Kevin is the VP of Engineering at Abnormal Security, overseeing all aspects of growth and execution. In this class, Kevin describes the requirements for building a well-rounded and highly functional engineering team from both a technical and cultural perspective. Kevin spent time at eBay and Quantcast prior to becoming an early-stage engineer leader at TellApart, then a Director of Engineering at Twitter.
Kevin W: I think there's no single, magical bullet or kind of panacea that's going to solve this problem. You have to have a lot of different, swim lanes and investments that are going on all the time to bring in a world-class team and keep building retaining it. I think, the ones that are very obvious thing that people have to start using is.
using a reference network, right? Obviously the people that you and your team have worked with in the past is probably the most trusted source of high quality,future team members. Cause you can vouch from them from having spent hundreds of hours working with them in previous lives.
as well versus. Tens of hours, maybe in an interview process, evaluate them in a more academic kind of whiteboard, type of, environment. But that has to be only one of the, type of pipelines you use to [00:29:00] find talent. Of course, you have to start building up, new grad and university or industry hires as well through a variety of different pipelines.
Kevin W: I'll say the other thing that would really, I think through though, outside of this kind of. I guess prototypical or maybe more, intuitive kind of, part of the problem. I think the challenge is even trying to identify what is a world-class recruiting experience or company look like and how can you start to build yourself towards that over time?
what I mean. rural class recruiting company is not a company who, when you try to compete with other companies to close candidates, you're winning nine times out of 10. I would say a world class recruiting company companies, a company. A hundred percent of the most qualified candidates you want to hire are directly applying and are eager and desperate to work for your company.
Kevin W: So the question is what is the things that you have to start building, investing into as an engineering leader, as a company to start building and, that reputation right as a world-class company. Again, the best talent that you want for your company is desperate and [00:30:00] eager to work and get an option to be here.
That's the, probably the harder problem is to think there is a variety of different things from brand marketing and recognition, right? Or going to conferences, and really speaking about the amazing work your team is doing that really allow you to, be really a world-class, recruiting engine.
