About engineers hiring

[mmarkgilbert142]

Hi all! If I want to get fast results on the project, what would be more efficient: getting only senior engineers, or considering those who are less senior but result-focused? Why?

[pritaeas]

Result focused short term, might give you issues long term. What is your primary goal?

[rproffitt]

This needs a longer discussion but in my circles if you don't know AI/ML tools like Tabnine and ChatGPT to give you an edge, you won't get the job.

[Dani]

What do you mean if you don’t know ChatGPT you won’t get the job? Its first demo wasn’t released until a few months ago and its API didn’t launch until yesterday. Other than reading news articles about it and playing around with a demo, a developer hasn’t been able to use it until yesterday afternoon. Also, that has absolutely nothing to do with their question.

To answer the question, I guess I would want to know how complex the project is and what the project’s budget is like.

For example, you can hire 50 realllllllllly super, super passionate and motivated people, but if they are all novices trying to accomplish something that requires an expert-level understanding of how to do something, they will be wasting a lot of time spinning their tires trying to learn.

On the other hand, one expert might not be particularly excited about the project, but it’s something he can do in his sleep, and it will take him no time at all.

I think it’s important for there to be a healthy mix of being knowledgeable and skilled enough to know how to do what you’re being hired to do, or at least know how to access and utilize the resources to figure it out rather quickly, but also being at least somewhat motivated and excited about the project.

So my answer to your question is that it really depends and comes down to the complexity of your project. You don’t have to hire an expert with 20 years of web development experience to update your store’s hours in Google Business, for example.

But you do want to make sure that whomever you hire has the skillset required to at least learn how to do what needs to be done without you spending months for them to learn before they can start doing anything. Not already knowing how to use a particular API or library or tool is fine, because as rproffitt quasi-pointed out, new tools and technologies are coming out every day, but and as long as they have the know-how to know how to utilize documentation, then I think you’re good. Now would I hire someone with 30 years of only C++ experience to write an app in C#.net. Absolutely not.

[rproffitt]

Yes, Dani. Knowing the current landscape of AI/ML is going to affect hiring decisions of the companies I know.

We would pass up a 30 year C++ or C# programmer that won't accept that AI/ML is where it is today? Yes. They are a dinosaur.

[Dani]

Again, that has nothing to do with their question. They are hiring an engineering team and asking if it would be more efficient to hire a senior-level engineer who is not as motivated, or a junior-level engineer who is more motivated and driven, and why or why not? The skillset they are hiring for is irrelevant to the question, although, as you can see above, I did ask what their budget is like and the complexity of the project.

[rproffitt]

AI/ML awareness and more would not be left to chance if they were hiring. I continue to get the feeling some wish AI/ML hadn't happened.

To wit, a recent project came in 10 times under budget. How? You might not like the answer.

[Dani]

So you think they should just not hire any experienced engineers, not hire any novice engineers, and just hire an AI chat bot?

[rproffitt]

Dani, I didn't go that far.

[Dani]

Well, talking about utilizing chatbots is all you said towards answering their question asking whether to hire experienced engineers vs novice engineers, so I presumed you were arguing for not hiring any engineers at all.

[jwenting]

Ideally you want a mix of experience and new blood. And why do you think experienced people can't be motivated or interested in new things?

What's more important in a team than anything else though is that the people can work together well. If you have 10 unicorns, each the top expert in their field, but they aren't talking and in fact actively sabotaging each others' efforts because they disagree on things and can't compromise that's worse than having no people at all. Something that happens with juniors as well in my experience, in fact even more so as they tend to be laser focused on religiously following the mantra drilled into them in their training, with no interest of capability to look beyond that way of working. A good senior can help guide those youngsters and teach them how things work in the real world.

[compshooter]

I think rproffitt is ChatGPT is disguise.