How do you hire senior people, managers/ senior managers/ senior architects people who steer a product team or build new products

1. Hiring senior people
Observations & Suggestions

2. Introduction
Hiring senior people whether senior architects/ managers is an essential
qualifying step to the success of a product team and having been on both
sides of the table many times I have made certain observations which have
accumulated from personal experiences.
A senior person would help steer the ship to a better course hence is critical
to the success of the product teams. Bad choices at higher grades are not
visible in a month or two but may manifest over years.
Recruitment has a dual cost overt and covert. Both types of costs vary on the
higher sides for the senior people being hired.
This presentation will introduce the cost of hiring and then focus on the
human resource aspects of the process this is where our friends from HR flex
their muscle or help in identifying and getting the right person.

3. Table of Contents
II
V
RECRUITMENT PROCESS
QUESTIONS
Introducing a generalized recruitment process to
set context.
Some interesting questions which can be used to
assess candidates
IV
TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT
Notes/ observations on technology assessments/
technical interviews
I
COST OF RECRUITMENT
An introduction to the overall cost of recruitment

4. Overt Cost of Recruitment
This ignores the cost of salary which I assume is already budgeted. The reference checks can sometimes be outsourced
which may also add up to the cost. Interviews and profile short listing is done by senior people for senior roles hence their
time is costly and most critical. During training/ ramp-up period generally there is loss of business as business will not
wait for the senior person to get trained.
Recruitment
Cost
Interview
Cost
Reference
Checks
Training/ on
boarding
Cost of
Recruitment
The cost of giving
advertisements/
banners/ human cost
of recruiter etc.
Time cost used to
shortlist and conduct
interviews
Getting the person up
to speed with
trainings on product,
processes & tools

5. Covert Cost of Recruitment
Product development requires immediate alignment to business needs to be able to take decisions and steer the team
to the right direction a leader is expected to do all this. The covert cost of a wrong hire can set back the entire
development it can lead to a wrong/ unusable product. Such a cost is not measurable and is also not evident
immediately. All the more reason to hire the right person.
All Good
Can be
improved
Wrong
Hire

6. Table of Contents
II
V
RECRUITMENT PROCESS
QUESTIONS
Introducing a generalized recruitment process to
set context.
Some interesting questions which can be used to
assess candidates
IV
TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT
Notes/ observations on technology assessments/
technical interviews
I
COST OF RECRUITMENT
An introduction to the overall cost of recruitment

7. Recruitment Process
SEARCH & IDENTIFY CANDIDATES
NEW JOB POSTING
REFERENCES AND CHECKS
INTERVIEW OF CANDIDATES
SALARY NEGOTIATION
FOLLOW UP DISCUSSIONS
ACCEPTING OFFER
1
2
3
5
7
4
6
The above is a generalized flow of recruitment process which normally starts with a new job posting. Some companies
may do the referral checks later and some may do them in parallel. It is important to have a flow in place to have
spans of control as then we become traceable and predictable rather than having a free for all no process scenario.

8. New Job Posting
In my experience most of the times the job descriptions are copied from what someone else did, no one really cares to
match them to the profile being sort. I feel it is assumed that the JD is read by recruiter for keywords to search the
portal. But it goes beyond it is shared with people who can read and acknowledge fitment. The “shortlisting” of profiles
can be done by the candidate as they acknowledge they fit the need.
Having a job description which fits the position
is the first critical step. What is the problem
you face and what is expected to be solved.
These documents go a long way they not only
help the recruiters but also tell prospective
candidates that you mean business.
Detailed JD
A good JD will describe the position, expectations
from the person, technologies and process to be
used. Lot of thought has to go to define JDs as
recruiters pass them around treat them as
marketing material. As the same guys who read
these may become your customers.
Misleading JD

9. Examples
The above abstains from naming the companies but these are big brands some of them the leading companies in their
space, companies which do not care of the titles/ roles. And senior candidates who apply for positions without knowing
what they demand.
The job description for a vice
president engineering title at a very
large travel portal described the role
which matched duties of a senior
developer
The job description shared for the
position of a senior architect was
having EJB specifications way old
that what is current when I
checked with the recruiter he
admitted I was the only one who
asked for the JD!!
“Hands On” This
word is perhaps the
most abused word in
recruitment
parlance. Who is
hands on? Who is
hard core?
On the flip side after having a
discussion for 15 full minutes a
candidate asked me why is he
being asked so many design
questions, I told him this is an
architect position he said he just
applied without reading the JD!!
At many places JDs
have mentioned
emphasis on some
core values and I
have seen them
being lambasted in
all rounds.

