Hot answers tagged hiring
43
Do you need more programmers or do you need a marketing person?
I think you might want to evaluate your priorities. If you are the brains behind the software, perhaps what you need is to target a marketing person(s) who can help you with your product.
Have you considered affiliate networks that sell your software for you? What going to a college and ...
40
First of all, you won't be able to distinguish a great programmer from a good programmer or a good programmer from a lousy programmer until it's too late.
Second, building a dev team (and especially a remote team) won't free up your time unless one of them takes on the lead dev role. Increasing the team size increases all sorts of communication and ...
36
Focus on Results/Value Instead of Hours
Instead of focusing on the hours worked, I would strongly suggest judging the employee on the value that he is delivering. Since you're happy with his work, you can have a relatively positive discussion with him about how you would like him to take on more work/responsibility and make a bigger impact within the ...
35
I have worked with 18-year olds with maturity level of a 50-year old and with 50-year olds with maturity of a teen. Age is nothing but a number. We hire people for what they can do and their attitude. Have worked in and know plenty of startups where median age hovers in upper 30s. Having nice cross-section of ages, background, ethnicities, etc. makes ...
33
Good answers all around, but I feel one aspect deserves more attention:
Get it under your skin that employee != founder.
Founders have a rich set of emotions to draw strength from, they are energized by their own vision of the company's future, and by their social standing as entrepreneurs in society.
Founders share richly in the future profits of the ...
32
This is coming from a programmer.
Usually great programmers won't work for you unless you're pretty great yourself. And you won't know what "great" is until you're at least good enough to know that most of what you've been writing is total shit - until you've seen the difference between good code and great code.
Beyond that, great programmers, a lot of ...
23
"I have 500 paying customers and 7000 free users grossing about $7k a month and growing fast."
The very first thing to do is prioritize your work. Paying customers get priority technical support. Free customers get limited or no technical support.
"I'm tied down at least for several hours a day to handle daily maintenance and answering technical ...
21
Over the last decade or so, I've either had direct or indirect experience with:
A really fantastic web team from Lahore, Pakistan
A team from India that delivered such bad software, so late, the principal canceled the contract
A team from Beijing, China that was well-liked and respected by people at the principal
A team from a different part of China whose ...
17
Let me offer my feedback after having been on both sides of similar exchanges.
As a Developer
I'm sorry, your idea probably sucks. Looking at statistics, the vast majority of start-ups fail, and yours is likely to as well. If I'm going to join, it's going to take a lot more than some equity to donate a large portion of my time.
It really takes a ...
16
I've always viewed it as a positive when interviewing people that have created startups themselves (irrespective of whether they're still running or not). It shows an entrepreneurial spirit which should be valuable to most companies. If they don't value it, you probably won't like working there...
13
Last time I worked on a project that used an outside design agency, the results were quite good. The one-time costs were high, but not out of line with a fully-loaded employee. To this day (about 4 years later) the site continues to grow using the same basic design.
Some tips:
If I needed design help on a low-budget project, I'd probably outsource to a ...
12
In my experience, the people who are "genetically flawed" to want the startup lifestyle are the same people who don't need fancy office space or big salaries. They fundamentally understand the startup model and all that goes with it - late nights, hard work, low pay, office space in the back of a coffee shop, etc.
In all honesty, these are the people you ...
12
Putting myself in a potential employer's shoes, I would definitely be impressed when hiring by someone who's shown the initiative to start a small business. I'd think that you would be a very valuable addition if I could capture dedication, but it might be harder to do that than for other potential hires. However, if I have confidence in my job being ...
12
I made a living a few years ago by fixing websites that offshore developers have created.
I'm not saying that offshore developers are bad developers. Communication and the difference in mentality creates a huge chasm between US and abroad.
You can outsource website design, graphics etc but for serious programming I would suggest to look for a good ...
12
I prefer the 'star team' model to the 'team of stars' model. People that are 'Great Programmers' can be hard to find and keep, and may not be that great for your product. Hiring (and keeping) some reliable people you can coach in your style/product/market might be easier. And although employees bring more work and other issues, you can grow your business or ...
