DEV Community

8 things to look for in your next hire instead of 10x engineers

Oinak on August 22, 2019

Some weeks ago there was a thread about the kind of engineersa startup should be going after. The thread both praised and unintentionally stereotyp...
Collapse
 
jacobherrington profile image
Jacob Herrington (he/him)

It's almost like 10x engineers are actually the engineers that empower those around them...

Great list and good advice for hiring managers.

Personally, I think it's important to hire for personality, aptitude, and culture addition -- technologies and methodologies can be taught much more easily.

Collapse
 
devnodachi profile image
Antonio Garcia • Edited

I really like your way of thinking, most of the hiring managers that I encounter want me to build an algorithm that doesn't make any sense, it isn't a way to test if someone is suitable for the job.

As I always say, the attitude and the perseverance is more important than having a Award from being the best in certain technology.

You can learn a new technology everyday, or a new algorithm that the team needs to solve a problem. But if you're actually a lonely soul that loves to work alone, and barely talks with the other members in the team, and doing everything thinking that's the way that things should be done... What's the point of knowing the implementation of the Huffman Algorithm? (for example) It doesn't change anything.

I'm doing my internship, and my tutor literally didn't let me code until the end. I learned a lot of things, that you need to do in order to make your code better. Since you need to analyse, design a lot of things before even touching the code. Until that it's done, it's time to code.

Collapse
 
varley_o profile image
Owen V

Really great set of tips Oinak, thanks for sharing. I think the tips about taking the time to properly invest in your interns and junior Devs is really important. That and hiring people that understand the need to work sensible hours!

I think one of the things I put near the top of my list is people that aren't afraid to admit their mistakes and to share them with the team. It shows great maturity but also humility which I think is really important.

Collapse
 
turnerj profile image
James Turner

Great list! Yeah, that original Twitter thread was a master class of how to be sarcastic in a way that nobody understands or, how I actually see it, just a terrible example of what a great developer should be.

I wrote an article about this myself though I like how your examples are from the perspective of looking for a new hire. In particular, this example:

Hire someone that sees the value of calling a meeting they won't enjoy to make sure they are building the right thing a bit later, instead of the wrong thing right away

I've been in many bad meetings but meetings/discussions/etc aren't inherently bad. Having a stigma that all meetings are bad and avoiding them definitely can trip up a team where real decisions need to be made.

Overall, a great list of things to look for in a new hire!

Collapse
 
lennertvansever profile image
Lennert Van Sever

Knowing what to look for is only a part of the answer, what do you think are the techniques to identify these qualities during the hiring process?

Thanks for the post whatsoever

Collapse
 
oinak profile image
Oinak

For once: is not balancing a binary tree on a whiteboard.

I tend to ask about past experiences and learnings, and pay special attention to how they talk about colleagues, about the parts of the work they like and specially dislike.

I ask 'polemic' technical questions and look for compromise and compassion about other people's choices or constraints in the answers.

I ask devs about (disagreements with) designers, product owners, qa's or bosses and see how do they describe trying to get themselves on others' shoes.

And I ask every candidate what question I am missing because that tells a lot about them and gives me better questions along time.

I hope this helps you or others, also, I am curious abouthow do other people (agreeing with the profile I try to describe) interview for it.

Collapse
 
hassan_schroeder profile image
Hassan Schroeder

I ask what they do to keep current on changes in the tech they're familiar with/using, what they want to learn next, what kind of side projects (if any) they're working on...

Self-motivated continuous learning is essential in this business, and not having good answers to the above is definitely a negative for me.

Collapse
 
napoleon039 profile image
Nihar Raote

This is a great list of the values to look for in an engineer. Along with using this to hire a great developer, this can also be used as a standard for good teammates.

Collapse
 
arthyn profile image
Hunter Miller

This is so important, glad to see more people talking about it 😄

Collapse
 
sarafian profile image
Alex Sarafian

I look for potential which kind of contains most of the above. I like the balance of life bullet though. Very thoughtful.