At one place, I gave the strongest possible recommendation of a hiring candidate, even though they barely had the senior-level track record on paper that we wanted, because (in addition to signs that they already grokked real-world team software engineering like a smart senior) it seemed clear they cared about the craft, were already skilled and wise about it, and would keep learning.
I advocated for the candidate, and also gave HR a heads-up that, if the other interviewers didn't agree to leveling the candidate at senior, we needed some promotion path with clear criteria that we could communicate, to distinguish us from the candidate's current company.
(Unfortunately, I was splitting that job req. with another team, who had some work before the hire would move fully to my team. The other team lead gave the candidate a CS-student Leetcode gatekeeping, which the candidate didn't do well at. These "coding" interviews need to end before they started, IMHO. It blocks some of the best people, and reinforces the counterproductive thinking among new grads that team software engineering is anything like school homework assignments or interview performance art.)
I've gotten a few candidates hired based on similar principles, and it has turned out well each time, though my sample size is not large. How has it worked for you?
My data points mostly aren't from people I've hired, but from many people I've worked with or known from techie communities. So there's some survivor bias there.
Like much of the my engineering culture philosophy, it's based on things I've seen work and not work. There's no grand unified theory of everything, and we usually don't know exactly to which factors to attribute success or failure.
I also try not to be simple-minded judgemental, especially when it comes to excluding people. For example, someone experienced might have less conspicuous excitement, but still pride themselves on rock-solid effective execution, and we can also see that working out very well. Or someone might be coming from a ruthless stack-ranking deathmatch company, but that doesn't mean they can't think like a highly-effective collective if they're shown what that's like.
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At one place, I gave the strongest possible recommendation of a hiring candidate, even though they barely had the senior-level track record on paper that we wanted, because (in addition to signs that they already grokked real-world team software engineering like a smart senior) it seemed clear they cared about the craft, were already skilled and wise about it, and would keep learning.
I advocated for the candidate, and also gave HR a heads-up that, if the other interviewers didn't agree to leveling the candidate at senior, we needed some promotion path with clear criteria that we could communicate, to distinguish us from the candidate's current company.
(Unfortunately, I was splitting that job req. with another team, who had some work before the hire would move fully to my team. The other team lead gave the candidate a CS-student Leetcode gatekeeping, which the candidate didn't do well at. These "coding" interviews need to end before they started, IMHO. It blocks some of the best people, and reinforces the counterproductive thinking among new grads that team software engineering is anything like school homework assignments or interview performance art.)
I've gotten a few candidates hired based on similar principles, and it has turned out well each time, though my sample size is not large. How has it worked for you?
My data points mostly aren't from people I've hired, but from many people I've worked with or known from techie communities. So there's some survivor bias there.
Like much of the my engineering culture philosophy, it's based on things I've seen work and not work. There's no grand unified theory of everything, and we usually don't know exactly to which factors to attribute success or failure.
I also try not to be simple-minded judgemental, especially when it comes to excluding people. For example, someone experienced might have less conspicuous excitement, but still pride themselves on rock-solid effective execution, and we can also see that working out very well. Or someone might be coming from a ruthless stack-ranking deathmatch company, but that doesn't mean they can't think like a highly-effective collective if they're shown what that's like.
Where do I find interviewers like you?
I often wonder the same thing, when on the other side of the table. :)