Hiring Engineers with Ammon Bartram

TL;DR

The video argues that hiring noise stems from differing, unexamined definitions of a "good engineer" and inconsistent interview processes. Ammon Bartram advocates for deliberately deciding what skills matter for your stage, standardizing evaluations (same questions, same scoring), and using simpler problems that are more predictive than hard brain teasers.

Key insights

• Most companies believe they are hiring "good engineers" but have vastly different, unspoken definitions (e.g., fast productivity vs. deep CS knowledge), creating noise.
• Interviewers naturally ask about topics they are best at, biasing the team toward clones of themselves.
• Experience (years in industry) is a stronger predictor of on‑the‑job performance than education (CS degree vs. boot camp), yet interviews often favor junior candidates who practice small problems.