If a top-tier engineer (e.g. a founder of this site) offered to come be your unpaid intern for two weeks, would you hire him/her, or would it be a waste of everybody's time? If you were to hire him/her, what would you have them do?
A:
learn to use our product and then get his critical analysis of it. (And with luck Blog about it)
OTOH this would be in an attempt to fill an unlimited appetite for intelligent user who have never seen our product before because the learning curve is the biggest issue I'm worrying about.
BCS
2008-09-17 05:41:12
+1
A:
Training, inspiration, and discussion might be fun and uplifting for a development section. I wouldn't think having him or her do any real "work" would make any sense.
paulwhit
2008-09-17 05:42:35
+1
A:
I think hiring anyone for two weeks in a technical position would be mostly a waste of time. Having any intern requires a fair amount of effort and bogs down the rest of the team at least to some extent. No matter what their skill level, even if they are a "guru", it typically takes a while (on the order of days, perhaps weeks) to ramp up on any project. In my opinion it would be mostly a waste of time..
Kamil Kisiel
2008-09-17 05:43:54
Agreed to some extent. The major counter cases is where that ramp-up *is* what you are looking to profit from. Think usability tests.
BCS
2008-09-17 05:50:00
A:
Have them spend time pairing with your developers. Even without ramp up time a pair will increase productivity (although not much initially) so you'd still get a boost in productivity for no cost. Plus, they'll definitely teach them some tips and tricks, and potentially be a "perk" for your developers.
jwanagel
2008-09-17 06:39:09
A:
Top-tier engineers usually already know exactly what they want and how to achieve that. It is very difficult for them to work inside a team as a 'normal' team member and not being in control of the situation. They could start questioning your authority and thus lowering the team morale.
On the other hand such person is usually a valuable addition to any team as he has the experience, skills and knowledge other people lack.
If you believe that you could handle the interpersonal issues and you have a good understanding with the engineer in question - go ahead and hire her. Get her to review your completed deliverables (i.e. code, documentation etc) to get a fresh view on the state of affairs.
Ilya Kochetov
2008-09-18 10:20:05