{"id":7823,"date":"2015-08-24T17:33:41","date_gmt":"2015-08-25T00:33:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/intercom.com\/blog\/?p=7823"},"modified":"2021-06-25T14:41:08","modified_gmt":"2021-06-25T13:41:08","slug":"how-we-hire-engineers-culture-contribution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/how-we-hire-engineers-culture-contribution\/","title":{"rendered":"How we hire engineers: Culture contribution"},"content":{"rendered":"

How do we know someone will have a positive impact after we hire them? We don\u2019t, but we try hard to figure it out in advance.<\/p>\n

A candidate can excel at every technical question we ask them but still not be the right person for our team. They may be overly focused on a single technology and unable, or worse, unwilling to learn another technology better suited to the problem.<\/p>\n

They may not take critical feedback. We believe everyone can improve, so a growth mindset<\/a> is essential. We can\u2019t hire someone who doesn\u2019t learn from their mistakes and won\u2019t consider discussing them.<\/p>\n

\u201cCulture Fit\u201d<\/h2>\n

Many companies try to interview for \u201cculture fit\u201d and the term has earned a justifiably poor reputation. Without proper thought, training and careful execution it can easily become \u201cHow similar is this person to me?\u201d<\/p>\n

Only hiring people similar to your current team won\u2019t improve how you work and will limit your company\u2019s capability. You\u2019ll have cultural blindspots nobody is aware of. You may find yourself biased in unexpected ways: \u201cThis candidate probably wouldn\u2019t enjoy working with a younger team anyway\u201d; \u201cThis job is too demanding for someone like this\u201d; or \u201cWe move too fast to sugarcoat feedback, I don\u2019t think they\u2019re emotionally strong enough to work with us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hearing anything like these from your team is a clear, unambiguous sign your process is broken. Your culture may not be so healthy either. Facebook\u2019s excellent Managing Unconscious Bias<\/a> is required reading\/watching, and not just for the people involved in hiring.<\/p>\n

Culture contribution<\/h2>\n

If we truly believe in a growth mindset then we expect there are always ways to improve how we work<\/a>. Each week teams reflect on their own process, discuss what\u2019s working well, what isn\u2019t and what they\u2019ll do to fix it. Something similar happens at every level of our company.<\/p>\n

We want to hire people who can contribute to that discussion. Occasional frustration is a healthy part of any satisfying job. You\u2019re moving fast in unexplored territory, there will be upsets, setbacks and mistakes. The right people will respond positively in these situations. Identifying the problem and correcting it, learning from the mistake and making sure nobody else has to learn it the hard way.<\/p>\n

A diverse team with different ways of thinking and a wide range of experience to draw from gives us more options when we need a solution. Instead of limiting who we hire based on how close they fit what we already do, we try to hire people who will make positive changes to how we work.<\/p>\n

How we work<\/h2>\n

At Intercom, we follow a set of five engineering principles<\/a> in everything we do. They help keep our teams on the same page, and to communicate the practises we value to potential candidates. They describe how we behave when we excel as engineers. Here are our five engineering principles.<\/p>\n

\"Intercom's<\/p>\n

Shape the solution<\/h3>\n

We never blindly execute on requirements defined by others. We deeply understand the value of our work, and help design solutions which efficiently deliver that value.<\/p>\n

Be technically conservative<\/h3>\n

We like familiar solutions with boring technologies. We reuse the same patterns in different solutions as much as possible.<\/p>\n

Build in small steps<\/h3>\n

Large changes are hard to understand, and harder to debug. We deliver complex changes in a series of small, controlled, easy to understand steps.<\/p>\n

Keep it simple<\/h3>\n

Complexity is the enemy of our ability to move quickly. We will trade off performance, financial cost, and perfect abstraction in order to keep a solution simple.<\/p>\n

Work with positivity, pride, and love<\/h3>\n

Software engineering isn\u2019t just about the cold logic of computers. It is an inherently collaborative discipline where great things are only built by high functioning groups of humans<\/p>\n

