[vonmoltke]

> This relies on being able to accurately identify poor performing engineers, which is very tough at a big company.

"Very tough"? The only big company I ever worked at was a more traditional engineering company, but identifying the poor performers was easy. The problem was the politically-savvy poor performers who used their savvy to shield themselves.

[ng12]

Fair enough -- but the bullshitters are generally pretty politically savvy :)

[wolfgke]

Thus put them into a position where political savviness will be of no use. :-)

[azraomega]

If the person who has the power to do that knows it, might as well fire them... why even bother? The person is politically-savvy generally savvy enough to smell it ahead and get promoted else where...

[wolfgke]

Because at the moment we are talking about, we yet don't know whether the new hire is a good programmer or not (he just passed the interview). Thus my point is to put new hires into positions where political savviness will be of no use until you are sure that he is indeed a good programmer, so that they don't have any option to fake anything by political means.

[mattnewton]

I do - The not to be hired pile of resumes.