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Ask HN: How do you recognize a great programmer to hire?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you recognize a great programmer to hire?

#31

Post by sahn44 »

richardfrenzy wrote: post #5
dragonlord wrote: post #4

Hiring great programmers is hard. I have been advised that great programmers have great ideas. You can also ask questions (open ended) about coding during the interview.

Even telling the programmer to create a prototype to solve a certain problem helps a lot. You get to understand the programmer's approach in solving problems

We've put together several take-home mini projects as Github repos that have instructions and sample data or a starter template. Candidate clones the repo, commits frequently, and builds something demonstratable that works or doesn't. It's structured to be similar to the kind of early real task they would get. Key is it's open book, they can google and stackoverflow as much as they want. We can see evolution of thought process in the commits and have a good discussion in followup conversation. We do this after they have passed a phone screen or onsite interview and we are interested. So far, we like the results.

Re: Ask HN: How do you recognize a great programmer to hire?

#32

Post by Davidbrcz »

I find the following matrix extremely useful for that purpose : http://sijinjoseph.com/programmer-competency-matrix/

It is not specific to any language and it gives a grade on many many relevant aspects of everyday programming (IDE, automatic build, framework, data structure...)

Re: Ask HN: How do you recognize a great programmer to hire?

#33

Post by throwaway_374 »

Throwaway23412 wrote: post #30
ibejoeb wrote: post #28

I think the hardest part is getting some kind of hiring flow anyway. Knowing who to contact is the biggest obstacle. But once you've got someone... First: actually read the resume and letter. Learn about the experience this person has. Unless you're hiring out of a bootcamp, the candidate has worked on something and you should not be walking in blind. (If he or she hasn't articulated it in the resume and letter, then…

>First: actually read the resume and letter. Learn about the experience this person has. >I don't use challenges, homework, riddles, quizzes, etc. anymore. Unless you don't get many resumes, I find it hard to believe that this is a good hiring flow for you at all. A lot of people who agree with me will often say that nobody has time to be reading hundreds or thousands of resumes, but I'll take it one step further: un…

You're hiring a CRUD programmer to wire together a few processes and write test, not a brain surgeon or a rocket scientist. You're not Space X, 90% of CVs you see could probably do the day to day job you require. Get real.

Re: Ask HN: How do you recognize a great programmer to hire?

#34

Post by holyOrIonsBelt »

Throwaway23412 wrote: post #30
ibejoeb wrote: post #28

I think the hardest part is getting some kind of hiring flow anyway. Knowing who to contact is the biggest obstacle. But once you've got someone... First: actually read the resume and letter. Learn about the experience this person has. Unless you're hiring out of a bootcamp, the candidate has worked on something and you should not be walking in blind. (If he or she hasn't articulated it in the resume and letter, then…

>First: actually read the resume and letter. Learn about the experience this person has. >I don't use challenges, homework, riddles, quizzes, etc. anymore. Unless you don't get many resumes, I find it hard to believe that this is a good hiring flow for you at all. A lot of people who agree with me will often say that nobody has time to be reading hundreds or thousands of resumes, but I'll take it one step further: un…

I have to respectfully disagree. The poster above you is not saying that they don't verify, they say they verify through different means.

They are saying, in my opinion, that it is important to step away from the S.O.P. because by doing so we gain the clarity of insight from treating them not as cogs to fill a gear ratio, but as human beings that bring an enormous range of abilities that, for various reasons, may not communicate unless one allows them to, hence the example of a root reduction in the db search space.

Re: Ask HN: How do you recognize a great programmer to hire?

#35

Post by ibejoeb »

Throwaway23412 wrote: post #30
ibejoeb wrote: post #28

I think the hardest part is getting some kind of hiring flow anyway. Knowing who to contact is the biggest obstacle. But once you've got someone... First: actually read the resume and letter. Learn about the experience this person has. Unless you're hiring out of a bootcamp, the candidate has worked on something and you should not be walking in blind. (If he or she hasn't articulated it in the resume and letter, then…

>First: actually read the resume and letter. Learn about the experience this person has. >I don't use challenges, homework, riddles, quizzes, etc. anymore. Unless you don't get many resumes, I find it hard to believe that this is a good hiring flow for you at all. A lot of people who agree with me will often say that nobody has time to be reading hundreds or thousands of resumes, but I'll take it one step further: un…

You raise the practicality of doing things this way, and you're right about the required effort. When I was in a larger organization, I set aside a week at time to get people in the door and talk to them. It was tough talking 6 or 7 people a day for an hour each, but I think it's worth the effort when you really need to bring on people.

Sure, you can copy a resume and you might get a phone call, but I suspect we're not going to have a very good conversation.

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