How we interview<\/h2>\n

In all interviews you should tell candidates exactly what you\u2019re looking for. This isn\u2019t a quiz show. Candidates shouldn\u2019t need to guess at what\u2019s important. It\u2019s a poor interview if you\u2019re left wondering \u201cdid they understand my question or just not have a good answer?\u201d Explaining your values gives a candidate more information about your culture too. It\u2019s an acceptable outcome for them to say \u201cYou value that? I\u2019m out of here!\u201d<\/p>\n

We work to minimise bias by very deliberately deciding what is important, being clear on what isn\u2019t and investing time training our interviewers to conduct a good, fair interview. Our approach is to ask for precise examples from their experience to help us understand how they\u2019ll behave if they join us. Getting to the real details is important.<\/p>\n

At Intercom we\u2019ve put a lot of thought into what\u2019s important about our culture and what makes us different. It\u2019s important that thinking is reflected in our hiring process.<\/p>\n

One of our strongest values is every day counts<\/b>. Our careers are short. Our competitors are constantly improving. The market continues to expect more. We hire smart people and remove obstacles in their path, so we won\u2019t hire people who introduce their own obstacles. \u201cI knew the code was broken, but it wasn\u2019t my job to fix it\u201d (substitute design, process or any other aspect of your work for \u201ccode\u201d). Sure, there are times when it\u2019s a perfectly acceptable answer so that\u2019s why details matter. If they didn\u2019t jump in and fix it themselves did they tell someone it was broken? Did they suggest a way to fix it? What did they do to make sure it didn\u2019t break again?<\/p>\n

We explain a particular value, why we think it\u2019s important, give an example of what we mean and then ask the candidate to talk about a similar situation from their own experience. We ask questions until we fully understand the detail of the situation<\/i>, their behavior<\/i> and the impact<\/i> of their behavior (abbreviated to SBI<\/i> \u2013 this is a common approach to giving constructive feedback).<\/p>\n

\n

Situation<\/b>
\nWhy was this a problem?
\nWho else was involved?
\nHow long from start to finish?<\/p>\n

Behaviour<\/b>
\nWhat did the candidate do?
\nWhat were the options available to them?
\nWhy did they choose a particular option?<\/p>\n

Impact<\/b>
\nDid their approach work? Was it successful?
\nWhy was it successful?
\nWas there a significant improvement or change? How did they measure it?
\nWhat would they do differently?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

An interviewer won\u2019t ask all these questions directly, but should know enough detail to answer them. We might take 15 minutes to talk through a single example, covering about three values in total during this 45 minute interview.<\/p>\n

How we evaluate<\/h2>\n

We evaluate a candidate\u2019s answers by understanding the context of their role. What\u2019s their job? What does going above and beyond mean for that role? What kind of environment do they work in?<\/p>\n

For example, you see code committed without review. Escalating to your manager might be a good approach if you\u2019re a junior engineer, particularly at a conservative or strictly hierarchical company like a bank. It\u2019s not so good if you\u2019re the CTO of a 15 person startup.<\/p>\n

Poor candidates will assign blame, sometimes indirectly. Early on in my career I caused a bug, miscommunicated the fix to a QA department and caused an entire batch of CDs to be junked (back when software came on physical media). If you\u2019d asked me what my biggest professional mistake was in the following three years I would have told you all about it. While I\u2019d have said it was my bug, I\u2019d probably have also said something weasel-like about how I should have made sure the QA team double-checked my work.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a bad sign when someone doesn\u2019t know the impact of their action. \u201cI think we have less customer reported bugs since I changed how that component works\u201d is a weak answer. The numbers should be there in your bug tracker. A slightly better version would be \u201cOur customer support team told me it seems like we have less bugs reported\u201d.<\/p>\n

What we\u2019re really hoping for is \u201cThere was a 43% drop in the number of reported bugs within a week, churn has reduced by 10% one month since we made the change though it\u2019s hard to be sure of the exact causes. Though in our cancellation survey there\u2019s been a significant drop in complaints about reliability.\u201d This answer demonstrates a good grasp of the impact of the engineering time spent. It shows a wide product and problem understanding, not limited to the technical aspects.<\/p>\n

