Hiring is about so much more than ticking off a technical shopping list. Just because a candidate ticks more of the skills boxes than anyone else does not make them the right fit for your team. Hiring the wrong person can destabilise a previously high functioning team Nicola's post excellent illustrates the approach to take
Director of Cloud at Namecheap | 🤓 Author of The Hybrid Hacker (30k+ Subscribers), a newsletter about Engineering, Leadership, Career Growth and Productivity
As a first-time Engineering Manager, one of your primary duties is to hire great people. Especially if you were an outstanding engineer who just transitioned into the manager role, it's easy to focus on seeking technical talents to address the specific challenges of the moment. As your team begins to scale, more technical talents join to solve more problems. But at some point, you realize these talents: - 🤯 Are hard to manage - 🔍 Are specialized in specific areas and either don't know or don't like the rest - 🥊 Are competing with each other - 🤐 Communicate poorly What went wrong? You focused on solving immediate technical problems without thinking about the bigger picture. Been there, done that. When you start building your team, approach it as if you were building a house. The foundations of the team are the most important. To establish strong foundations, you should hire people who: - 🗣️ Have excellent communication skills - 🎯 Are responsible and take ownership of their tasks - 🌱 Can become good mentors for others - 💓 Possess empathy - 🤝 Are team players, not difficult individuals - 📝 Appreciate the importance of documentation (believe me, this is invaluable) - 💡 Have good (excellent isn't necessary) technical knowledge in various areas Once you've hired two or three of these individuals, your team will be future-proof. You can then consider hiring technical talents for specific problems or areas, always keeping an eye on their soft skills. #hiring #management #leadership #talents #softskills --- 🔔 Want to see more posts like that? Follow me here → Nicola Ballotta ♻️ Found it useful? Please repost! 🤓 Consider subscribing The Hybrid Hacker newsletter, you can find the link in my bio.
