How hiring people motivated me to grow

In the early 2000s, I was a new and ambitious software engineer with very little theoretical knowledge. Worked as a webmaster, which included front-end, back-end, databases, and a bit of systems work, all with Microsoft products. My confidence didn’t match the realities of my actual knowledge. Something happened and 2-3 colleagues quit in the same year, leaving me as the most senior developer, despite my young age and limited knowledge. I had to hire replacements. So, I found some article that said that I should only hire people who are better developers than me. It said that “A people hire A people, B people hire C people” (attributed to Steve Jobs). I took that meme very seriously. The folks I hired were so good that I needed to step up my game significantly to remain relevant. In the process of learning, I decided to go back to the university and get a Master’s degree in Information Systems from Sofia University.

I’ve done some hiring work later and found loopholes in this rule (so did others on Hackernews). Looking for people who are significantly more competent than the hirer opens the gates to masters in BS language (link to a post from January on the subject). If I discuss an area where I’m not particularly knowledgeable with a candidate, the candidate could fool me by using impenetrable language, specific to that technology.

Over time, I changed. I currently believe that:

• The ability to explain past work would be a top skill during a hiring interview, closely followed by soft skills
• Every single person on the planet would be better than me at something and I’m just a few questions away from figuring out what that thing is

Despite that, I did hire some good folks, and they motivated me to learn and improve. Maybe not the most impactful choice I made in life but quite good.