If a product takes 2-4 iterations to reach maturity, and a candidate is only involved in one of those iterations, they haven't participated in the complete multi-year product cycle from skateboard to scooter to bicycle to motorcycle to car, to borrow a popular metaphor.
If a roadmap goes out 3-5 years and a candidate only executes on one or two of those years, the candidate hasn't gained experience with which parts of a roadmap stay committed and which ones change in response to new information/priorities.
Most of this does not apply to a hot startup where the founders are still coding every day, but those aren't the only senior engineering opportunities.
My meta-experience is that the kinds of things I'm talking about tend to be most highly prized by companies that have been around longer than a startup, and now have problems to solve technically and organizationally that can most effectively be solved by people who have stayed in one company longer than one-two years.
Such companies aren't usually as exciting as pre-IPO startups, so absolutely no side-eye from me if anyone reading this is thinking "You can take that job and shove it, I'm busy inventing the future on a two-pizza team in a six-pizza startup."
If a roadmap goes out 3-5 years and a candidate only executes on one or two of those years, the candidate hasn't gained experience with which parts of a roadmap stay committed and which ones change in response to new information/priorities.
Most of this does not apply to a hot startup where the founders are still coding every day, but those aren't the only senior engineering opportunities.
My meta-experience is that the kinds of things I'm talking about tend to be most highly prized by companies that have been around longer than a startup, and now have problems to solve technically and organizationally that can most effectively be solved by people who have stayed in one company longer than one-two years.
Such companies aren't usually as exciting as pre-IPO startups, so absolutely no side-eye from me if anyone reading this is thinking "You can take that job and shove it, I'm busy inventing the future on a two-pizza team in a six-pizza startup."