Everyone … and I mean everyone … is looking for different things.

This is a really good question! What am I looking for? In fact, what are most of us in our profession looking for?

Are we looking for the next 10-x rockstar engineer? Are we looking for someone who knows how to do things immediately? Are we looking for a “star-performer” or a “go-getter”?

Or are we looking for something else?

I don’t have perfect answers, BUT, I do have close proxies for what most of us are looking for. Much of this is based on my own personal experiences. Let’s dive in !

The Qualities List

Understanding over memorizing

1. I’m looking for someone who understands their material thoroughly. Like ELI5 ( Explain Like I am Five ) level or teach me using The Feynman Technique method. It’s to easy for someone to memorize a large set of facts ( e.g. Python is a dynamically-typed language or Let’s throw a cache because that’s what I’ve seen in other problems ). But that’s surface-level ; someone needs to be able to tell me more. Like Tell me that a dynamically-typed language is a language that lacks a strong type system, is usually interpreted, with benefits of being faster to write and fewer compiler errors, but drawbacks being a slower runtime and a higher probability of runtime errors.

Asks good clarifying questions

1. I love asking questions. In fact, I’d argue that asking clarifying questions is my forte skill! And we need people who can ask good questions. They can ask :
   (A) If we need to do work or don’t need to do work
   (B) If approaches or workarounds need to be thought of
   (C) If we can do something, that we didn’t think we could do
   (D) If we can make things better.

Solid Collaboration Skills

Some of my best work in the past has never been by myself. It’s been in lock step with other engineers. Pair programming and learning best ideas and best practices from others teaches a lot. And the higher up in level you go, the more you will have to collaborate with multiple different parties in order to deliver an organizational goal. Collaboration is expected.

Leave your ego out the door

1. everyone is the room is smart and is bright ( in their own unique ways ). In the real-world, brightness and intellectual capabilities can take you only so far – organizational problems require loads of people to work effectively. Yes you’ll work with people less bright or more bright than you ( across different stats ) – value each individual for what you can learn from them, and you’ll go far!

Your Eagerness to Learn

1. you can be the world’s next Einstein or a pile of bricks, but show me that you’re willing to learn, and I might backfill you more than you think.

Be Blameless!

1. everyone makes mistakes. It’s bound to happen. In fact, I’d be amazed if someone had a perfect track record and never did the following : break production, accidentally deletes a production database, loose out on millions of dollars of revenue on a major project, or fail to meet a deadline deliverable. Things happen – and that’s ok. Because that’s where some of the best learning comes from.

Be able to say “I don’t know”

There is no one single engineer or other person in the room who “knows it all”. There’s always something you don’t know. And it’s better to admit and say to someone else “I don’t know, but let’s take a look at that” or “I don’t know, but let’s find out!”. It demonstrates positive character traits : (A) intellectual humility, (b) curiosity, (c) interest, and (d) open-mindedness. Traits that are needed in a segment of the population dedicated to solving some of the world’s toughest challenges.

Your G Factor

When I interview, I place greater value on an engineer’s general cognitive ability than whether they pass or do not pass the interview ( but kudos for passing ! ) . I want to see how they reason about their problem ( see my other posts for what makes folks shine in interviews TO_BE_DONE ). I’m less concerned about syntax mistakes, compilation issues, or passing only 11/13 test cases. Those aspects of programming can be ironed out. But the General Cognitive Intelligence ( the g factor ) is what I’m seeing out.

Passion

No one thrives ( or for that matter, survives ) in our profession while hating this profession. It just won’t work in the long run. There has to be something about computer science that allured you in. Did you like theoretical computer science and algorithms? Did you like developing mobile apps? What about a video game you created? Did you like debugging and diving into OS kernels? Tell me what you like and bring it to the table, because I’m sure it’s highly valued.

A good attitude

It’s like passion, but you need to be able to come in and want to solve problems. You can’t just come in and say that you don’t want to solve problems or work on a feature. Otherwise, nothing would move forward and happen! And a good attitude is contagious : your co-workers and your managers pick up on it!

Other ways to ask this question

1. Tell me the five qualities that you’re looking for in an engineer?
2. Tell me what made an engineer in the past stand out to you/