stuff about?" I told him, he said "Wow that would be really handy".
Used large declared static array, make his own heap.
He was interviewed on stocks and bonds. Would have been hired probably even if he came clean about programming - we had no expertise in stock feeds and could have paired him with a programmer.
When I was learning, I implemented arrays as a Java class (of course, I didn't know the word "array"). I had an Excel spreadsheet that I used to auto generate code that declared ~100 variables along with getters and setters for them (I clicked and dragged to get it to be the size I needed).
Ok, he actually only needed to know C++ once he was employed. He knew he could do that. So it wasn't a lie, at least not a lie to the question that should have been asked - 'can you program in C++ by Monday?'
You want to hire people for future accomplishments, but you can only evaluate what they have accomplished in the past, so sometimes you need to trust people?
A candidate was called in to an office for an interview. Entering the room where the interview panel was awaiting him, he tripped on the door sill. Recovering and standing up, he said:
Hah, I've actually "learned" C#/.NET/MSSQL over the weekend as well, had to submit a take-home CRUD app project for Monday. I never told them that I was an experienced C#/.NET dev though. Got the job.
our most impressive hire was also our biggest headache.
he was really smart, quick, nice, and had an answer for everything.
unfortunately he also couldn't accept things "just working." everything (in his eyes) had to be built to near perfection, and he would go on and on about how various systems needed to change/be re-written.
after we continually refused (as a group) to adopt his suggestions, he left the job for something else.
This person is someone I would hire over and over again, but they are a private person so I won't out them.
About 5 years ago I saw someone post a project to HN. The project dealt with stock predictions, and wasn't really unique. However it was some of the cleanest hobby code, tests, and documentation I had seen a single person churn out for an experiment. I cold emailed them and brought them in for an interview the next morning. They were very shy and kinda confused why I was interested, but I felt something about this individual that I couldn't explain. Gave them an offer on the spot and they started the following week.
They were the model citizen of work ethic and quality that most of the team took their cue from. Over the years they left the company and I eventually rehired them. I would again in a heartbeat. Personally and professionally they grew so much while I worked with them, with a dedication to goals that I really admire.
I'll never forget that person I took a gamble on and saw a tremendous ROI on everything they touched.
He was recommended to us by an employee. He was capable and looking for a challenge so I delegated some core framework changes to him. Soon he was making changes that he was recommending himself and I began referring to his decisions and simply taking the time to understand his changes so that I could still hold the entire picture in my head.
The reason he was the best hire is because he is a force multiplier. I felt way more productive once he took on the work that I had not be able to entrust to anyone else.
A person who send their resume with no directly relevant experience (being fresh out of school) but listed an array of holiday jobs that got me intrigued.
During the interview, it took me 10 minutes to make the decision to give him a change. He took it and owned it. Worked hard, learned fast and had a great personality making my other coders (8) feel more at ease, motivated, honest and communicative.
Since then, I make sure HR does not hard filter all responses and try to give at least 1 or 2 outliers a change. Results are what you expect :)
One other great hire was a person that came back into the industry (coding) after a 10-year break (children). Over performed like nobody I have ever seen. She is now a C level at a very large international company, x times my senior.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 52.6 ms ] threadIf you happen to be at re:Invent these days and see him, tell him Simone says hi :)
https://github.com/caueguerra
I wish I could replicate that hire on demand, but I did the same thing I always do.[0]
Now, he's not the only hire that has truly impressed me, but the company he joined soon came under a hard time. It wasn't under the best leadership[1] and he took the lead in a challenging project freeing me to handle other fires, his communication was so clear and timely I never worried. He managed code review and professional development without nagging, and he was adept at identifying strengths and weaknesses in the team. He was capable of understanding the shortcoming of the executive team, without bringing down the rest of engineering. Oh, and of course the architectural decisions he made and the code he produced was just rock solid.
[0] Ask for code samples, go through them with a fine tooth comb, filter early and aggressively. In the interview focus on technology decisions with questions agreed to beforehand that are tailored to the task and experience. Really try to make the experience relaxing. If in doubt, schedule a second in-person interview with some positive feedback from the first.
[1] I count myself in this as well. I was 27 and too young to be a C-level. I couldn't handle the stress of anxious dev team and an erratic and emotional CEO.
He learned to program in C++ that weekend and hit the ground running on Monday. Two weeks later he came to me, asked "What is this 'new' and 'delete' stuff about?" I told him, he said "Wow that would be really handy".
Anyway 5 years later he was a Fellow at Adobe.
Edit: also, how did he pass the interview
He was interviewed on stocks and bonds. Would have been hired probably even if he came clean about programming - we had no expertise in stock feeds and could have paired him with a programmer.
A joke like that, read in Reader's Digest:
A candidate was called in to an office for an interview. Entering the room where the interview panel was awaiting him, he tripped on the door sill. Recovering and standing up, he said:
"Well, at least I fell into good company."
He got the job.
he was really smart, quick, nice, and had an answer for everything.
unfortunately he also couldn't accept things "just working." everything (in his eyes) had to be built to near perfection, and he would go on and on about how various systems needed to change/be re-written.
after we continually refused (as a group) to adopt his suggestions, he left the job for something else.
About 5 years ago I saw someone post a project to HN. The project dealt with stock predictions, and wasn't really unique. However it was some of the cleanest hobby code, tests, and documentation I had seen a single person churn out for an experiment. I cold emailed them and brought them in for an interview the next morning. They were very shy and kinda confused why I was interested, but I felt something about this individual that I couldn't explain. Gave them an offer on the spot and they started the following week.
They were the model citizen of work ethic and quality that most of the team took their cue from. Over the years they left the company and I eventually rehired them. I would again in a heartbeat. Personally and professionally they grew so much while I worked with them, with a dedication to goals that I really admire.
I'll never forget that person I took a gamble on and saw a tremendous ROI on everything they touched.
The reason he was the best hire is because he is a force multiplier. I felt way more productive once he took on the work that I had not be able to entrust to anyone else.
I've also been this guy a few times. Haha.
We both ended in much better positions than our peers, looking 5 years back.
During the interview, it took me 10 minutes to make the decision to give him a change. He took it and owned it. Worked hard, learned fast and had a great personality making my other coders (8) feel more at ease, motivated, honest and communicative.
Since then, I make sure HR does not hard filter all responses and try to give at least 1 or 2 outliers a change. Results are what you expect :)
One other great hire was a person that came back into the industry (coding) after a 10-year break (children). Over performed like nobody I have ever seen. She is now a C level at a very large international company, x times my senior.