[dasz]

I've found that there's a kind of person who excels at academic pursuits but isn't so great elsewhere. Especially outside academia.

I was judged harshly at school. Fast forward years later and I'm that guy who hired someone who got better scores than me. Annoyingly I later also had to fire them because they couldn't deliver. Those scores didn't help them succeed. Too much theory.

They had not played the associated game of project management. Too much focus on getting good caused excessive success in their local minima instead of the bigger picture.

I realised this lesson quite frequently in many ways and our hiring is now more around the competency game. Can they do it? So now the bar is set differently and there's multiple games you need to play and succeed in. Better have hobbies outside IT as well.

We've gotten suspicious of people who overplay in the tech sandpit. Its suboptimal in our view.

Hiring adult humans who can succeed with adult supervision seems like a better overall situation.