12
Personally, I think that seems like a trivial reason to exclude somebody if they are qualified. Your primary objective should be to find the person who will do the best job, not has the best followup (unless the job is following up I guess. :)
I think there are other things that can influence this too?
How did you conclude the interview? Did you give ...
11
This forum is a little biased on this one; we all (me included) value entrepreneurial spirit -- creating something, trying something, initiative, etc..
So I'd say it depends on the employer. If this is a company that makes you sign documents that says everything you think or say forever is owned by them (whether legally enforceable or not, it belies the ...
11
I LOVE this subject. I am an operation guy, so human capital issues are on top of my mind every day.
Here is what I have learned in 15+ years in startups:
It all starts with culture. Go past the culture of tchotchke "benefits" like in office Guitar Hero setups, foosball tables, and other stuff that makes your culture fit for only one very narrow ...
11
Maybe. There are both state and federal employment laws to consider.
The federal laws are pretty clear. Title VII calls for a "bona fide occupational qualification", and what you've described is not one. If it were, anyone could skirt the law by saying something like, my target demographic is executives, and no executive takes a woman seriously. The good ...
11
Your team is small enough that you can arrange a meet & greet with both candidates, then ask your team afterwards who they'd prefer and why. Just a couple of beers after work would be fine. Nothing formal.
I've done this before, as part of my recruiting role for clients, and it generally works out well. Pay for it yourself if you don't have the budget.
11
I work at The Motley Fool, so I can share what I've seen with you.
The concept of 'unlimited vacation' by itself does not attract Talented employees. Talented employees are attracted to other talented employees. So how do you attract talent? Here at The Motley Fool, we do the following:
Have a 'food fridge', where food is brought in twice weekly. ...
10
Is it legal where you are to ask for so many hours? If you are in the USA you could get into lots of trouble, since it has been determined time and time again that programmers are not exempt employees (they are not management, basically, and so the employer cannot pay them only their fixed salary without overtime) and so they are due overtime if they work ...
10
I agree with much of the above, especially the need to manage the work being done and the responsibility handled, rather than hours.
Also, consider these issues:
Sitting at your desk does not equate to working.
Some of the best problem solving and thinking happens when you are away from work.
Seek engagement and results.
The best people solve problems ...
10
You're 47, not 97. If the project is something you like,and the people are people you'd enjoy working with -- why the heck not?
if you have to make a decision whether you should leave a steady workplace for the risk of a startup, then you need to carefully weigh the pros and cons. Otherwise, just go for it.
9
While I agree with Joel on giving employees the best you can, you don't need private offices, free lunch, etc. to attract great talent. Some people, no matter what you offer them, will never take a job at your start-up. They need managers, water coolers, big tall buildings, office gossip, etc.
But there are a lot of folks -- younger developers, people ...
9
I just had to drop a note here to say that you should consider yourself lucky that you've found an employee that values health and balance in life and at that produces good results!
I would say that there is a significant performance drop when you start working that many hours regularly. Add to that the cost when health is giving in.
Find a balance!
9
Check out Outsourcing vs Offshoring and make sure to read the comments though many of them focus on offshoring rather than hiring employees within the US.
I've done both successfully. It's a complicated topic, but here are the key points.
Pros
You can hire people for a lot less than in the major hubs like Silicon Valley or New York city.
There are ...
9
Willingness to do things they've never done (new technologies, random job responsibilities). Someone who regularly programs in their spare time with new technologies is good.
Ability to pick up new skills quickly (similar to above)
Gets things done ('big ideas' people are good, but you really need people who will execute at a startup). Look for someone who ...
9
Great question! When I owned my own business, I struggled for years trying to figure out the best person to hire and fire.
From my experience, over the long haul, it doesn't matter how smart someone is or how much work they get done if they aren't a team player. If they aren't all about the team and doing their best to be on the winning team and making ...
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