Stop trying to promote my best engineers
15 days ago
- #engineering-careers
- #hiring-process
- #peter-principle
- The hiring process often fails to identify the best engineers, and even when they are found, career progression moves them away from their strengths.
- Current interview processes are limited and can be gamed, making it difficult to accurately assess a candidate's true abilities.
- AI-powered hiring tools do not solve the fundamental issue of matching interview performance with actual job performance.
- Promoting engineers based on their current performance often leads to the Peter Principle, where they are elevated to their level of incompetence.
- The traditional career ladder assumes that technical experts should move into management, which may not align with their strengths or desires.
- Horizontal growth should be normalized, allowing engineers to deepen their expertise and take on more complex challenges without leaving their core roles.
- Compensation structures should reward top-tier individual contributors as much as managers to avoid punishing expertise.
- Instead of promoting great engineers out of their roles, companies should focus on helping them excel further in their current positions.