What are the warning signs in a technical leadership candidate? — answered by Engineer Saeed Baatiah
Four appear in the first interview: someone who proposes a solution before asking about your problem, someone who cannot explain a technical decision in language you understand (which is an inability to explain rather than depth of knowledge), someone who dismisses everything built before them without specifics, and someone who never mentions anything they got wrong. A fifth appears later: someone who routes everything through themselves so nobody else can understand the system.
Expanding on the second sign, the most easily mistaken: an inability to explain is sometimes presented as depth (“it is complicated, you would not understand”), and it is precisely the opposite. Someone who genuinely understands something can explain its consequences in plain language — not its technical detail, but what it means for your cost, time and risk. Deliberate obscurity is usually a way to avoid accountability rather than a sign of expertise.
And the fifth sign is the most dangerous because it appears after hiring rather than before: someone who routes everything through themselves personally. It looks like commitment at first, and then you find nobody else knows the passwords, understands the system, or could continue in their absence. That makes your company hostage to one person — whether they intended it or not, the outcome is the same.
And a sixth, practical sign: ask for a reference from a previous employer and actually speak to them. The most useful question is not “were they good” but “would you hire them again, and for exactly what role?” — a hesitant answer, or one narrowing the role, tells you more than any written testimonial.
- “It is complicated, you would not understand” = inability, not depth
- Routing everything through themselves makes you hostage to one person
- Someone who names no mistake they made — a warning, not modesty
- Ask their reference: would you hire them again, and for exactly what role?