[Hiring] Product Manager

Paula I never made any form, please stop baseless accusations.

That’s the exact same thing, glad that we agree.

The recruiting process seems that it is not the priority of the DAO, as it should be to accelerate the maturity. The only interview I had was from @Mads, which I am grateful for due to he was the only one taking the lead on the recruiting process. From that point, I have not been contacted, nor received any exercise to do. Although I asked about the form too, and I was told that it was erased.

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Hi HBesso31, sorry I didn’t see you made an application. I just saw a post higher up the thread but didn’t see your resume. Could you add it or point to the post with your resume?

I also agree that not enough time was spent in recruiting and that’s what we added the posts on cryptojoblist. It led to a good amount of contacts and I hope they will make formal applications which will allow the DAO to have a fair and competitive recruiting process on those 2 positions.

I don’t see the reason to keep stalling ad aeternum this selection process. We need to move on and we need to make it wisely, and in a timely manner. Things like this reduce credibility in the project in increasing ways.

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We need to move forward on this.

  • I lost track of the candidates and where we are in the process with each of them. Partially this is because the process got split into different places. Can anyone help?
  • What are the current blockers preventing a DAO vote?

cc @Mads @clesaege

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hmmm, If I get the issue right, the question is to prioritize expedience and end the application phase to select a Product manager. Is there urgency?

Is anyone familiar with the “Secretary Problem”? It relates to a hiring game in which a hypothetical company is hiring a secretary with a candidate pool of size N and a random interview order (random with respect to the skill/optimality of the hiree). In such a game where the job is either given at the end of the interview, or the candidate is turned away, turns out the optimal strategy is to reject the first 1/e or roughly 1/3 of candidates no matter the quality, and select the next best candidate. One can interpret this roughly the first 1/3 of candidates is sort of ‘sampling’ the candidate pool to find out the average skill level to determine hiring decisions.

Now the current Product Manager hiring game is different since applications are not turned away and all are simultaneously considered, however as same in the simple Secretary hiring game, as well as here, it is the case that the larger the candidate pools size N, the higher quality the final hiree.

Now at the same time, the trade off is fairness to applicants who need to make some life arrangements if their applicants are pending for many months.

Here’s Clement’s comment from another thread:

So in any case, the trade-offs seem to be, the longer applicants are accepted, the higher quality hiree that results, but waiting exceptionally long can be unfair to applicants who need to make life arrangements. However, is Clement the only one with experience hiring for a DAO? Does anyone else have this kind of experience?

From this thread, it looks like @paulaberman brings a strong candidacy, but the application is bundled. Has Sofía Cossar been posting and active in the thread?

From the other thread:

Hmmmm, then should HIP13 be further developed to resolve the hiring process in more detail ? Or explicitly allow the hiring of a ‘bundled’ application? Could candidates be ranked with quadratic voting including negative voting so any controversial applicants are less likely to win, such as this demo except negative voting enabled. As these are the first DAO hires, maybe its best like has been suggested to be very cautious since the hiree will steer the course of the DAO which would have especially large impact being the first DAO workers.

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We have 4 candidates @iafhurtado @pmerugu @HBesso31, and @paulaberman. I believe all but @HBesso31 have been interviewed by @clesaege, and I talked to all of them.

I don’t see anything blocking a decision, except that @clesaege doesn’t seem satisfied with the candidates. Since I was voted down on HIP-13 and didn’t see a way to come to a decision, I decided to put my effort elsewhere.

My suggested next steps:

  • Set a (non-binding) deadline for applications using a poll.
  • When deadline comes, we vote on our preferred application(s) (I suggest approval voting which is already in Snapshot)
  • The above off course has no legal weight, so we proceed to the final step.
  • The signalled preferred candidate will with the backing of this thread create a new HIP for hiring them (and possibly a team and an expense budget).

We do not need a HIP for doing this since the final hiring/budget would be on the HIP-level anyway.

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Btw I missed @VB_95 who put in an application 3 days ago.

I support your suggested next steps. We also need to add a deadline for volunteers to interview and provide feedback. It appears that one current bottleneck is step #5 (or #4) of HIP-2. The way that process is worded anyone can be a volunteer interviewer and then stall.

I propose slightly modifying your steps:

  • Set a (non-binding) deadline for applications using a poll.
  • Starting at the application deadline, volunteer interviewers will have 7 days to complete interviews and provide feedback. If they miss this deadline we will move forward without them.
  • On the interview deadline (7 days after the application deadline), we vote on our preferred application(s) (I suggest approval voting which is already in Snapshot)
  • The above off course has no legal weight, so we proceed to the final step.
  • The signalled preferred candidate will with the backing of this thread create a new HIP for hiring them (and possibly a team and an expense budget).

