Vercel tests candidates by asking them to build

Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

1. 10:14

   How do you then recruit for that talent? Like, let's talk about that. What are you looking for? What is the DNA you're looking for? Found is a broad word. Like, are there skills you're looking for in interviews? Honestly, the requirements are changing. weekly, right? And so what I look for a lot these days is, do you have this mindset, first of all? Some of the world still debates whether AI is here to stay or not. Here there's levels. Some people are still stuck in like, well, agents can only do a few things. And some people are like, no, I'm actually using agents to superpower my work and to ship great things. I still, you know, have this bias of like, no matter what the technology is, the implementation detail, I look for people that can ship great things.

2. 10:57

   There is an element of proof of work that I look for when I recruit or when I reach out to people. But there's also this future-based mindset. Like, are you able to extrapolate and position yourself in the future? Where are things headed six months from now, 12 months from now? What are the requirements going to be? Because we are in the middle of an exponential. so I can't have people that you know show me like oh yeah the you know I built this awesome developer platform at I don't know Uber Lyft or whatever and then it's like okay can you actually show me how that becomes self-actualizing what would you do today what are you going to ship next week that kind of thing has your own interviewing changed in the world of AI tremendously yeah give us examples because this is the multi-billion dollar question for all of us

3. 11:49

   I ask people to build, first of all. You know, you can't be of two minds. I either go on X and say, like, everybody can build and use VZero and, like, Vercel plugin and whatever. And, like, you can ship immediately. And I also have to eat my own dog food. So I actually have that expectation. Like, I ask people to build stuff. During the interview process. During the interview process. And everybody, by the way.

4. 12:10

   They can choose it or you give them something. Some people just don't have a strong opinion on what to use. So they take our recommendation. You know, funny enough, we call this work prompts. It sounds like we're not hiring agents per se, but our expectation is that, hey, here's a work prompt. What can you do? Depending on the role, I think, you know, it might be something that we have the expectation that you just five code something and like you produce an output, an artifact and how you talk through it.

5. 12:37

   And I also always look for what is your perception of the details and what interesting side quests did you take? I've asked people to build certain things and they come back with really clever ideas for the platform itself. They can tell me what features I'm missing or where they found problems or where they got stuck. I had an awesome experience yesterday because someone delivered this beautiful output.

6. 13:05

   But she told me, well, at this point, I wasted an hour on this thing. That's an opportunity for us to fix. So she kind of came in with a point of view on what she wants to join to improve about the company and the platform. So I think the level of transparency and the availability of information today is unprecedented. Do you go through this with even non-technical hires? So marketing, sales, customers, somebody who's the chief customer officer, all of that.

7. 13:34

   My marketing team knows that the future is them building agents that produce the marketing artifacts. A common problem in marketing organizations is, can I beg, borrow, and steal engineering resources or agency resources so that I can ship an idea into the world? That problem doesn't exist at Persell because you have the platform, you have the agents, and because you're expected to create that factory.

8. 14:05

   You're not here to like file in JIRA tickets. Hey, can someone help me with this like poster or this? I need to host a dinner with prospects. Can you help me with the creatives? No, like you solve that problem. And I think that's where the bias towards founder mode comes is I'm hiring people that can solve problems. You know, I have 99 problems.