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Comment by EvilEy3 | Hacker News Reader

> expert in sprint planning

Because they need tech expert and not PO?

> passionate about user value

Lmao, this is such a vague and useless statement that it is barely worth commenting.

What the hell is "passion", how do quantify it and how do you use it? What happens when person you hired for "passion" loses it?

> Sometimes the best hire for the team is the second best developer but the best person-who-can-explain-things or person-who-can-run-meetings if explaining things or running meetings is holding the team back.

You test for that during interview. Do you think algo challenge, system design are just writing some stuff on the whiteboard and you're done? You need to explain stuff in such a way that interview wants to hire you.

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Sprint planning is a collaboration between dev and product. If your devs aren't good at it they'll agree to far too much stuff in a sprint, or they won't spot what things are blocked, or they'll fail to report what happened in a sprint in the retrospective, which impacts everything from planning the next sprint to writing release notes to when the company can do marketing about a major release.

Hiring developers who are amazing at algorithms but terrible at everything else has huge, far-reaching consequences for everything a business does. Being a good developer is about so much more than writing good code.

> If your devs aren't good at it they'll agree to far too much stuff in a sprint, or they won't spot what things are blocked, or they'll fail to report what happened in a sprint in the retrospective, which impacts everything from planning the next sprint to writing release notes to when the company can do marketing about a major release.

You're describing common sense, not sprint planning.

> Hiring developers who are amazing at algorithms but terrible at everything else has huge

I like this argument from every anti-algo advocate. Because if they're good at algos they're certainly bad at everything else, like you need to sacrifice one to get another.

> Being a good developer is about so much more than writing good code.

Indeed, writing good code is a basis. You can't be good without writing good code, and you can't write good code without knowing basics of algorithmic design and thinking.

> What the hell is "passion", how do quantify it and how do you use it? What happens when person you hired for "passion" loses it?

It's harder to quantify than 'expert in typescript' and maybe ill described and abused, but there are a diverse set of needs when it comes to engineering, it's not just deeply technical, it's also broadly technical with strong planning, entrepreneurial thought process etc.. my, perhaps naive view is the world definitely needs both of these so keep and open mind and stay respectful.. 'lmao' I'm certain you wouldn't do in person, debate is good but cmon, always put the extra effort in to understand and communicate your own gut reactions

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