How Do You Hire When You Aren't Even The Expert?

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Hey folks, we're going to talk about a couple Reddit posts and um they're both around hiring. They're both kind of uh different angles, different examples, but I figured I could maybe talk about these things together. So, one of the posts is around um and this person was getting completely hammered in their comments, but uh someone's a CTO at a company and they said they have six engineers under them and they're basically trying to hire their first engineering manager. Um and for this post, everyone's like, "What do you mean? Like, what do you need an engineering manager for? You know, you got six employees. Like, don't be stupid. Like, just manage them." Um but like it's we don't have enough context, right?

like if they if they are growing and this person's like I need to get ahead of that growth and they want to bring in an EM then like so be it right like um I'm going to come back to this and discuss it a little bit though but there there are challenges like how do I how do I hire a good EM right and the other post is man I got to pass this guy on this bike come on I hate this Uh, one sec. I just want to get this part over with. Okay, so the other post is around I didn't even read the post. I just read the title. Someone's asking, "How do you hire or interview for a role that you don't have experience in?" And I thought this was kind of interesting because when I read this post and I was thinking about the first or sorry I read this title I was thinking about the first post.

Um to me how I would probably look at interviewing for these positions is is similar, right? Like I'd go through a similar type of thought process. So, in one case, you have a person that's trying to hire for an engineering manager, and they're like, I don't really know what I'm supposed to be doing here, but this is the role I need uh to fulfill. And the other person's like, I don't know, like I don't have this set of skills, but we need this thing, and I don't know how to interview for it. And for both of these scenarios, um, my recommendation would be to take a big pause and step back and think about like what you're actually trying to accomplish because I I kind of feel like the answer is inside of that.

So, for example, in the first case, the person saying, "How do I hire an engineering manager?" It's like well to I think I I feel like to get better answers around that or to find some first steps in accomplishing that like what problem are you trying to solve? You're telling us that here's a solution. How do I implement it? But what problem is it that you're trying to solve in the first place? And the same thing with this other question around you know we need we apparently need this role and like I don't have the set of skills to interview for it. Okay, but like step back. What is it that you're trying to accomplish? Because the the goal, I would imagine, is not we just need someone with a title and we can check a box. It's like it sounds like you're clearly after getting some type of talent, some type of experience, whatever it is, but like what is that and why?

Okay. So in both of these scenarios, even though they are completely different scenarios, I feel like how I would approach making progress on this is actually the same in both. And it's to step back and kind of answer this question of what am I trying to solve here? And I figured we could walk through both of these. Obviously, I don't have the details of these situations, so this would just be highle how I would think about it. And that's of course going to mean generalizations and assumptions and stuff like that. So if you're new to the channel, uh my goal is never to to tell you a perspective of mine or an opinion of mine and then uh try to convince you that this is the right way. I just try to share different perspectives. Obviously there will be a bias to my, you know, to my own experience and my own perspective.

And as much as possible, I do try to call that out and um try to see if we can look at things a different way too. at the end of this and my other videos, I just hope there's something helpful that you can take away that maybe is a different way to look at things um or shared experience. Okay, so if you think about the first one, um a lot of the comments to this person were things like, you know, it's silly there's only six people reporting to you. Okay. Uh I think I think that's an interesting point. Okay. So there's there's that aspect. You had some people that were trying to be helpful in terms of how to like structure interviews, what you're looking for, that kind of thing. You had some people that were saying like based on what you're describing, it sounds like you just need a project manager.

Um, some of the additional context in the question was like, um, I have a candidate internally that I think would be a great fit and I would love to promote internally, but they're remote and it would never be allowed. So, they're like, that means I think that I have to hire external. So, we have this balance of like internal promotion versus external hire. Um, like how do we navigate this? So, again, I go back to what what is it that you're trying to accomplish? Now, are the answers in the comments? I don't I don't know cuz we're not getting the extra details from this original poster. But if we think about some of the comments, some people are saying, "It sounds like you just need a project manager." Okay. So like what what problem are you trying to solve with the EM? Is it that you have uh enough direct reports that you can manage and you can give time and attention to, right?

Like you're not neglecting them in terms of their focus. I I understand I don't even know if it's a startup or just a small company. Um so you know maybe all of these people are kind of new to this company and they're trying to figure stuff out altogether. Maybe it's a company that's been around for a long time and this person's ready to scale some of it. But if they can manage their direct reports and that's not really an issue and it's more around coordination of deliverables, yeah, maybe maybe a project manager is an alternative hire that makes more sense, right? Or maybe all of that's flowing okay, the engineering efforts okay, scheduling's fine, but like there's not enough time spent sitting with customers and navigating things. and maybe like a product manager is good, right?

