Re:Ask HN: Best business advice for software developers
by jjeaff on Wednesday April 26, 2017 @04:04PM
(#14206468)
I'm sure he's right when you are building a one percenter company. But my team will likely never grow to a size that it will ever take on a life of its own outside my control. 5 engineers tops when we hit market saturation. Each new hire I make is more skilled than the last because I can pay more as time goes on.
I just don't think research done from the perspective of the biggest tech company in the world has any relevance on 99.9% of small tech startups.
Having done some recruiting at a startup last year, even getting the top 50% to reply to an email is a tough proposition. The problem really stems from brand awareness. No one has heard of your startup, so in a sea of "help wanted" postings on Angelist, Stack Overflow or Craigslist or cold emails, it's extremely easy to be ignored.
Using novel technology and getting the word out (as Twitter and Jet.com did), can at least get technical awareness within a motivated subset of engineers who are interested in said new stuff -- and of all skill levels.
That said, Peter Norvig made a pretty good refutation of your core point[1]. Say your initial site was successfully launched by average engineers. If you're not always trying to hire better than the average employee at your company, your team just gets worse over time.
[1] - https://research.googleblog.com/2006/03/hiring-lake-wobegon-...
[edit] -- btw, using the new-shiny stuff is not all-or-none. You can still use tried and true tech along the way.