I am just over three months in to my recruiting agency for software engineers (read chapter 3 here). Overall, I am making good progress. All successful entrepreneurs say it takes longer than you expect to gain traction. It’s helpful to keep that top of mind when it feels like nothing happens in a given week.

What has been most surprising is realizing how many aspects of my job I don’t like—a job that I entirely invented for myself. Some of these problems will hopefully go away or get outsourced as the company grows, but I suspect others will only scale up.

One unexpected problem that will never go away? Haters.

Everyone has to post on LinkedIn for self promotion. I hate doing this. The worst part is going viral.

This usually happens because a post makes people angry. I often write about coding interviews, a subject that many software engineers on LinkedIn despise. Their comments are fueled by indignation:

Wow. I cannot believe you ask people coding questions. Everyone knows this is stupid way to interview. You must be a horrible person for doing this. I would never want to work for your company.

There is no hyperbole in the above example; this is exactly how the most extreme commenters sound. Most negative comments are not quite as bad faith, but they all jump to conclusions.

So perhaps the only answer is to take some time to try and understand why my haters dislike me so much. What mindset leads someone to comment with such hostility?

Software engineers have a disposition to tie their ego to their engineering skill. As a result, I think they are even more likely to fall into these pitfalls than the average person.

When I click into my hater’s LinkedIn profiles, I don’t recognize the logos of any of the companies they have worked at; these companies are not tech companies let alone FAANG+. There is rarely anything about their work history or projects that is notable. To phrase it in the kindest way possible: if I shared their profile with my clients (tech startups with good traction), they would decline to interview them.

In their comments on my posts, they tend to boast about their skills: “I have 20 years of experience writing Java.²” I have met many arrogant people offline; few of them live up to their own hype.

In contrast, I have had the privilege of working with many smart and talented people with impressive resumes. They never have to make any claims to their skill or remind others of their past success. They simply demonstrate this in their work.

It is crass and unkind to conclude my haters are insecure and mediocre engineers based on pedigree and their online demeanor, but there is no clear evidence to the contrary.

I don’t have a CS degree and went to a state school that no one is familiar with. I have the natural response to be insecure and defensive too: “That shouldn’t matter, don’t they know I was a senior engineer at Square? Should I remind them how I aced the Google interview and got an L4 offer with only one year of experience?”

What I do instead is pause, take a deep breath, and let these defensive instincts go.

Early in my time at Square, I refered a friend of a friend for a job; we had a quick phone conversation and made a positive impression on me. He went on to interview and made it to the onsite but didn’t pass.

On that same day, one of the engineering hiring leaders made a big post about a certain candidate who matched my referral’s description. This candidate had demonstrated highly uncollaborative tendencies to such a degree that it was interpreted as sexism.

This engineer had enough years of experience to be at the staff level, but had only performed at the senior level on the interview. The committee’s hypothesis was that his uncollaborative behavior was related to his lack of career progression.

When I am discussing interviewing with other software engineers, I am tempted to be dismissive of their opinions and ideas (I’ve heard them all). I make an active effort to resist this. The moment I disregard others who I perceive as less knowledgeable is the moment I stop growing.

Once again, it is crass to assume all my haters are close-minded and incapable of growth³. But loudly complaining about coding interviews and criticizing companies hiring processes on social media is easy⁴. Sitting down and practicing for coding algorithms for a few hours each week is much harder⁵.

What saddens me about these commenters is that we are on the same side. I also think the average coding interview is bad. That is why I’m passionate about improving the system.

My first viral post, I made an effort to engage with all the commenters in good faith. I got someone who called me “lazy and undereducated” to have an actual discussion; they ended up apologizing.

That was a waste of time. I cannot engage with everyone. The ROI is not worth it. They took 30 seconds to skim my post, five minutes to write an angry comment, and then they forgot about me. Meanwhile, I am still bothered by them.

For those who have not had the misfortune to go viral: it is not fun. I do not understand why people make a living off social media content. The vocal minority are loud and unpleasant. Their opinions about you are unkind. They completely misunderstand the intent of whatever you post.

Maybe I have thin skin. Maybe I need to learn to compartmentalize. But wow, I am bad at that. If I didn’t think my content helps job seekers, I would stop posting.

In the spirit of having a growth mindset, I will work on disconnecting from LinkedIn. I will keep reminding myself that the vast majority of people are getting value from my posts and candidates who experience my coding interviews have overwhelmingly positive experiences.

And if my own writing and reflection on this topic is not enough to help, maybe I can read someone else’s.