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In This Episode
In today’s episode of The Pragmatic Engineer, I catch up with one of the best tech recruiters I’ve had the opportunity to work with: Blake Stockman, a former colleague of mine from Uber. Blake built a strong reputation in the recruiting world, working at tech giants like Google, Meta, and Uber and Flexport. He also spent time with Y Combinator and founded his agency, where he helped both large tech companies and early-stage startups find and secure top talent. A few months ago, Blake did a career pivot: he is now studying to become a lawyer. I pounced on this perfect opportunity to have him share all that he’s seen behind-the-scenes in tech recruitment: sharing his observations unfiltered.
In our conversation, Blake shares recruitment insights from his time at Facebook, Google, and Uber and his experience running his own tech recruitment agency. We discuss topics such as:
• A step-by-step breakdown of hiring processes at Big Tech and startups
• How to get the most out of your tech recruiter, as a candidate
• Best practices for hiring managers to work with their recruiter
• Why you shouldn’t disclose salary expectations upfront, plus tips for negotiating
• Where to find the best startup opportunities and how to evaluate them—including understanding startup compensation
• And much more!
Takeaways
My biggest takeaways from this practical conversation:
1. Almost every offer has room for negotiation. So if you get extended an offer, consider negotiating at least a little! In Blake’s words:
“Try to understand what it is that the recruiter is working with. They're going to ask you to state what your compensation expectations are. Every candidate is best suited by responding respectfully: “I would like to see an offer that the company thinks constitutes the value that I have to bring to the table.” And sticking with this.
If any company is not willing to give you an offer because you didn't state your compensation expectations upfront — which I've never ever seen! — they're probably not the right company for you to work at. Ask them to put you a fair and honest offer on the table. “
2. GenAI is already changing recruitment. Here is how Blake describes the change he sees:
“Just like software engineers are realizing you can do some amazing things very quickly with AI: the same is true for recruitment.
Everyone on the job market has gotten messages from a recruiter where it feels like a pretty generic template. Something along the lines of “here’s some basic information, here’s the opportunity, please respond if you’d like.” The recruiter sends the same template to all candidates in an area with the “senior software engineer” title. I expect all of this to be automated by AI — at least for the basic things. A lot of the repetition, the generic work that recruiters do: a lot of it could be automated.
And then we see AI playing a more focused role in note taking, synthesizing information, consolidating notes across multiple interviewers.
Recruitment is becoming more automated and less personal, up until much later stages in the process. This is a generic trend, but AI is speeding it up.”
We covered more on how GenAI is impacting tech hiring in the deepdive How GenAI is reshaping tech hiring.
3. The larger a company, the more decentralized hiring decisions are. Startups and small companies typically have hiring managers — or founders! — make the hiring decision. However, larger tech companies often have hiring committees deciding whether an offer should be extended.
This is one reason smaller companies can move a lot faster in hiring. It also makes it trickier to figure out why exactly a larger company might have said “no” after an onsite round that felt went well: the input for the decision could have come from people not even in the loop!
4. A tip for engineering leaders ahead of a hiring drive: create a ‘hiring talent map!’ This is how Blake describes this:
“For example, when we were hiring for the Payments team: we'll decided that we needed to find a couple candidates working at companies where they have relevant Payments experiences, or they can ramp up quickly. We needed people who had understanding of our domain knowledge. So we mapped out these companies.
We then looked at this map, and asked: “okay, but which ones do we think also have like really good engineering talent that also, you know, would plant in really well with a broader engineering culture here?”
Based on these, we put together a more structured outreach plan. This helped us hire more focused, and faster.”
For more advice on preparing for tech interviews: take a look at a video I did a few years back: Confessions from a Big Tech Hiring Manager: Tips for Software Engineering Interviews
The Pragmatic Engineer deepdives relevant for this episode
• How GenAI is reshaping tech hiring
• Hiring an Engineering Manager
• Hiring Junior Software Engineers
Timestamps
(00:00) Intro
(01:40) Tips for working with recruiters
(06:11) Why hiring managers should have more conversations with recruiters
(09:48) A behind-the-scenes look at the hiring process at big tech companies
(13:38) How hiring worked at Uber when Gergely and Blake were there
(16:46) An explanation of calibration in the recruitment process
(18:11) A case for partnering with recruitment
(20:49) The different approaches to recruitment Blake experienced at different organizations
(25:30) How hiring decisions are made
(31:34) The differences between hiring at startups vs. large, established companies
(33:21) Reasons desperate decisions are made and problems that may arise
(36:30) The problem of hiring solely to fill a seat
(38:55) The process of the closing call
(40:24) The importance of understanding equity
(43:27) Tips for negotiating
(48:38) How to find the best startup opportunities, and how to evaluate if it’s a good fit
(53:58) What to include on your LinkedIn profile
(55:48) A story from Uber and why you should remember to thank your recruiter
(1:00:09) Rapid fire round
Resources & Mentions
Where to find Blake Stockman:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/blake-stockman/
Mentions during the episode:
• The Software Engineer's Guidebook: Audiobook: https://gergelyorosz.gumroad.com/l/dlzxi
• The Staff Engineer's Path: A Guide for Individual Contributors Navigating Growth and Change: https://www.amazon.com/Staff-Engineers-Path-Individual-Contributors/dp/1098118731/
• Flexport: https://www.flexport.com/
• YCs Work at a Startup site: https://www.workatastartup.com/
• Andreessen Horowitz’s portfolio page: https://a16z.com/portfolio/
• The Midas List: The World's Best Venture Capital Investors In 2024: https://www.forbes.com/lists/midas/
• The Three-Body Problem: https://www.amazon.com/Three-Body-Problem-Cixin-Liu/dp/0765382032
• State of the software engineering job market in 2024: https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/state-of-eng-market-2024
• Hiring software engineers and engineering leaders from Big Tech (Part 1): https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/hiring-from-big-tech
• Hiring software engineers and engineering leaders from Big Tech (Part 2): https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/hiring-from-big-tech-part-2
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