Beware of Developers Who Do Negative Work
&gt; <i>So if the cost of a developer who does negative work is so high, how do they get hired? Part of it can be explained by an interview process that needs improvement, but a less talked about part is the temptation to lower hiring standards.</i><p>I&#x27;ve seen plenty of people who can reverse binary trees or fizzbang etc who are terrible additions to teams and do &quot;negative work&quot;. That&#x27;s because having a grasp of CS fundamentals and know how to contribute to a team are totally different skills.<p>The way to overcome this is not smarter and&#x2F;or more challenging interview questions, but by hiring engineers that come recommended by other engineers. This is <i>by far</i> the greatest indicator of a successful engineer I&#x27;ve ever seen. Nothing comes close to it. As far as I care, if someone I work with and respect recommends someone else that&#x27;s enough for me to give them a try without even needing to whiteboard.