Stop Obsessing Over the Tech Stack in Hiring

Somewhat related to my strongly held belief that you can't have a bug without data, I wanted to share some thoughts on interviewing and hiring in our industry.

I've touched on this before, and I keep coming back to it because it's a persistent problem: STOP WORRYING SO MUCH ABOUT THE TECH STACK!

Let's be clear: an if statement in one programming language functions the same way, logically, as it does in any other. So, why the relentless insistence on candidates having X years of experience with a specific language, rather than valuing broad technical experience? It simply doesn't add up.

Eliminating an engineer based solely on their tech stack doesn't guarantee you'll find:

1. A good fit with your team culture.
2. A strong problem solver.
3. An effective communicator.

What it does guarantee is a significantly smaller pool of potential candidates. And frankly, it doesn't really accomplish much else in terms of ensuring a quality hire.

One of the common arguments I hear for filtering candidates by tech stack is, "I don't want them to have to learn it." But let's be realistic. When you hire anyone new, they will inevitably spend months learning. Picking up a new tech stack is often the easiest part of that onboarding process. The truly critical and time-consuming aspects of bringing on a new hire are learning the intricacies of the business, understanding the dynamics of the teams, and acclimating to the company culture. Prior knowledge of a specific tech stack isn't going to magically accelerate their understanding of these more complex areas.

And believe me, I ought to know. I've been in this industry for over 25 years, and during that time, I've been the new hire more than once. The only instance I can recall where the technology itself presented a significant learning curve was with blockchain and cryptography, which was very much on the bleeding edge at the time. Chances are, your business and its technical needs aren't operating at that kind of frontier.