[b0p1x]

I run a small company and I absolutely refuse to have an HR department. We're still small enough that this is fairly easy to work around.

My recent hires are all just people I met at events. I'm told by people outside the company that they're all very happy workers.

We do not do technical interviews. We talk casually about past work and what people want to achieve. After hiring we usually find out they have a different skillset and then we find the right tasks to match experience vs. career path.

Knowing this works for my team I would never want to go back to full-time employment at a place with HR ever again. HR has become an insular group of "specialists" who do not deliver value to organizations, and often ruin them IMO.

[dennis_jeeves]

>I run a small company and I absolutely refuse to have an HR department.

You are my hero. If you ever end up having an HR department you can put in mediocre software developers to do the menial tasks. Most mediocre software developers will out do your average HR drone. For hiring and interviewing use the very best people that you have.

[cheshire137]

I'm confused. I think of HR as human resources, that is, the folks who manage benefits and paychecks and insurance struggles. How is that related to interviewing new engineers?

[yownie]

If you've got a good mix of developers at various levels of skill I'd say you're doing it correctly then. The problem is the corporate mandates that 100% of employees be ninja/guru/cowboys. It's this mindset that keeps everyone else running around interviewing needlessly.

[_vn5r]

That does sound like a nice play to work. How do I get in touch?

[b0p1x]

I wish I were hiring! I just doubled the team though so I'm not bringing anyone new on for the next ~6mo probably. Sorry!