10. Search & Identify Candidates
How do you shortlist people? This is the first gate and also a critical as 5 minutes of profile reading will save 40 minutes
of discussion over phone/ in-person. The general start of interview phrase “Can you describe your role…” is a waste of
time as the role is written in the profile and perhaps the same has not even been read. Only the keywords have been
matched regardless of when they occurred in the course of time.
How is a senior lead different from an
associate architect?
Even with a good JD it will be tough to
differentiate profiles, recruiters
normally look for keywords, experience
ranges and degrees as they are easy
catch.

11. Fitment
Three out of four are in scope of HR and can be done parallel to technical assessment. Culture that a senior person
brings along will shape the culture of his/ her team. Humans have a tendency to take the well taken/ known path if for
example I have done 10 products in Java-applets I will try to do the 11th using the same technology. Sometimes we hire
for crucial cycles where midnight oil may need to be burnt; HR can pose these questions upfront.
PROCESS
FITMENT
TECHNICAL
FITMENT
CULTURAL
FITMENT
BUDGET
FITMENT
Cultural fitment for
example related to
products and domain.
Lean-agile is not the
answer to lot of projects
still
Remember it is not a
sling-match
Salary expectations and
budgets have to be met.

12. Examples
The above are real examples which I personally think can be better handled and perhaps should be done by HR. Culture
is an essential element of a company and a tough one to change. Loyalty has to be valued but in the context of
performance; star performers normally look for challenging assignments and recognition.
I have seen people bad mouth
organizations on sites like Glassdoor;
but we forget that the companies
can also respond with their views.
A large global e-commerce player
who has frugality as one of the
core values flew me around cities
for interviews then to realize that
one of the person was on
“planned” travel to USA.
I may have been
labelled as a frequent
job switcher without
even asking why I
made the switches.
Remember this is not
a recession proof
industry.
Agile-Lean/ SCRUM are not the
solutions to the worlds problems
and these models require
changes which starts way up the
food chain, whether you need
them or not is part of cultural
fitment.
Salary expectations
are an easy kill
perhaps can be taken
upfront rather than
haggling at the end.

13. Table of Contents
II
V
IV
RECRUITMENT PROCESS
TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT
QUESTIONS
Introducing a generalized recruitment process to
set context.
Notes/ observations on technology assessments/
technical interviews
Some interesting questions which can be used to
assess candidates
I
COST OF RECRUITMENT
An introduction to the overall cost of recruitment

14. Showdown?
It is about matching the needs which are
generally a mix of technical, process and
managerial skills; to the candidate experience.
The ratios of which vary based on the role
It is neither about proving who is the boss
nor showing who is in command. Trust your
vibes for the chemistry or being able to
adapt to your needs.
I have found interviews very interesting at this stage when I am interviewing I try to learn what the person has done in
their project/ product. No harm in learning on other person’s dime. The architectures and design patterns keep
changing for good from client-server to web etc. and every problem has many ways to solve; when being interviewed I
try to restrict to the business problem and how we solved it with reason to avoid showdowns.

15. Ideal Candidate
TECHNOLOGY/ DOMAIN
If you need someone who needs none to less ramp-up
time. Or perhaps a specific technology like Scala.
PROBLEM SOLVING/ INNOVATION
When a team is starting to build a product, or the role
needs the person to be innovative
PROCESS
Process weightage to what you follow or intend to
follow.
MANAGEMENT
People/ project/ schedule/ cost management.
EDUCATION
The degrees/ certificates
PEOPLE SKILLS
How well the person connects with people, perhaps
there is an element of customer interaction.
What is your requirement matrix? The weights may vary based on products a complicated advertisement platform may
need machine learning skills but a web business application may not. And what will this person do, bring process
awareness and predictability or drive innovation. There are various hats which is your need and the person on the other
side has worn many of those hats; do they match?

16. Examples
Again no reference to a company or individual but I do feel there is a big gap in knowing what you want and then finding
the right person to do it. Clarity on one’s own needs is critical. Imagine the role and position and see whether the person
has done something similar; for example if you want to build a product & team from zero then does the person have
good connections; has he/ she done this before? Is he aware of the technologies you plan to use etc.
A person was more keen to build
OCR and image recognition rather
than use OSS tools; he was not even
aware of different OSS licenses.
At a large e-commerce company
being interviewed for management
role I was constantly asked about
JVM internals; initially I replied as
much as I knew finally I asked him
if he had gone through my profile
answer was no!!
A very senior architect
who was only interested
in the hype technologies
assumed that
customer’s priority is to
use latest technology
not the best fitting.
While having a discussion for a
managerial position for a web
based product the only
questions asked were puzzles
and algorithms. Which the
interviewer agreed may not be
used at all.
A candidate who had
worked on
SalesForce for a long
time applied for a
position for a Spring
based product and
constantly wanted us
to switch to SFDC.

