If they said in the interview they’re very comfortable with Vue.js and Postgres, and then you find out after a few weeks that actually they barely know Vue or Postgres, they actually come from a React/SQLite background, they’ve overpromised.

Rather than ensuring every bullet point on their resume is factual through six interviews I’ve found it’s better to assume they’re honest and as capable as advertised, interview for personality, and then if they’ve oversold themselves that’s why it’s called a 90 probationary period.

I don’t get cranky if someone quits (even with no notice) within 90 days, for any reason. And I’ll let someone go within 90 days, for any (legal, ethical) reason.

> And I’ll let someone go within 90 days, for any (legal, ethical) reason.

I think it's a cultural difference. Many companies see firing as a failure to competently hire. Many employees see firing as a sign of instability. In the few startups I've worked at, I saw top talent leave at the first sign of instability/layoffs.

Find me an engineer who knows both vue.js and Postgres and they’re worth their pound of salt. And, if you’re differentiating against React and SQLite - e.g. they’re not familiar with JSONB style queries or CTEs, but instead have some alternative, par familiarity with another db… and the same level of sophistication with an FE stack - e.g usage of useRef vs forwardRef… and you cut them loose… well, they’ll probably be going on to a better position at another company.

Vue / C# / Postgres / AWS / Linux Sysadminery here.

Glad to see there’s still some love for DB knowledge. Seems like everyday someone is coming to me with an issue that could be quickly solved by leaning on a mature RDBMS, instead of an ORM/NoSQL/flavor of the year tool.

Too bad most roles in this industry (that pay well and don’t work you to premature balding) need niche specialists, instead of deep generalists.

And all the faddery (see: MongoDB, MySQL, DocumentDB). “We don’t need a full-fledged RDBMS. We’ll ride this malnourished pony all the way past the finish line. We gotta stay lean; we gotta stay hungry. There’s no ‘OLTP’ in first to market.”

t. TC 75k 7yoe

Vue / Vuetify / Nuxt dev here, and a pinch of php. I used to work with some Postgres in a previous job.

Personally I don’t understand how people can keep switching between different libraries all the time. I’ve been working Vue for the past year and I still know I don’t know everything.

Glad I’ve gotten hang of typescript though.

Hello, please deliver the salt.

Of course "knows" is not that precise. Postgresql is vast and complex.

I would expect any halfway decent hire with real React and SQLite experience to be able to pick up survival level Vue and PG within those 90 days though? At the end of the day JS is JS and SQL is SQL, particularly if you're a dev and not a DBA. You'd have a problem if they (say) have never touched a database before.

And anyone should be able to learn a new framework/tech stack in a week anyway.

Unless it's asp or laravel. Then it is two weeks in which you have to be constantly drunk.

I agree with the other poster. The possibility of ending up unemployed is a bit stressful here.

What percentage of people get let go within 90 days?

For us, it’s a tiny fraction. I’ve hired around 30 engineers over 5 years and we’ve let go of 2 during probation, both for dramatically overstating their capabilities compared to their actual experience, to such a degree that it was clear it was done intentionally and with no effort to try and bridge the gap with learning during the period. Others who may have slightly embellished their skills but could learn as they went turned out fantastically, and I feel like those sorts of hires would not make it through the multi-round grillings satirised in the article.

I like that approach now more that you said that. It's very true, many will surprise you for various ways, and would never survive the absurd interview gauntlet and tests.

I just present myself as-is, which is probably less impressive, but I don't want to be hired somewhere based on false pretenses. That's just stress I don't need. I'd rather just switch careers and find something else to do before I do that. So I guess I just don't care enough to lie, which is kind of a lack of ambition of sorts. Misrepresentation is probably a better qualification for a sales position though.

I do think with poignant questions during interviews, you can tease out if someone knows what they're talking about. I just had a few interviews at a Fortune 500 and they peppered me with pretty great questions. Simple stuff, but good questions like, "what is a singleton" etc. You need to give a candidate some leeway, it's stressful and I don't sit around thinking about what a singleton is.. but I did have an acceptable answers to questions like that in my mind. "A static class which can only have a single instance". They liked me, but didn't hire me.

It's a tough industry that has brought engineers to their knees. Begging when nothing would work without them. It was supposed to be the next buoy of the American working class but instead the state of affairs is pathetic. That's what we get for disrespecting collective bargaining. At this point, there's definitely easier ways to make a buck than software. I wouldn't do it again but it's all I know.

That number might be low enough that there is no need to emphasize the probation period to candidates.

If 20% of candidates are getting cut after the probation, I’m very hesitant.

Losing 5% quickly is only slightly above normal and may, in fact, be a positive sign of quality control.

The poster is in Australia which has a different set of employment practices than America. Every company in Australia talks about the probation period. During probation it is basically like America at-will employment. After probation it is harder to get rid of staff with legal standards on dismissal periods, redundancy pay, and so on.

