Hire for Engineers not for Frameworks

I have been faced with hiring great engineering teams on a number of occasions, I am constantly amazed at home many hiring managers and recruiters seem to focus on particular technologies and experience in those technologies.

My experience has taught me to hire engineers and I have always viewed the technology as a secondary consideration. I always focuses on a grasp of engineering fundamentals and not on information about some current or past technology. In our current world these technologies are out of date by the time the ink on the contract is dry.

Recently, I was approached by a leading company for a very senior role. The in-house recruiter laid on his wonderful resume with world leading software companies before affording me the chance to explain my career-to-date. He then proceeded to ask me a number of questions on specific Java libraries and how they were used. This is all information that is readily available on reference sites and in API documentation and does not  highlight any engineering ability whatsoever.

Unfortunately, this practice is common place. Hiring tests are geared to determining how good someone is with a particular language or technology and not how good they are at thinking or learning a new framework or technology.

I have never hired teams this way. The best engineering or software teams are made up of good solid engineers, who can solve problems and can adapt to a very fast paced and moving technological landscape. 

Comments

  1. KiranJune 28, 2018 at 2:31 PM

    Well said. Perfect thoughts..I have also faced similar situations for senior tech roles. A good engineer in any tech can adapt to any new tech stack / framework.

    ReplyDelete

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