The Three Traits That Matter More Than Experience in New Hires
How to spot talent that will grow with your team, not just perform for it
Hiring isn’t just about filling roles. It’s about shaping culture, accelerating momentum, and ultimately, multiplying the impact of your team. Over the years, as I’ve led engineering teams through everything from high-stakes launches to quiet cultural transformations, I’ve come to rely on three non-negotiables when interviewing candidates.
These traits don’t show up on resumes. But when you learn to spot them, they reveal everything about how someone will lead, follow, and grow inside your team.
Intelligent Problem-Solving: Thinking in Systems, Not Just Syntax
I’m not looking for perfect answers—I’m looking for sharp thinking. To me, intelligent problem-solving means more than getting the right solution. It means asking the right questions. It’s the ability to zoom out, model trade-offs, and reason under ambiguity.
Great engineers don’t just debug code—they debug systems. They think like owners. They instinctively seek context. In interviews, I pay close attention to how candidates approach a problem they’ve never seen before. I want to see how they handle constraints, communicate assumptions, and recover when things break.
If a candidate’s first instinct is to clarify, not impress, I take notice.
Self-Reflection: The Quiet Engine Behind Growth
This one is non-negotiable. I believe leaders aren’t born—they’re developed. And the single greatest predictor of growth is whether someone can see themselves clearly and learn from what they see.
Self-reflection isn’t just humility. It’s awareness paired with action. It’s the candidate who doesn’t just say, “Here’s what I did,” but “Here’s what I’d do differently next time.” It’s the ability to metabolize feedback, to turn challenges into catalysts.
In interviews, I often ask about a project that went sideways. I listen for whether the candidate owns their part, or redirects blame. Reflection doesn’t make someone fragile—it makes them durable. And durable people build durable teams.
A Fire in the Belly: Having Something to Prove
This one is harder to quantify, but impossible to ignore. I look for people who come in with something to prove. Not in a defensive, chip-on-the-shoulder way. But in the way that says: “I’m not done yet. I’m just getting started.”
People with something to prove bring a kind of intentional urgency. They don’t go with the flow or do the bare minimum. They invest in their work because it reflects something personal—growth, redemption, legacy, purpose. And that kind of energy is contagious.
Sometimes I see it in career switchers who’ve bet big on themselves. Sometimes it’s in people who’ve been underestimated and are ready to show what they’re really capable of. Sometimes it’s in a mid-career engineer with clarity about the impact they want to have in the next chapter.
Where it comes from doesn’t matter. That it’s there—very much does.
Closing Thoughts
Experience matters, of course. But experience without problem-solving, self-awareness, or drive, can become complacency. And complacency is a morale killer.
When I hire, I look for people who want to build—not just software, but better versions of themselves. If they can think clearly, reflect deeply, and are hungry for something more, then everything else can be coached.
Those are the hires that change teams. And sometimes, if we’re lucky, change companies.