Excellent candidates will have a comprehensive list when you ask them \u201cWhat would you do differently?\u201d They\u2019ll have self-awareness and understand where the weaknesses are, what they\u2019ve done to improve since. They may have implemented processes, written documentation or taken similar steps to make sure others don\u2019t have to learn these lessons for themselves.<\/p>\n

Where this doesn\u2019t work<\/h2>\n

Less experienced candidates, like graduates or people held back by biases at former employers, will have fewer compelling examples to draw on. Sometimes we fall back to hypothetical situations, \u201cWhat would you do if\u2026?\u201d<\/p>\n

These can offer some helpful information but won\u2019t give you the full picture. For example, a candidate described the importance of automated monitoring and alarming on services, then talked about a site they were responsible for. \u00a0There was a significant outage and it was only discovered when customers began complaining. When I asked what monitoring and alarming was in place now, the candidate hadn\u2019t taken a single action. Their answer was close to \u201ccustomer support have my direct number if the site fails again.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s worth having alternative paths when it\u2019s too early in someone\u2019s career to get a good picture of how they behave. Strong internship programmes, with development, coaching and honest feedback can be a good alternative.<\/p>\n

Tips<\/h2>\n

As with all interviews it\u2019s important to be clear with candidates, let them know what to expect and what type of answers you\u2019re looking for.<\/p>\n

Our culture contribution session will start with something like:<\/p>\n

\n

I\u2019m not going to ask you any technical questions, what is important is figuring out what kind of contributions you\u2019d make to how we work and how we make decisions. I\u2019ll make sure to keep some time at the end for you to ask me any questions you have.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d like to talk to you about some of the projects you\u2019ve worked on and some of the situations you\u2019ve been in. Specific examples help me to better understand.<\/p>\n

For example, we think it\u2019s pretty important everyone contributes to the product, we wouldn\u2019t like to work with someone who says \u201cI won\u2019t fix that, that\u2019s not my job.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

It\u2019s important you have the right mindset too.<\/strong> Over the last six years I\u2019ve interviewed more than 400 people. My goal is always the same \u2014 I want to hire this person. I need to collect evidence to make my case, in a similar way I would make the case to my team to refactor a complicated component. If I can\u2019t find the evidence then I can\u2019t support hiring this person.<\/p>\n

Start with broad, open questions. <\/strong>Don\u2019t limit where a candidate can draw their experience from. \u201cWhat\u2019s your proudest professional achievement?\u201d and the converse, \u201cWhat\u2019s your biggest professional mistake?\u201d allow a wide range of answers. \u201cTell me what could have gone better with the scaling project you\u2019ve listed on your resum\u00e9?\u201d, is unnecessarily restrictive.<\/p>\n

Always set the context for your question.<\/strong> \u201cWhat\u2019s your biggest mistake?\u201d can be needlessly accusatory, it may leave a candidate feeling defensive and they may hold interesting answers back. I start by describing a recent mistake I\u2019ve made (I never have to go back far) and what I\u2019ve learned from it. I explain why we believe mistakes are inevitable but learning from them is valuable, then ask for their own example.<\/p>\n

Clarify \u201cwe\u201d statements. <\/strong>Sometimes people say \u201cwe\u201d because they were part of a larger group and had limited involvement. Some people will say \u201cwe\u201d even when they were the only person involved. Make sure you know who was relevant to a particular example.<\/p>\n

Almost every interviewer we\u2019ve trained will go through a phase of rapidly running through every entry in our question bank. Slow down, take your time, 10 to 15 minutes per example is average. It\u2019s perfectly fine to say \u201cI\u2019m going to take a minute to figure out if there\u2019re any other questions I\u2019d like to ask you about this.\u201d Your candidate will appreciate a moment’s break and it\u2019s much better than thinking of the perfect follow-up question ten minutes after the interview.<\/p>\n

\n

Think you\u2019d like to contribute to our culture? We\u2019re hiring.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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