Hiring Differences Between the USA and Europe

Hiring practices in the tech industry vary between the USA and Europe. In the USA, there is often a strong focus on hard skills, coding challenges, and system design interviews. In Europe, soft skills, passion, and motivation tend to be weighed more heavily in the hiring process.

USA Tech Hiring 🇺🇸

Candidates are asked to “crack the code interview” by solving coding challenges and algorithms on the spot over 1-hour sessions. Complexity is relatively random depending on your interviewer. There is also a focus on system design skills - being able to architect and discuss technical systems, tradeoffs, and estimate costs.

The rationale is that strong technical skills are essential for success as an engineer. Companies want to know candidates have the raw coding ability to build systems.

Europe Tech Hiring 🇪🇺

In Europe, companies seem to place more value on cultural fit and passion. There is still an assessment of technical skills, but less focus on intense coding interviews.

European companies look for candidates who are passionate about technology and align with the company mission. Soft skills like communication, collaboration, and creativity are prized.

Best of All Sides

Rather than asking candidates to crack coding challenges or sell an image of someone they’re not, real-world tests may better evaluate passion and potential.

Having candidates work on a small real project or task with pair programming provides an authentic look at their abilities. You can assess their collaboration style, how they problem solve, and their process.

Observing someone’s technical work in a more natural environment can reveal soft skills critical to success on an engineering team. You want people who are eager to apply their skills thoughtfully in practice.

Key Skills To Look For

When evaluating candidates, ideal skills to look for include:

• Communication - Can they discuss technical topics with non-technical stakeholders? Do they communicate well with teammates? Listen and incorporate feedback?

• Detail-oriented without perfectionism - Care about quality without getting bogged down. Know when to move forward.

• Passion - Do they seem genuinely excited about the domain and technology? Will they stay driven and self-motivated?

• Problem-solving - Can take complex issues and break them down. Think critically.

• Navigation - Ability to work semi-independently. Use available resources/docs to navigate ambiguity.

Bringing in people with this mix of soft skills and solid technical fundamentals leads to great real-world teams.