The Art of Interviewing 10x Engineers [Podcast]
A Conversation with Dan Portillo and Wade Chambers
Following their podcast on managing technical teams, Greylock Talent Partner Dan Portillo and Twitter Head of Revenue Engineering Wade Chambers pair up for another podcast on recruiting and interviewing engineers. Wade outlines the processes he’s developed through years of management and building out teams at Yahoo, Proofpoint, TellApart and now Twitter.
Wade’s method of recruiting and interviewing breaks away from focusing on technical competency. Optimizing for a multi-dimensional approach, he asks questions that help him evaluate candidates on a more personal level, trying to get a sense of the candidate’s growth areas, level of curiosity, and applied intelligence. He feels that technical understanding is important, but not always the best indicator of how well a candidate is going to perform and grow in the organization.
Below are a few key learnings from Wade’s process of interviewing and building teams. The podcast is now available on iTunes, SoundCloud, Pocket Casts, and Stitcher.
Interviewing: Going wide, deep, and topgrading
“First and foremost, you’re an advocate for the company; but second you need to be an advocate for the potential employee. Help them understand where their fit is going to be or whether the fit is going to be there or not. You need an interview process that helps facilitate that understanding.”
Wade’s team implements a three-step interview process that evaluates how well a candidate will fit into the company. In the first stage, they go “wide,” meaning their goal is to test the candidate’s breadth of knowledge. They provide a coding challenge or review to see what the candidate pulls apart and how they approach a broad problem. “You get to evaluate at what level they critique” says Wade. “Are they talking about syntax or are they finding bugs? At what level does their thinking stop?”
In the second round, they go “deep” in a more challenging coding session involving real-life projects from the organization. These are typically multi-layered engineering problems, and Wade wants to see how in depth the candidate goes to optimize for the best solution. He asks lots of questions at this stage to dig into the candidate’s thought process and decision making.
In the last round, Wade uses a technique called “topgrading” to determine the candidate’s behavioral patterns. “Why do they choose their roles? What are they looking for? What is the pattern of their work experience and is it aligned with what they’re saying?” The goal is to assess the candidate’s self-awareness while trying to understand their strengths and helping them better understand the company and the role being offered.
Referencing
“The point is make sure that you understand from somebody else’s point of view how to set somebody up for a success — What are their strengths? What are their growth areas? What were patterns of what this person has overachieved in the past? What was the environment like? What can I do to help set that up here as well?”
Reference checks are a significant aspect of topgrading. Wade feels strongly that hiring managers, rather than recruiters, should spend time on reference checks. He personally spends about an hour on each call, covering topics like how well the candidate takes feedback, if the candidate is open to taking on new challenges, and if any mentoring or coaching is needed. He aims for an open conversation to uncover past contributions the candidate was responsible for and how their skills will translate to the needs of his team. Wade also determines what kind of environment has shaped the candidate’s successful work in the past to see if he can create a similar environment in the new role.
The Culture Fit Crutch
“For cultural fit, I look for people who have similar values as the organization. They value learning. They value growing. They value the struggle. They value the lessons learned that come from that. They value being able to lift where they stand and drive things forward.”
Dan argues that organizations use the term “culture fit” in a vague way, without first defining what their company culture really is. Wade unwraps how he defines good culture fit, and says it’s not about finding the “perfect” person. “It takes a variety of people to come together to create a high performance team.” Wade searches for candidates that align best with company values and have inherent drive to learn and grow. He looks for people that value struggle and challenge, and who are always seeking ways to help the team and company.
