Weekly Roundup: Top 5 Career and Tech Hiring Tips -- November 6, 2014

Welcome to CyberCoders' Weekly Roundup! Every week, we handpick the top five stories from around the web that offer great insight into hiring in the tech industry. 

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1. How to Hire Like a Top Google Innovator [QZ]

Project Loon Director Mike Cassidy uses balloons in the stratosphere to deliver high-speed Internet in remote locations.

When hiring people for his team (whether it’s at Google or the startups he founded before joining Google X), “it’s all about intensity and the ability to survive ups and downs, he says.”

“When we launched our balloons, the first 60 burst—60!” Cassidy says. “We stuck to it. You can find the type of person. True character comes out during stress, and if they start pointing fingers, you don’t want that. You want to find somebody who’s gone through stress and can sustain a good attitude.”

2. Megan Smith: 'You Can Affect Billions of People' [New York Times]

Megan Smith, Google executive turned chief technology officer of the US, sits down the The New York Times to chat about the difference she’s experienced between working in corporate America and working at the White House.

The downside: She has to use a Blackberry…which is so 1990’s. Also, basic things like IT upgrades take a long time to push through.

The upside: Working in the federal government is one of the most significant, impactful thing a technical person can do….affecting hundreds of millions of people.

“I actually think that working in the federal government, or state or local, is one of the most significant things that a technical person can do,” Smith says.

3. Ex-Googler Builds a GitHub for Designers [Fast Co Design]

Tens of thousands of designers are using a new platform called Pixelapse to upload and share their projects with likeminded designers.

It’s backed by venture capital from Y Combinator and Designer Fund, and some call the service the Dropbox for designers.

4. Independent Workers and the Freelance Economy [The Future Organization]

The 2014 MBO Partners State of Independence in America workforce study reports a growing headcount of 17.9 million “solopreneur” independent workers – or those who regularly work 15 hours or more per week as independents, with most working more than 35 hours per week.

This podcast covers how the freelance economy will function.

5. Nine Technologies Companies Will Go Nuts For in 2015 [Business Insider]

Here are five of the technologies that companies will invest in and value in the next year:

• Cloud companies (no surprise, here)
• Smart machines
• Smart data
• Mobile identities
• Software-defined data centers