The strongest engineers I've hired didn't have the most impressive résumés.
They were the ones building side projects in their spare time, asking me about our architecture choices, and genuinely curious about problems they'd never solved before.
Here's why curiosity beats credentials: 🧵

Head of Talent @ @lazertech formerly @foundation / @rodeodotclub , Twitter, Kickstarter, Tumblr 🏳️‍🌈
(thebc12.base.eth)

These engineers shared something: they were excited about what they didn't know yet.
While others relied on their pedigrees, they were experimenting with new tech, reading papers, questioning why things worked a certain way. That hunger to understand made all the difference.

Most experienced engineers stop learning once they're comfortable. They'll ship your features but won't push back when requirements don't make sense.
Curious engineers see every challenge as something to figure out. They don't just execute—they investigate and improve.

https://paragraph.com/@theonchainrecruiter/stop-hiring-for-skills-start-hiring-for-curiosity

As AI handles more routine coding, the engineers who succeed won't be those with perfect backgrounds—they'll be the ones who never stopped asking "how does this actually work?"

My framework for identifying intellectual curiosity 👇

How I spot genuine curiosity in interviews:
🔍 "Walk me through something you taught yourself recently"
⚡ Their GitHub shows personal experiments beyond work projects
🤝 They are active in research, online communities, entrepreneurial, etc. 

What signals do you look for?