What to look for when hiring

Being effective means so much more than being skilled at a job

A while ago, I found myself in the enviable position of having to rapidly grow my team. By then, I had done a large number of technical interviews, so I had an idea of what to look for in strong candidates for Software Engineering positions. However, I felt like I lacked a framework for understanding how likely a given candidate was to succeed if they had joined my team, beyond a very loose definition of “culture fit”.

As I was trying to better understand what I was looking for, I started to think about what I value in the people I work with and to reflect on traits I found to be quite common among some of the most successful people I have worked with over the course of my career.

While I would not expect every person I work with to exhibit all the qualities I list here, I am always positively impressed when I come across someone who exhibits more than a few and equally concerned when I see no hint of any of these characteristics.

Over time, I became quite sensitive to some hints that suggest someone could possess one of the these traits and I learned to probe further whenever I see them.

Here a list of the most important characteristics I learned to value in anyone I work with, regardless of job function.

Read more (8 min read)

Let me know what you think!