They can take you the Fair Work Commission for an unfair dismissal claim so companies have have processes in place to make sure they don't face that risk, which includes things like written warnings for underperformance, setting clear expectations, and giving the employee a chance to correct underperformance.

Managers in Australia much prefer to rid of underperformers during probation.

> The possibility of ending up unemployed is a bit stressful here.

Isn't getting unemployed always a possibility? It seems to me that parent commenter makes things clear and transparent to the candidate. Otherwise, the company could just fire without any such probation period anyways. Why should a company stick with an employee if the employee misrepresented themselves in the first place.

Wow, that is...really sane

I’ll side with you. I lead a big team, but also an employee myself, I find probation period a very uncomfortable concept. There is no promises in interviews. You ask your questions, you get your answers, you make your decisions. If your questions ask for promises to make your decision easier, you are doing it wrong. From my perspective, any hire that ends up with negative probation outcome should be marked against interviewers performance. We are people, working with people with families, obligations, dreams. We have to let that sink in our thinking rather than take cover behind corporate policies, procedures, legislation etc.

I can absolutely see this position, for me it’s more a case of protecting ourselves against the rare but increasing occasions of candidates actually making misleading claims. As I’ve said in a sibling comment, for me I like to be able to take basic skills at face value, and focus on core competencies. If someone can learn the skill during probation, that’s totally fine.

To me it seems simpler to just let someone go if they're not working out after 90 days; no need to tell every new hire that they're "on probation".

In our case, we try and be very upfront about the nature of the process and that it works both ways, i.e. if they find the workplace isn’t for them, then theres no hard feelings either. It’s part of Australian workplace law so whether we mention it or not it is going to apply, so we make sure its not something hidden that might surprise someone.

In our case, we do also explain the types of circumstance in which we might use such a clause, and for us those are very narrow, we don’t hire people just to let them go for nothing 6 months later.

To be fair to the original poster, in Australia, whether you tell every new hire or not, they are still on probation legally in terms of employer obligations, so it is good to tell if you want to establish clarity, and follow appropriate procedures in terms of setting goals and keeping them up to date as end of probation nears to avoid vagueness and stress. Depending on size of hiring organisation, probation is 6 months for big organisations and 12 months for smaller ones.

Yeah clearly there are a ton of Americans responding to that point.

It is funny they don't want to call it "probation" because Australian probation is just every job in America.

Probation is a legal term that has implications like you can let someone go for no reason. Most places don't have zero worker rights like the US does.

Where I live there is almost always 30-180 days probation period and then the contract turns into permanent. Usually not a big deal.

Leaving a fulltime position becomes a gamble.

Usually during this period you can also leave at will. I think it is in law that the contract should be symmetrical for both sides. The system seems to be working ok-ish.

And that is why you actually need a decent reason to leave. Be it money, seemingly better culture or more interesting work.

It's always a gamble to some degree.

Not when you are not working.

Valid question. By that I mean if were looking for someone with experience in X, Y, and Z, we’ve had situations where applicants have done enough research to have a conversation about X but not have any practical or troubleshooting experience with it, which we needed. The probation period means we don’t need to grill someone on every aspect of the role, instead we can focus on the absolute core of what we need and specify the rest in the JD, and if someone claims to know it we can safely take their word with minimal risk of committing ourselves if they can’t then pick it up in a few weeks.

I’ve hired developers who ended up lacking experience in something that they claimed they had experience in, but they hunkered down and quickly learned the technology. That’s fine. honestly, I’d say that if you don’t slightly exaggerate experience in interviews you’re doing them wrong. It’s when someone outright lies and then fails to actually learn what they’ve said they know that’s the problem.

As another datapoint, this is also pretty standard in Japan. However Japan's school-to-salaryman hiring pipeline is built around the idea that you're not changing jobs, and after the 3-month probationary period (though it can vary by company) you basically become unfireable and are expected to be at that company for life.

In the more western culture of recognising that company loyalty is severed both ways, a probationary period makes much less sense.

> In the more western culture of recognising that company loyalty is severed both ways, a probationary period makes much less sense.

American, not Western. Probationary periods are the norm in Western(or developed for that matter) countries, same as worker rights (such as you can't be fired on a whim). Due to said worker protections, a probationary period gives the company some time to realise it made a mistake in hiring, because afterwards it's drastically harder to let someone go. Same goes for the employee, during the probationary period you can leave with little to no notice, but once it's over the mandatory notice is in the multiple weeks to months period (at my last job it was the max for France, 3 months).

For those who CHOOSE to quit in order to find greener pastures, I think it’s fair for a probation period. If they talk the talk, that doesn’t mean they can walk the walk. Our business shouldn’t be punished by someone who is talking out their ass or having an inflated opinion about their ability. We should have the opportunity to verify, over a period of time, they walk the walk.

But is it better than the alternative, that’s the current system of multi-round interview that takes months because companies try to avoid a wrong decision?

If I was unemployed yes but if employed you are taking a big risk.