What I've seen in tech is the idea that literally any number of false negatives is worth avoiding a single bad hire. It's fine to claim that trade-off is worth it to you, but it's ludicrous to simultaneously claim there's a shortage of talent. That's just a shortage of risk-free opportunity. Hey, I suffer from a shortage of risk-free opportunities too.

In this age of ghosting people, it seems like everybody is just eyeing everyone else for a reason to stop talking to them or pull the trigger on the block button. We used to be socially-integrated enough to put up with people's foibles and correct them until we are all within a liveable range. Now you cannot confront or give feedback without it blowing up into hyperbole.

I have been openly asked about my politics at an interview for a Y Combinator startup (Starsky Robotics). "We need to make sure you are not a horrible person." One of my references later told me that the co-founder was on the phone almost 20 minutes asking probing questions about me. No offer, no feedback. Who stands a chance with that level of scrutiny?

This hasn’t happened to me yet, but now it has a place in my thoughts, whereas 10 years ago I had no inkling of the possibility whatsoever.

That would be an actionable question, no?

I would rather spend time succeeding on my own merits.

Well considering y combinator is not empty every year, there must be people who have a chance with that level of scrutiny.

And we have a word for those people: milquetoast. I'm not sure people would hire me after asking about my politics for 20 minutes. What, you're gonna employ someone after getting an earful about Marx and Bookchin?

Is it possible the political questions are really a test to see if you have the good sense to avoid bringing controversial politics to work? Maybe they were looking for something along the lines of "Political opinions will differ. I'm more interested in being part of a productive team than having my politics validated."

People are so complicated that most "tests" like this, to see how somebody responds, strike me as useless. You are not in a controlled environment, and pretending you are is foolish. You might get a reaction and presume to know the cause, but it's hard to be sure. Maybe somebody reacts badly to a strong signal that the interviewer doesn't know how to be appropriate and professoonal in an interview.

Strongly agree with your statement, but I still think it is understandable for interviewers to want to know how their interviewee will react in situations that can easily lead to big conflicts. If you reflexively act in a way that escalates in stressful situations, that's useful information in a hiring decision.

I hope people can understand the difference between getting a feel for someone's temperament, vs. getting a feel for their political opinions. I highly doubt that the situation in question was the former and not the latter.

Crucial difference. Only meant to suggest that there is some possibility that the question was probing at temperament. Asking about politics might be used as a method of checking how easy it is to anger someone, since it is a topic that causes many to control of their emotions.

It doesn't really matter. It's very inappropriate. What you're describing is sometimes called a "shit test". A disingenuous request intended to draw out a response to be judged. This has no place in an interview.

I have the good sense to avoid working with people who are playing mind games with me.

I've found that wherever you go there will be people you need to work with that don't live up to your own expectations and it's tempting to dehumanize them as stupid.

However since this is the case everywhere I think it's better to think about ways to mitigate this problem than try to solve it via some sort of gatekeeping. Even Google with their rigorous process has this problem.

Personally I think the inability to fire-fast because of lack of a social safety net is a core part of the problem.

Yeah and it's a stupid idea. The problem is that the startup "idea" is probably not good enough. A company succeeds despite itself as there is no such thing as perfect execution. With a 1 year cliff you have plenty of time to figure out if someone isn't "bringing value".

I always hear people claiming tech is full of over-inflated salaries, then look at jobs in my area and see that people want a web-dev with 3-5 years of experience in specific frameworks and offer to pay about $82k/year.

Yeah ok guys, that's pretty inflated, innit /s?

I have in the UK seen a job add in an agency for an experienced php developer at £27k next to it was for a senior "ground worker" for > £35k.

A ground worker is the PC term what's known in civil engineering as a "navvy"

Oh and the ground worker would get OT

You're going to have to translate what a navvy or ground worker is for us yanks.

It's guy who digs a hole in the ground for civil engineering projects.

The median personal income in the US is $31-35k. The median household income was $59k last year.

What exactly are the requirements for a "web developer" with 3-5 years experience? More or less than a registered nurse with 3-5 years experience (~$60k)?

Except nursing is experiencing a major shortage too - https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/02/nursing-s... So if anything, the low wages for nurses just just further supports the parent comment -- wages are too low.

If you want to fill a shortage, you need to start by raising wages substantially. If for no other reason than to at least allow new students some hope of ever repaying the always-increasing college costs required to enter these fields.

Look, I'm not evaluating their virtue as human beings or their contributions to society. I'm saying that in a functioning market economy, prices/wages reflect an informed estimate of the balance between supply and demand. If you're telling people stories of a shortage and sky-high prices, then offering to buy for well below "sky-high", well, you're lying to someone, and let's just hope it's yourself.

RNs make 100k easy in any mid city market.

I saw an ad here a few days ago on HN for a "Lead ML Researcher" for $85-100k + 0.5-2%.

Exactly the point. And then people complain about labour shortages in ML.

Often skills that could be learned in a week by an experienced practitioner, but we refuse to let you learn them on the job! Even if you'll be at the job for years. Rather wait a year instead for a unicorn to show.

This is pretty much why I won't give anywhere near 100% at a company that treats me or my co-workers like that.

>> current market rate

Many of the new positions being created in startups have no defined market rate, which causes more malinvestment (overpaying workers who don't produce well enough) or shortage of labor due to insufficient perceived compensation.

Businesses will almost always err on the side of shortage of labor and keeping costs down when they can (though you could argue otherwise in the current ridiculous VC-backed industry), so this will always be a "problem" in the market.