17. Table of Contents
II
V
IV
RECRUITMENT PROCESS
TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT
QUESTIONS
Introducing a generalized recruitment process to
set context.
Notes/ observations on technology assessments/
technical interviews
Some interesting questions which can be used to
assess candidates
I
COST OF RECRUITMENT
An introduction to the overall cost of recruitment

18. What To Ask?
I have seen people ask stuff they did not even care about when I joined the
organization. As an example someone who grilled me for 10 minutes on
Agile-lean was really not interested in implementing it when I joined.
I believe generally people struggle as they are not aware of the JD/
requirements themselves. Or perhaps they are not sure of what to ask.
In such scenarios you either end up asking things which really do not matter
or bashing up the candidate with stuff which is easy to ask for example
algorithms.
Based on observation it is at such times that what I studied in college and
the college I went to suddenly become important.
I have seen many senior people biasing their opinion towards a candidate
based on his/ her college. The bias is not completely incorrect but this
cannot be the sole judgment criteria. Years of work adds experience; which
is perhaps more valuable than the college after 15 years.

19. Where Are You?
Knowing where you are on the product development lifecycle is good, whether it is a concept or an idea or you already
have the blueprint ready you just need to design.
IDEA
Starts with an
idea or a way t
solve a visible/
known business
problem.
CONCEPT
A concept
document is
prepared along
with a business
plan on
feasibility.
DESIGNING PRODUCT
We start the design of the
product mockups/ screens/
wireframes etc.
PRODUCT CREATION
Development/ coding to build
the product to specifications
NEW PRODUCT
SUSTAIN & SUPPORT
Maintain the product &
provide support to customers

20. Idea & Concept Gates
• Have you been part of a team which
has conceptualized a product; what
were the challenges?
• How would you create POC’s quickly to
eliminate choices?
• What are some of the latest
technologies you have worked with?
• What are some of the technology
decisions you helped take?
• What experience do you have in the
business domain we plan to work on?
Presentations, creating quick POC, knowing the latest and greatest of tools and technology are all important at this
stage. People who can align to your idea/ concept and add value to it as they have done it before or come from same
background. These senior people will also help bring in more who have delivered such things as they would know others
who have delivered. Giving a case study and seeing the proposed design is also a good way to judge.

21. Design & Creation Gates
• Describe the architecture of your
current product?
• How would you design for
performance?
• What are different types of caching
mechanisms?
• How are products/ content
personalized for example Google news?
• What process should be followed for
product teams?
• Know-how on rapid development tools
and processes?
• The importance of early testing and
related tools?
These gates require case studies which focus on design and architecture. Practical questions on clustering, cloud, social
features and mobility are important. The POC is approved someone has to design it and build it properly. Awareness to
the technology, merits & demerits of frameworks is important. Being able to create prioritized backlogs and then
consume them is important.

22. Design & Creation Gates
• Describe how to setup product support
process?
• What are different support contracts
and what are SLAs?
• Tools to be used for server/ software
support/ monitoring?
• How do you handle escalations/ define
escalation matrices?
• How will you define L1, L2 and L3?
• How are bug releases handled, what is
patching versus hot fixing?
• When are upgrades released?
• How are upgrades applied, process and
plan?
You probably need stable people who can work to ensure longevity of product. The right person will be process oriented
and will help setup SLAs and support mechanism. Such a person will be aware of patching customer installations based
on versions. He/ she should be a good communicator and an effective presenter. He/ she will be able to present regular
status on SLA met and customer escalations.

23. Miscellaneous: Team/ Tools/ Process
• What is the ideal size of a product
team?
• How are slippages to be dealt with,
how can we predict a slippage?
• Create a single pager slide to depict
project status.
• Have you ever inspired other people?
• Define a devops setup for a Java web
project; all tools and how they are
linked?
• What is the right time to start testing?
• What dimensions should be tracked to
measure performance?
A lot of times we can call up colleagues, managers, team members and even other people who the candidate has
worked with simply by looking at social media connections. The more we get to know the person from other persons
who have been part of his/ her universe the better it is. Status reporting, tracking issues to closure and planning are
some of the key activities you want such people to do, have you judged them on these skills?

24. Summary
Hiring the right guy for the right role is extremely important not only for the
team but for the organization
It is about finding the right person
Which depends on the type of journey and where the ship is now
The right person who can help steer the ship
It is not a superiority match or a college exam
Re-Hire
Are the past managers/ organizations
willing to work with the candidate
again; easy to check via LinkedIn
Recommendations
Public recommendations on platforms
like LinkedIn can help you make a
decision.
Case Studies
Case study based assessment and
learning are proven ways to judge a
person as they are closer to reality.

25. Thank You