<commit_before>Title: Interviewing and hiring at Pivotal
Date: 2016-12-03 12:00
Tags: pivotal, hiring
Authors: <NAME>
Summary: My experiences of the hiring process at Pivotal, from both sides.
Status: draft

My current employer, Pivotal, practices the Extreme Programming (XP) software
development methodology. One of the core practices of this methodology is pair
programming: two engineers, two mice, two keyboards, two monitors but *one
computer* and *one task*.  Here's what a typical day of pairing looks like:

 ![Pairing at Pivotal London]({filename}/images/springboard-pairing.png)
 
I won't go over the various methods for pairing here, but suffice to say
this style of development requires solid interpersonal skills, even before we
get into the [balanced team][2] approach that sits the engineers with the
product managers and designers to collaborate together on a daily basis.

In what I think is a nice summary of this approach, there was a poster in
Pivotal London's old office featuring Pivotal Labs founder and current Pivotal
CEO Rob Mee with the quote:

 > "Software development, it turns out, is a team sport."
 > 
 > <small>from [What's Your Start-up's "Bus Count"? 7 Myths of Entrepreneurship 
 > and Programming][1]</small>

All of this means that there are plenty of great programmers out there who would
not be a great fit for this working method, preferring to stick on some
headphones and get stuck into the work on their own. Conversely, there are plenty
of people who might not think that they are great programmers who have all of the
skills needed to flourish as an engineer at Pivotal. As [Pivots Are What Set
Pivotal Apart][6] puts it:

 > ...being a Pivot means embracing the principles at the core of this approach.
 > Pivots teach and learn from each other, demonstrating empathy, trust,
 > respect, communication, feedback, and collaboration at every turn.

Pivotal hires, in short, for *empathy*. So how do they do that? There is a<commit_msg>Update article based on feedback and publish<commit_after>Title: Interviewing and hiring at Pivotal
Date: 2016-12-05 21:11
Tags: pivotal, hiring
Authors: <NAME>
Summary: My experiences of the hiring process at Pivotal, from both sides.

My current employer, Pivotal, practices the Extreme Programming (XP) software
development methodology. One of the core practices of this methodology is pair
programming: two engineers, two mice, two keyboards, two monitors but *one
computer* and *one task*.  Here's what a typical day of pairing looks like:

 ![Pairing at Pivotal London]({filename}/images/springboard-pairing.png)
 
I won't go over the various methods for pairing here, but suffice to say
this style of development requires solid interpersonal skills, even before we
get into the [balanced team][2] approach that sits the engineers with the
product managers and designers to collaborate together on a daily basis.

In what I think is a nice summary of this approach, there was a poster in
Pivotal London's old office featuring Pivotal Labs founder and current Pivotal
CEO Rob Mee with the quote:

 > "Software development, it turns out, is a team sport."
 > 
 > <small>from [What's Your Start-up's "Bus Count"? 7 Myths of Entrepreneurship 
 > and Programming][1]</small>

All of this means that there are plenty of great programmers out there who would
not be a great fit for this working method, preferring to work exclusively on
their own. Conversely, there are plenty of people who might not think that they
are great programmers who have all of the skills needed to flourish as an
engineer at Pivotal. As [Pivots Are What Set Pivotal Apart][6] puts it:

 > ...being a Pivot means embracing the principles at the core of this approach.
 > Pivots teach and learn from each other, demonstrating empathy, trust,
 > respect, communication, feedback, and collaboration at every turn.

Pivotal hires, in short, for *empathy*. So how do they do that? There is a
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