Job Ad Red Flags: Fad Obsession

This red flag may be considered a subcategory of the previous red flag I wrote about in my post highlighting technical minutiae.

Remember when everyone was talking about how jQuery was unmanageable without a framework like Backbone.js? And then three seconds later it was embarrassing to be using Backbone.js, and startups would talk sheepishly about using it and how they should really rewrite using Angular? And then three seconds after that, they were embarrassed to be using antiquated technology like Angular, and how they couldn’t wait to start their rewrite using React?

As Dan McKinley put it in his classic post, Choose Boring Technology (2015):

Let's say every company gets about three innovation tokens. You can spend these however you want, but the supply is fixed for a long while.

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If you choose to write your website in NodeJS, you just spent one of your innovation tokens. If you choose to use MongoDB, you just spent one of your innovation tokens. If you choose to use service discovery tech that's existed for a year or less, you just spent one of your innovation tokens.

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Adding technology to your company comes with a cost. …if we’re already using Ruby, adding Python to the mix doesn't feel sensible because the resulting complexity would outweigh Python's marginal utility. But somehow when we're talking about Python and Scala or MySQL and Redis people lose their minds, discard all constraints, and start raving about using the best tool for the job.

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The problem with "best tool for the job" thinking is that it takes a myopic view of the words "best" and "job." Your job is keeping the company in business, god damn it. And the "best" tool is the one that occupies the "least worst" position for as many of your problems as possible.

When I read a job ad where the focus is on an intricately presented list of the most bleeding edge languages, frameworks, databases, text editors, chat tools, and the like, I have to wonder what other trivial things they’re spending an inordinate amount of cycles on instead of delivering software to their customers.