@Mads If we agree on this, where do we host the deadline poll. Is that on the forum?

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Agreed with the steps proposed by @Justin and @Mads.

I have been participating in some of the interviews with candidates and read the recruiting exercises delivered by them. Following the rules of HIP 2:

  1. Volunteers indicate privately to the candidate the recommendation they would give to the DAO about the candidate (strong reject, weak reject, neutral, weak accept or strong accept). Candidates can then either allow those to become public or withdraw their application. They also have the possibility to readjust the requested compensation.

I’d like to endorse @paulaberman and @SofiaCossar. They have responded in time and form with the 2 exercises given to her by @clesaege which include:

  • Exercise A: No-code usecase: @paulaberman advanced with the integration of Proof of Humanity with the online debate tool pol.is
  • Exercise B: KPI where @paulaberman suggested tracking New registrations per month and % of disputed submission per month

Plus two reports on:

I have included for reference for the DAO the work delivered by @paulaberman which I think has been excellent.

Also, I should add that I have worked with Paula the past 4 years and I’m well aware of her capacity and skills to deliver quality work for the Proof of Humanity DAO. She has systematically connected with every relevant voice emerging from our community and even connected our project with relevant players in the crypto ecosystem. She’s by now one of the most well known researchers on Proof of Personhood protocols having co-authored a key paper on the topic and works alongside well known researchers like Primavera De Filippi (from Harvard and Ethereum Foundation).

More importantly: Paula isn’t afraid to speak her mind. Throughout the years I admit to having many disagreements with Paula but it was always for the good of the projects we embarked on and a demonstration she deeply cares about the organizations she works with. The fact she can speak her mind is a big plus and a necessary condition for teams that strive for quality. I think the community has also been able to see her in action on the Telegram channels and other groups, always with a civilized approach and welcoming of different views on topics that might sometimes lead to passionate debate.

Paula is passionate and cares about Proof of Humanity and UBI deeply. I like working with passionate people like her.

I highly recommend them both for the PM job.

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I agree to this procedure, I propose that both the polls are conducted on Snapshot, and mentioned in Telegram. Would you conduct the process? I don’t have much time ATM.

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Thank you Santi! To clarify, the exercises were done by both me and @SofiaCossar . We are applying together, we make all of our decisions together and that has not changed. @Mads please include Sofia in the list of candidates with me.

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List of candidates:
@paulaberman and @SofiaCossar as a duo
@HBesso31 (who is now applying individually, correct?)
@pmerugu
@iafhurtado
@VB_95

I don’t think anyone has interviewed @VB_95 and @HBesso31 needs an interview from a more central figure than myself.

Just to add to the point - I was interviewed by @clesaege on Monday.

Do you have any thoughts on the interview that you would like to share with the thread?

It was a short interview, more of an introductory call where I was asked about my experience and my education.

It was good - I think

Ok, I have set up a poll for finding a closing date.
https://snapshot.org/#/poh.eth/proposal/QmbLfGSHRSV3Abh1vHQ8KqULxizbWfy9jBAHCof5LbBVxj

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Corrected my post accordingly. I endorse both, you and @SofiaCossar

Adding to this for linking on socials.

We are on step one of the following process. Please click here to vote.

  1. Choose an application deadline using this poll.
  2. After the deadline, allow 7 days for volunteers to complete interviews and provide feedback.
  3. Pick a preferred candidate using approval voting (on snapshot).
  4. Create a HIP for hiring the preferred candidate.

This process was agreed upon (above in this thread) by several of the volunteers trying to help. It’s not binding. It will allow us to decide a preferred candidate to support with a legally binding HIP (step 4). Without this we risk the process being open forever.

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Yes, we need to pick up the pace and accelerate the hiring process for the PM.

The vote on the selection of applicants will happen as soon as a reasonable number of applications have gone through the first steps of interview/exercises (at least 5 applicants) to give the community a reasonable panel of options.

I understand the intention behind this Snapshot poll about setting up a deadline as it looks like the only lever to set up an ultimatum but it is not the right tool for this job. You got the reaction you wanted, everyone is trying to accelerate the process as fast as possible.

You are asking the community to weigh on an execution matter (speeding up a process) not a matter of governance. The DAO would become unmanageable if such polls were to become common about the everyday executive ongoing of the DAO so let’s try not to abuse it (the larger community does not have the elements to weigh on the issue and will obviously always vote for the faster option no matter what the question is).

The perceived slowness we are experiencing will be a thing of the past as soon as the PM and Dev are hired. Let’s not throw ultimatums and use aggressive referendums that could create unwanted animosity in this budding community while we are on the verge of the executive becoming a reality and solving most of our current issues.

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