In tech recruiting, playing it safe is risky business

The Silicon Valley version of the American Dream goes something like this: a dishwasher, a bike messenger, an actor, a waiter (insert totally-unrelated-to-technology job title here) leverages his or her hobbyist-level coding skills to land a hot programming job and becomes a "rockstar developer."

And nearly everyone who works in tech, from CEOs, venture capitalists, startup founders, and programmers themselves will tell you they don't care what a candidate's background is; where they went to school; what gender, race, ethnicity they are. All that matters is their tech chops and whether they can do the job. That's terrific, in the hypothetical.

In practice, however, is where this dream breaks down; the HR professionals, hiring managers and tech recruiters who are on the front lines of hiring do care about those qualifications, to the detriment of both candidates and companies, says Harj Taggar, co-founder and CEO of technical hiring platform Triplebyte.

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