Companies that say they only want the "the best engineers" or "we only hire A-students" and "top of the cake-engineers" I've usually found to be a breeding-ground for a somewhat toxic work-environment.
Where I'm from, and this might be universal, those types of firms are either finance or consulting shops.
The actual work practically never warrants the type of people they want to hire, but they pay well enough and they can leverage their prestige. Part of the schpiel is that they can boast to their clients that they hire the best of the best, and thus billing $1000 for a fresh grad is worth it.
There's a lot of focus on signaling. Of course Jane or Joe with a graduate degree in theoretical physics from MIT is going to be able to sift through data and compile spreadsheets and nice powerpoint slides...but it's going to be complete overkill.
I used to work for one of these places that spammed "the best" kind of attitude in their recruitment advertising and the actual work was nowhere near it. Big talk about performance and algorithmics and then the work is 95% sifting through slop to implement more slop. I'd even say it even bred a worse than average culture because now if you complain about any of the slop, you're the dumb one who can't "navigate the business".
I would agree. I would add a straight A student might not be able to hold a conversation very well. There are so many factors, but one thing is for sure— getting a long is what matters most.
Since I can't edit my first reply, I'll also say this:
Many of these shops are strategically preying on the infamous "insecure overachiever" types.
The idea is to work smart and ambitious (but insecure) people to the bone for a short period. 1-3 years. Then when exit opportunities arise, most will leave. Those that stay will have been indoctrinated to think that the toxic culture is normal, or they simply just thrive.
I wish there was a way to figure out if someone is proactive, willing and capable of learning and having little patience for bullshit.
These have been the most important traits i've seen on great engineers, people that just plow through the work day after day and jump over hurdles to get stuff done. It feels like everything else is secondary to just wanting to put in the work.
