> I will take a mediocre but steady, agreeable, and trustworthy developer I don't ever have to think about over a "rockstar" who is making life hell for the team every time.
It seems to me from experience interviewing that every hiring process wants the candidates to be both. Humility, agreeableness, trustworthyness does not get you a job.
By my estimation, it goes like this:
Being 70th percentile of leetcode test takers + all of those traits gets you a job.
Being 80th percentile of leetcode test takers + 2/3rd of those traits gets you a job.
Being 90th percentile of leetcode test takers + 1/3rd of those traits gets you a job.
The difference between being 70th and 90th percentile of leetcode test takers is practically nothing compared to what it takes to get up to 70th percentile. Within the hiring process, the whole point is to root out mediocre leetcode test takers, as they are seen and derided as "fakers" who can't code, regardless of their professional experience, shipped projects, number of code commits, or references from people who manage coders. The industry and hiring process hates "fakers". Other programmers hate "fakers". Especially the ones who are the "rockstar" developers hate "fakers" the most - everyone knows about that group of socially problematic (ie: borderline sociopathic) but powerful developers who will reject almost every candidate. This is seen as a good thing - a "bad hire" is seen as the worst possible outcome of any hiring process.
If we stopped running software engineering interviews like a game of werewolf, we might accidentally start valuing the type of people you would rather work with - and maybe it might actually make software a more pleasant place to be.
It seems to me from experience interviewing that every hiring process wants the candidates to be both. Humility, agreeableness, trustworthyness does not get you a job.
By my estimation, it goes like this:
Being 70th percentile of leetcode test takers + all of those traits gets you a job.
Being 80th percentile of leetcode test takers + 2/3rd of those traits gets you a job.
Being 90th percentile of leetcode test takers + 1/3rd of those traits gets you a job.
The difference between being 70th and 90th percentile of leetcode test takers is practically nothing compared to what it takes to get up to 70th percentile. Within the hiring process, the whole point is to root out mediocre leetcode test takers, as they are seen and derided as "fakers" who can't code, regardless of their professional experience, shipped projects, number of code commits, or references from people who manage coders. The industry and hiring process hates "fakers". Other programmers hate "fakers". Especially the ones who are the "rockstar" developers hate "fakers" the most - everyone knows about that group of socially problematic (ie: borderline sociopathic) but powerful developers who will reject almost every candidate. This is seen as a good thing - a "bad hire" is seen as the worst possible outcome of any hiring process.
If we stopped running software engineering interviews like a game of werewolf, we might accidentally start valuing the type of people you would rather work with - and maybe it might actually make software a more pleasant place to be.