So, we don't have enough context about this person's company and their whole situation, but you know, it it sounds like in a nutshell either they're trying to scale or all of the things that they have as a responsibility currently are not getting the right amount of attention. But I don't think we know what yet. If we assume that this person's accurately understanding their situation, where they need help, if they're hiring an engineering manager, my assumptions would be that um people are not getting enough time and attention based on the CTO's other responsibilities andor they're trying to scale. Now, is this the right order of operations is a different question, right? Like do you bring on the manager before you feel that pain point of like oh I have too many people I'm stretched too thin is this person already there based on their other responsibilities

that we don't know about as a CTO at whatever size company this is we don't really have a full picture so do you put yourself in a situation where you are stretched thin and you go okay now it really is apparent like we need whatever role say as an engineering manager, do you go do that? Once you're stretched too thin, uh pros and cons to that, of course, like you're kind of proving maybe to yourself that like this is where the gap is, right? If you're introspective enough, I guess you can understand that. Um this is where the gap is. We need this role. It's very apparent. Uh you know, some of the cons to that would include things like it's an oh moment now. Like you're kind of drowning now. You have to try and hire on top of that. How do you do that without rushing the process?

Right? I think my answer to that is somewhere in the middle. I wouldn't wait until you're like, "Oh my god, like everything's falling apart. I need to rush this hire." And I wouldn't do it so soon that you're just like maybe you're hiring someone you don't even need them. um you know it maybe if the capital is there and whatever maybe that's okay to get ahead of it because you you know the the scale or the growth is inevitable based on capital injection or something but uh otherwise I think it's somewhere in the middle anyway point is that in a situation like this I think you need to understand what your goal is okay so now if we do align on the fact that it needs to be an engineering manager it's to address engineering manager responsibilities say people focus there's obviously with engineering managers

the role is uh going to be flexible across different companies in terms of expectations how much project management how much product management how much whatever is involved so I think you need to figure out what you're expecting out of that person in that role okay so em what are their core responsibilities Again, this type of role has some things that I would say are quite common and other things where the amount of time and effort that you expect to go into that will look different. One classic example that everyone loves to debate is how much an engineering managers code or be hands-on, right? I would I would totally argue if you got small teams like probably makes a lot of sense for you to be building the software with your team. it it does not scale to have engineering managers coding as the team gets larger.

And I'm not saying that means that they're not technical. I just mean that it does not scale, right? Like you you have a team of engineers to be able to perform that function. If the team is not big, then obviously you should be finding ways to contribute as an engineering manager to the effectiveness of your team. And that could very well mean coding. That could mean uh spending I'm just making up, right? If uh if your team would benefit more from better project management, like you need to step in and do that. It's about helping your team to make them more efficient where it's needed. That could be coding. But like I said, when you have more direct reports or more sub teams, it does not scale for you to be coding. So this person needs to figure out what that looks like. Now, as a CTO, you're probably having more responsibilities than you would expect for an EM.

And if you could narrow that focus down for the EM with six direct reports, that might be a good sweet spot where they could be coding alongside them. However, we don't have the full story. If you're like, EM's going to h uh come on with these six direct reports and we already know that we're trying to hire like we're trying to double that team size by the end of the year or something. That engineering manager is probably spending a lot of time recruiting and interviewing and then they're going to have a team of 12. Now, do you expect them to be coding with a team of 12? Right? Like, so you need to think about what your expectations are for this person in this role. And I think that will dramatically change what you're trying to like look for in the role. Okay. There's some common things of course like I would say I I want engineering managers primarily to make sure that they can do two major functions.

One is that they can work with and grow teams. And I mean that is like a like the people on the teams not just like add numbers to teams but they should be able to figure out where there's pain points. and if they do need to hire make cases for that. So really like team management and then the other part is like I think um not just the people but on top of that uh some amount of like coordination around around projects. I think that that means that there is a level of technical depth. I don't think that means you have to be proficient in the programming language. I think that's super helpful if you're proficient in the tech stack. Super helpful. But really like your team is going to be relying on you for helping them be more effective and then you facilitating um the effectiveness of the work that's being like prioritized.

So those are like core things I would say and then obviously I would look at like in this role what am I expecting people to be focused on in the short medium and long term and plan to ask questions around that plan to gauge and structure interviews around those types of things. So again, if you're expecting an EM, say you're at a startup, you're bringing an EM because you as the CTO are having other responsibilities or some scaling going on and you need that EM to code because they have six people. I would be making sure you have, you know, interview components around like tell me how you build software. you right we need to know that you can build software too because you will also be facilitating that part of the work right and then like I said some foundational things like how you

grow teams how you manage people your feedback process etc let's flip I'm like over halfway to home I've been blabbing for a while so let's flip to the other context right this person is saying I need to hire for a role that I don't have the technical proficiency in. So, we go back. What is what is the goal that you're trying to accomplish? Okay. I think in this person's case, I kind of read a little bit of like a whatever like the the blurb and read it when I'm scrolling through. I didn't read the whole post, but they had mentioned something like, you know, someone who normally does this in their company or on their team has left. So, they're kind of in this position where they're they're interviewing. like I don't have that skill set. So, how do you how do you interview for it?

