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Serious answer to probably other-than-serious question: caliber of performance is sometimes tied to individual but often more closely tied to individual/environment match, such that hypothetical Abe might be A in some environments but B in others, or Cindy might be A/B @ new gig.
You can have someone who was an A player at Google be very good at doing X *at Google*, diagnose them as being very good at *doing X*, hire them to do X at your shop, and watch them get terminated for low performance.
And if you're debugging that: hard for me to say 100% on them
And if you're debugging that: hard for me to say 100% on them
Partly that's a matching issue, partly it's an assessment issue, partly it's a training or other management issue after they've joined your shop.
I think this observation is complicated by the observation that there do exist some folks who seem to succeed in any circumstance and there do exist some folks who seem to fail in any circumstance, but most of us are complicated and nuanced, like real life.
"How can someone be an effective software engineer at e.g. Google but be an ineffective software engineer @ a startup?"
One way is by their pathway to effectiveness being a really good understanding of the Google organization and how to work it to accomplish goals. A real skill!
One way is by their pathway to effectiveness being a really good understanding of the Google organization and how to work it to accomplish goals. A real skill!
Another way is by delivering mission success at Google (to use a gross generalization: system scaled to the moon, took as long as it takes, doesn't have to be subjectively great because Google gets Google distribution) at company which dies if 1,000 people don't rabidly love it.
My ambient impression: The best products at AppAmaGooBookSoft are some of the best products in the world. The median product is better engineered than the median startup product by a lot, but qua product, pretty mediocre.
(This is one reason they buy product teams so frequently)
(This is one reason they buy product teams so frequently)
(Very opinionated list on the best products at AppAmaGooBookSoft, sorted per company by "Volume of physical tears I would weep if they went away": the iPhone, core physical e-commerce experience, Gmail (surprisingly, not search), core FaceBook, Excel.)
