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I have no side code projects to show

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Re: I have no side code projects to show

#61

Post by usefulcat »

rabidrat wrote: post #26
eps wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The range/xrange question was likely to check if you were a fraud. Having interviewed close to a hundred people in a year for a senior C dev position I can assure you that people lie like you wouldn't believe. They cheat with take-home tasks, they show others' code as their own. And that's in the system programming circles, where the level of professionalism is typically much higher than in app/web development areas.…

Just, wow. I'm sorry you have to deal with that. For my next job, I've thought about offering to work for free for a week or so as a kind of mutual trial period. I want to know what the entire office is like, what the codebase is like, what the tools are like, and what actually needs to be done. If they want to rip me off and get a week of free work, great! That's exactly the kind of thing I would want to know about…

Instead of offering to work for free, why not propose an at-will contracting arrangement (as opposed to being an employee)?

Re: I have no side code projects to show

#62

Post by Tempest1981 »

TAForObvReasons wrote: post #57
x0x0 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been penalized for showing side projects and kaggle entries that weren't production quality code. No shit it's not production code, because it's not going into production. I quit working on them when I stopped learning, and that was well before code polishing.

To be completely fair, if you are showing a project you have done, it should be a good representation of your abilities. Treat it like how other industries treat "portfolios" or "writing samples".

Seems like a lose-lose:

- If you don't show side-projects, you don't have passion

- If you do show prototype-quality side-projects, you aren't skilled

- If you do show production-quality side-projects, you aren't sufficiently focused on your daytime job.

Re: I have no side code projects to show

#63

Post by Tempest1981 »

dvcrn wrote: post #13

Here's a little example what happened to me: I interviewed with a company. Naturally they asked for my side projects which I showed them. We talked about technical challenges, scaling, interesting bits of codes - all these kind of things. They were really excited. I passed the interviews and got the job. Fast forward a couple month, still working on my side projects, some of which started generating a couple hundred…

Good point. Seems like the company's attitude is: "show us you're passionate and have side-projects, but of course, once you work for us, we want all of that passion focused strictly on us."

Re: I have no side code projects to show

#64

Post by divbit »

Tempest1981 wrote: post #62
TAForObvReasons wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be completely fair, if you are showing a project you have done, it should be a good representation of your abilities. Treat it like how other industries treat "portfolios" or "writing samples".

Seems like a lose-lose: - If you don't show side-projects, you don't have passion - If you do show prototype-quality side-projects, you aren't skilled - If you do show production-quality side-projects, you aren't sufficiently focused on your daytime job.

Maybe a good balance is to show a very small number of production-quality side-projects: like just pick your top 1-2 things? (Just brainstorming)

Re: I have no side code projects to show

#65

Post by allengeorge »

jknoepfler wrote: post #24
eps wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The range/xrange question was likely to check if you were a fraud. Having interviewed close to a hundred people in a year for a senior C dev position I can assure you that people lie like you wouldn't believe. They cheat with take-home tasks, they show others' code as their own. And that's in the system programming circles, where the level of professionalism is typically much higher than in app/web development areas.…

On the other hand, I'm a skilled dev with only a smattering of python experience, but if you asked me this question I'd have no idea and wouldn't think twice about looking up the python docs for both. What are you actually asking? P.s. I don't believe anyone actually fails fizz buzz.

Not true. People fail all the time. It's shockingly more common than I imagined possible.

Re: I have no side code projects to show

#66

Post by Tempest1981 »

nicolia wrote: post #54
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“I'm too old to know everything” ― Oscar Wilde

What is that supposed to mean? I'm not claiming to know everything.

Phrased the opposite way: "when you're young, you think you know everything"

Re: I have no side code projects to show

#67

Post by ajmurmann »

The entire drive to hire "passionate developers" makes me very nervous. It's a double edged sword and most people don't want to see it. Yes, passionate developers are more likely to stay up to date on technologies and are also more likely to put in extra time. However, they are also much more likely to use technology that isn't ready yet and overcomplicate things because of some misguided aesthetical sense or best case spend way too much time gold plating the wrong thing instead of providing business value. The cost of those things is generally much higher than someone going home sightly early or not knowing the very latest JS framework.

Edit: phone auto correct shenanigans

Re: I have no side code projects to show

#68

Post by OJFord »

jknoepfler wrote: post #38
xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People fail fizz buzz all the time.

I don't believe that. I'd really like a 21st century study showing that devs with > 3 years of experience fail fizz buzz, and that failure is predictive of being a bad developer (and not being a shitty interviewer)

Bear in mind that everyone here on HN is here because they're interested to learn about advancements in technology (and matters of broader interest) - it's too easy to mistake this little echo chamber for the entirety of the talent market.

I often read people say they'd be "insulted" if asked to do fizz-buzz, or would "walk out". I think that's an over-reaction - fair enough they need to make sure you're not useless and lying on your CV. As long as there's a more interesting follow-up question, I don't see the harm.

Re: I have no side code projects to show

#69

Post by donatj »

I feel like if you use open source libraries and are a decent developer you'll naturally end up submitting a PR to Github at some point. I find bugs in almost every open source library I use and have had so many PRs to fix them.

Re: I have no side code projects to show

#70

Post by OJFord »

ant6n wrote: post #18
jonathankoren wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The correct answer is of course, is that xrange doesn't exist.

so they removed it from python 3?

`range` took the behaviour of `xrange`; the latter name was removed.

https://docs.python.org/3/whatsnew/3.0.html#views-and-iterat...

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