What are some of your experiences with turning people down after having them on the team for a while (even if it is a short time, you can quickly develop rapport)?
Thank you for the link to "myth of years of expeiance"
I was just yesterday on an interview where i was literally pounded down by the VP R&D for not having enough experience… And here I am just wanting to prove him how much I can give him back for providing a chance…
I do belive someone will see beyond the screen of experience and will provide me with a chance, the question how much time will it take (-;…
How do you handle payroll issues with people in different states and countries? I hear this is one of the issues that can become super complicated with taxes, etc.
Not really,
You work as a freelancer / independent contractor and the company pays you your salary, you pay the taxs in your country.
The hassle is on you, for most parts
That was what I was getting at, are all of these people actually employees or contractors? If they are all contractors I think it negates much of the article as contractors can be replaced much easier than an employee.
I’m happy with them to “hire the best” as long as they are willing to “pay the best.” As a programmer, salary is what I’m more interested in.
At one company I worked for, the CEO actually said in a company meeting, “we are not trying to hire the best, we are looking for programmers around the 50th percentile.” His implication was that he didn’t want to pay too much. Some of the programmers felt really insulted by that.
I get a chuckle out of someone claiming “20 years of experience”, but when you dig deeper, it turns out they have 1 year of experience 20 times over. I bump into this from time to time, people who have been doing essentially the exact same job, with the same tools and skills, for a long time. They haven’t learned anything new, they’ve found a groove (or a rut) and just can’t get out of it.
One approach is to have your new “hire” form their own corporation (trivial to do in most Canadian provinces at least), and then you contract their services through their corporation. Now the problem of taxes and such is on them, not on you as an employer (you’re just using the services of another corporation).
It depends on a number of factors. Employees are usually governed by a combination of employment law and “industry practice”, as well as any personal services contracts they have with the company. In some countries, firing an employee can be incredibly onerous, if not impossible. In others (where they may be “at will” employees), termination can simply be giving them pay in lieu of notice and walking them to the door. A contractor is covered exclusively by their contract, and how hard or easy it is to get rid of them depends on the terms of the contract.
I love the first graph. It shows how versatile the “best”-word can be in such a context:
If you have the best programmers in the world but they failed to help you identify when/where to pivot, you fail.
If you have the best programmers in the world but let them run too fast and burn, you fail.
If you have the best programmers in the world but let their ego/drive ignore customer feedback, you fail.
…
There is no definition for “the best” beside a “well balanced human being”…
I have been researching this exact space for the past few months www.developersjourney.info and am now more and more convinced that once you reach a technical-threshold, in order to close onto “better-developers”, you need to hunt for the 3-C-values: create, care and criticize. A balanced team should be a patchwork of cultures, backgrounds, desires and skills. But I think the drive toward those 3-Cs isn’t optional…