Well, I go back to what problem are you solving? So, how would you like what is the problem you're trying to solve? So, that kind of comes back to what is the role expectation? You're getting someone for a role. What what are they focused on? Right? So, I don't know in this person's case. Maybe they need a technical expert in some, you know, some technology stack. Like, that's what they're hiring for. I'm not trying to say if this is right or wrong, by the way. Like, so if you're immediately like, you shouldn't do that. You should have generalists or whatever. I'm not saying right or wrong. I'm just saying what is the problem that you believe you're trying to solve and this role is fulfilling. It could be, you know, some tech stack expert. It could be that uh your team uh lost the mobile developer, right?

And like we need someone to do Android development and yes you know people on the team could rally behind all being generalists and figuring it out but you know team the way you're organized you you want a Android specialist so that your Android app uh has some expertise behind it and other developers can benefit from that right that's your strategy fine so that's your goal and you're like but I don't know anything about Android development cotlin Java uh Google, what are these things? Um so if you don't know, I would say like, okay, well, how what would success look like in this role? How do you know that someone in this role is is being successful? Right? That's one of the questions that I would try to ask because I want you to think about if you had this person. It's one like I think you're if you're trying to figure out like I don't know how to interview them.

I'm like I I I think you're maybe jumping ahead too far in terms of like tactically how am I going to do this? Let's talk about what this goal is. So if this person is brought on and you're like okay like what does an ideal candidate look like? How do we know if they're failing at it? Like, how do we gauge if this person is successful in their role? What are the things you're looking for? Well, okay, they need to be effective at uh I'm just going to use the mobile developer for Android, right? They need to be able to make sure that they can take our team from no Android app to um something that's in the app store. um we need to make sure that they have uh they're comfortable sharing knowledge and experience with the rest of the team because other people on the team will need to be building the Android app with them.

So we want to make sure that they're a candidate that or sorry in their role um they're actively facilitating like um information sharing. They collaborate well with others. They can teach others like these are qualities and traits we want. Um we I'm I'm just going to keep making stuff up, right? like we need to make sure that um based on this role that there are someone that really understands what security looks like on Android, right? Um we have some other people on the team that understand like security concepts in different areas, but Android is just like all new to us. We really want to understand this. So this person is also facilitating that on the Android platform for us. So once you like are thinking through what success looks like, you're kind of envisioning what this role looks like, then from there I would start going, okay, how do I gauge that upfront in an interview?

And spoiler alert, it will never be perfect. These things are just imperfect processes. But I think if you know what you are after, you can at least head in that direction. Okay. So, if you hadn't gone through that process um to figure out like these are the traits or the things that I want this person to focus on when they're being successful. If you hadn't gone through that, you might completely miss that you want to be asking questions around that or discovering information about that from the candidate. So, I'm not suggesting that by doing the exercise it immediately gives you perfect questions to ask and therefore you can perfectly grade them. Not my intention. I'm saying that like in my opinion that is the minimum you should be doing to at least know you're asking questions in the right direction. Okay. And then when it comes to question selection and how you gauge them, this is where of course it could be trickier.

If you're like, "Okay, I have to ask someone about Android security and like I'm not an expert on that. How do I know that's a good answer?" Like, here's how I would kind of think about this. Are you going to know it's a good answer when they're hired? How would you know? You need to know the very specific things where they memorize the stuff off the top of their head and they can recite it to you. And because they can do that, that's going to be a telltale sign that they'll be successful in the role. Like odds are you're going to bring this person on and you're still not going to know all of the things that make them the best technical expert. So like how are you going to gauge that?

So I think my framing would be try not to think about how do I ask a question that proves to me in the moment that this person is an expert and I understand it because you're also not an expert as was established at the beginning of it. What are the things that you're looking for that are going to give you confidence in that? Right? For me as an engineering manager, when I'm hiring engineers, like fortunately, I do build software. So, I I have some idea what's going on in general, which is good. I know how to code. I code all of the time, so that's good. If you are an engineering manager that didn't, and that's okay. You're in the same type of situation that these people are in, right? this isn't something I do. I'm not an expert in this. How do I gauge that?

And I think it just comes back to if I imagine this person being successful in the role, how do I like what are the aspects I'm thinking about and how do I start asking questions around that? How would I get confidence to see that? Again, not a perfect solution. It's not here's, you know, step-by-step top three questions to ask, but that's the the framework that I would use. So, I hope that's helpful for I don't know like a a mindset kind of perspective, but it's not easy and it's not going to be perfect, but I think you take steps in those directions and um and iterate, right? It's also a skill that you build up. So, hope that helps. Uh kind of a couple interesting Reddit posts, but yeah, if you got questions, leave them below in the comments. Uh, and of course if you want to go to code.com you can submit stuff anonymously cuz when you leave stuff in the comments it's it's public.

So yeah if you want send in otherwise you can send me a message uh devleader on any social media platform happy to respond and my name is Nick Cantino. So if you want to look on LinkedIn my profile's open you can send me messages happy to try and make a video response for you on software engineering and career development. See you in the next one.