My platonic ideal for how engineering hiring should work
The real truth is: hiring is a crapshoot. For any position and any field. Software engineering is <i>no</i> different.<p>There is <i>no</i> meaningful data that any hiring process--good or bad--improves the outcome of a hire. If there were, everyone would be using it.<p>Instead, third-party HR monoliths have moved in and snatched up (and more or less created) the 'market' for screening and filtering applicants. Larger companies sigh, throw up their hands, and say 'well how else can we deal with hundreds of applicants?'.<p>As if that 'funnel' of applicants contains what you think you want. As if it's just an exercise in reductionism, each applicant a data point to evaluate.<p>Given this, why not hire lightly and fire lightly?