To Be a Lowly Product Engineer
This blog is a delicate balance of a documentary of the time and the trite day-to-day of a thirty-something. Lately I’ve only wanted to write about the trite nothings so this blog has been idle. I’ve started entries over the last couple days but only gotten a few lines in. Everything seems to need so much background then, three paragraphs in, I realize how trite the entry has become.
Today we interviewed a girl for a position at my company. Actually, we interviewed her for 3 positions. This is how we handle new-grad hiring now. We throw them at a few groups and see if they stick to any. I was a stand in for my manager who’d out and had very little notice that I was going to interview at all. I rarely ask technical questions because I feel like I’m a great judge of character and I leave it to others to gauge the capability of the person. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t make me uncomfortable to make other people uncomfortable. I’m an easy interview and I know it. Still, she was very intelligent, well spoken, and eager. I thought she would make a good new grad hirer but I wasn’t sure she would really be interested in my job. When we all got together to talk afterwards, the other groups did not like her. None of them recommended her for hirer, only me. My first reaction to that was feeling stupid, like I got duped or something. Then I got frustrated that I let others affect my opinion so much.
The req was for a new grad and most of the jobs at the company require a masters from a new grad. Some of the complaints were that she was too far removed from her base level engineering classes. She seemed like more of a scientist than an engineer, and that she didn’t have any practical experience. I feel like the expectations of these groups was way off base. It takes a different mind to do product and I think she was a good fit, I just don’t know if she would enjoy it and stay long term.