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Ask HN: What portfolio items are most impressive to you when hiring developers?

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Re: Ask HN: What portfolio items are most impressive to you when hiring developers?

#31

Post by 20years »

lj3 wrote: post #23
20years wrote: post #21

Something that has shipped, acquired customers and made money. Those things are more impressive to me than what framework, programming language, etc. you used.

Why would a programmer who can do all these things work for you?

It doesn't have to be a lot of money or customers. Even a small portion shows they can think about the bigger picture and ship something user/customers want to use.

You are right, a programmer who can make $80k+ building their own stuff is most likely not even looking for a job.

Re: Ask HN: What portfolio items are most impressive to you when hiring developers?

#32

Post by softwarefounder »

Authentication.

i.e. Have you successfully implemented a good OAuth[2] security system? Can you explain the difference between JWTs, and session auth? Why choose one over the other. Talk to me about SSL a little bit, even at a high-level. How do you secure APIs? Talk to me about how you encrypt passwords, and sensative data.

Have you had to deal with PCI DSS?

This is one of the differences between "I'm a developer who has maintained a simple CRUD app" and "I'm a senior developer who can build a secure system".

Or in other words, authentication separates the men from the boys.

Re: Ask HN: What portfolio items are most impressive to you when hiring developers?

#33

Post by camhenlin »

I like to see projects that people are obviously passionate about. A project that someone worked on with passion is likely to be some of their best work and best ideas melded together. If the output of that is good, they're probably worth giving a shot.

Re: Ask HN: What portfolio items are most impressive to you when hiring developers?

#34

Post by lastofus »

lj3 wrote: post #24
lastofus wrote: post #16

Something with a vibrant community built up around it is most impressive to me. It shows a degree of communication and management, not to mention marketing. Otherwise, most github repos are not that impressive as I have no idea how long it took to write (did it take a few months to write something most devs could write in a few days?), or if the candidate even wrote it at all.

> It shows a degree of communication and management, not to mention marketing. Which is important when hiring a programmer who won't be managing anybody or marketing anything.

The question was what I find most impressive in a portfolio, not what I require in a candidate. "Soft skills" on top of good engineering is extremely impressive.

Re: Ask HN: What portfolio items are most impressive to you when hiring developers?

#35

Post by good_vibes »

sodafountan wrote: post #9

I like to see lots of personal projects, the more complete and fleshed out the better, it shows you have a passion for the craft. I'm also slightly biased in favor of people without a college degree like myself, but I certainly wouldn't hold a degree against anyone. so my most impressive candidate would be someone without a degree and quite a few very complete and well polished personal projects.

There's still hope. Glad I saw this comment.

Re: Ask HN: What portfolio items are most impressive to you when hiring developers?

#36

Post by kasey_junk »

dsacco wrote: post #28
kasey_junk wrote: post #25

The best devs I know dont have portfolio pieces. They tend to work on problems that the people employing them pay a lot of money to prevent being public. So for me portfolios are for junior devs & graduate students looking to leave academia. Therefore, I look for things that are uncommon in those environments, engineering over theory, documentation & tests over novelty. Note: if I were hiring for a researcher the abo…

Just curious, how do you consider maintainers of popular open source projects? I broadly agree with your thinking here, but I'm wondering if you consider an open source project part of a "portfolio" if it's mature software.

Sorry just seeing this question. Without getting into a giant rant about software hiring, there are things I think should be and things I think are.

In a should be case you'd have a hiring pipeline that had a good objective work sample proxy for the work you were trying to do and you'd judge blind other than that.

In the real world, I've found what actually happens is network based hiring. I hire the people I already know are good. After that, its mostly a crap shoot but I'd take popular open source contributors over other candidates all things being equal (though by the time you've contributed to a popular open source project you are dramatically past the bar for hiring outside of the "network" tract).

Re: Ask HN: What portfolio items are most impressive to you when hiring developers?

#37

Post by kasey_junk »

gdfer wrote: post #29
kasey_junk wrote: post #25

The best devs I know dont have portfolio pieces. They tend to work on problems that the people employing them pay a lot of money to prevent being public. So for me portfolios are for junior devs & graduate students looking to leave academia. Therefore, I look for things that are uncommon in those environments, engineering over theory, documentation & tests over novelty. Note: if I were hiring for a researcher the abo…

This is refreshing to hear. I've been a successful developer for years working for a few different clients but don't have this portfolio of things I've done after work. What I do have is a bunch of great reviews from my managers in the past years. Do those carry any weight in an interview?

See my other answer to the subthreads. I could go on and on about software hiring as its something I've spent a fair amount of time testing and thinking about. But in a limited answer:

- If I had a good work sample based proxy for hiring, I'd use that and basically nothing else.

- But that never happens, so what I (and most places I've encountered) actually use is network based hiring. So a bunch of great reviews from your managers is awesome for hiring assuming I know them. If I don't its basically a crap shoot, but I view it as much more valuable than some half baked collection of github repos proving to me you've done the the first couple chapters of several hot "how to" books.

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