Finding a Good Applications Engineer

I don't think there's any magic Silver Bullet. You have to put ads out and interview people. Put ads in the paper and at online sites like Monster, Dice, and HotJobs. Talk to headhunter firms but make sure they understand what you are looking for so that you don't get resumes from someone who has been doing server development and has never had to consider CPU/RAM/disk limitations.

Another thing is to not be so specific so you will get candidates who could pick up the knowledge required even if they don't know it now. There might not be anyone in the area with the particular skills sought (although you'd think automotive and Detroit would go hand in hand). I've seen ads from companies seeking a certain specific type that have been around for months when they could have hired someone who could have come up to speed by now.

So, do you mean find an embedded apps engineer in the Detroit area ...

or do you mean find an embedded apps engineer to support auto in the Detroit area?

In other words, can said apps engineer live somewhere else (and continue to)?

-- ...The Bit Eimer [remove keinewurst and reverse letters in domain to email me]

"My goal in life is to be the kind of person my cat thinks he is"

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Are you saying that there are few candidates or that there are plenty of candidates but no good way to select between them? If it is the prior, then the compensation is probably too low. If it is the latter, then someone is going to have to check out the candidate references.

The requirements are auto, embedded, and client experience. Pick the two out of the three that are the priority.

Most of the successful matches between employers and engineers that I have witnessed or been involved with, are usually through interpersonal networking instead of traditional recruiting techniques (paper ads, monster, job fairs). Of course, you mileage may vary.

See ya, -ingo

--
/* Ingo Cyliax, cyliax@ezcomm.com, Tel: 812-391-0895 */

Hi Dave,

Here is what I did most of the time when hiring: Present an actual problem to the candidate. Not something that is confidential but something that provides a challenge level similar to what the job will bring. Then watch as he or she explains a strategy, how courteous they are, their manners and so on. Contradict one or two of their ideas and see their reactions, see how they take criticism.

Another trait that is most important in engineers is whether they are able to learn on-the-fly. They have to be able to understand new developments fast, know where to find that information quickly so they are able to handle their expected case load.

Regards, Joerg

Hi,

If he wants to outsource R&D from low-cost country please forward my whereabouts. We have are succesfull record with US based company.

Piotr

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As an Apps Engineer for >20 years, I've been involved with recruiting, interviewing and choosing my colleagues many times. It's always tough, and we've made many mistakes.

We usually use team interviews, where we invite one or more candidates and they spend several hours shuffling from interviewer to interviewer. We have all read the resumes ahead of time, and in many cases done 20-30 minute phone interviews with each candidate as well.

Each of the interviewers has a specific job. Some work on the technical skills and some on the soft skills. Sometimes that job changes with different candidates. When we're all done, we meet and discuss each candidate separately, then each interviewer gives a yes/no vote and must support it. The candidate must get all yesses, or at worst, one weak no, to get an offer.

My favorite interview happened a few years ago. We had told the candidates that they would be expected to give a short whiteboard presentation about one thing theya had recently worked on. One candidate asked if they could bring slides. My job was to not let them show the slides. It got very tense, very quickly, but it resolved well and we hired the candidate, who has been very successful. We interviewed three people that day, and ended up hiring them all. One was not appropriate for the positions we had open, but we knew about another position that would be opening up, so we recommended them for that position.

I wish that I could say we've been 100% successful in hiring appropriate candidates. One of the other responders said that interpersonal networking was extremely important. I'd have to say that the best candidates we've found were customers. In most cases someone in our company had worked with them multiple times over a meaningful period. When the position became available, someone called them and asked them to apply. The worst employees generally came from recruiters. They were very well coached, and their job performance was somewhat different than their interview performance.

I hope that this helps.

Alan