Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Hire people who aren’t proven

leonardofed.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 460 posts

Re: Hire people who aren’t proven

#91

Post by closeparen »

snowwrestler wrote: post #29
maxxxxx wrote: post #6

I think hiring has become more difficult now that programming has been discovered as a well paying mainstream career. When I started in the 90s most people I worked with had a passion for the craft but now I find we interview a lot of people who have a CS degree just for the career prospects but not out of interest for the craft. I find it much easier to deal with someone who has no relevant experience but cares vs s…

By all means, you should use whatever criteria you would like to hire your own staff. But in general, I would encourage folks in computer tech industries to be hesitant to assume such a binary approach to evaluating prospects. "Did you code for fun in high school?" might be a useful question now, because software development as a field is so young that high school students can try out significant work easily. But in…

Because CS education is in its infancy and the material changes so fast, we can’t expect college to be comprehensive. Rather than structured learning, we rely on people who are peripherally exposed to various topics to have the “spark” to become curious about them and go deeper.

To a first order approximation, someone who has been into computers their whole life has that “spark” as second nature. Someone who sees programming as “just a job” is probably not going to explore any more than necessary to fulfill the requirements of the task at hand. Sometimes less. This makes the curious more effective at approaching harder problems, and puts them in a position to spot potential improvements even on mundane problems.

I see this firsthand at work. My careerist colleagues are lovely people and capable of doing the work assigned to them, but it’s the lifelong computer nerds who solve the really knobby problems and push us forward.

Re: Hire people who aren’t proven

#92

Post by lfowles »

jarsin wrote: post #45

I think tons of experienced people that love programming moved on because of the "Google Interview". You got all this experience and love making stuff for users, but you don't know the "insert trick of the week" to solve the latest "elite" programming question. Bye Bye. No more jobs for you.

Pretty much! After repeatedly failing interviews for the past year, I've lost hope of having a "normal" dev job again. Studying for interviews took too much time away from things I'd rather be focusing on if I wasn't going to be employed.

I'm now trying to get a business off the ground in a field I've dabbled in for years (game dev), but there's no expectation it'll get me past minimum wage :/

Re: Hire people who aren’t proven

#93

Post by sparrish »

dalore wrote: post #16
Aeolun wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After 10 years, most veterans have learned not to care. Or at least, not care too much.

I would say us old timers learn to be more picky about what we care about. It's a finite resource.

We've learned live is a marathon, not a dash. I'll churn out stable code; I'll deliver on reasonable deadlines; I'll do my darnedest to make the product the very best I can. But I'll do it at the pace of 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. I have a family and a life outside of your corporation that I truly value more than this, or any, job. I'm no rockstar. I build stuff that gets stuff done.

Re: Hire people who aren’t proven

#94

Post by namanyayg »

snowwrestler wrote: post #29
maxxxxx wrote: post #6

I think hiring has become more difficult now that programming has been discovered as a well paying mainstream career. When I started in the 90s most people I worked with had a passion for the craft but now I find we interview a lot of people who have a CS degree just for the career prospects but not out of interest for the craft. I find it much easier to deal with someone who has no relevant experience but cares vs s…

By all means, you should use whatever criteria you would like to hire your own staff. But in general, I would encourage folks in computer tech industries to be hesitant to assume such a binary approach to evaluating prospects. "Did you code for fun in high school?" might be a useful question now, because software development as a field is so young that high school students can try out significant work easily. But in…

Doing software development in high school requires a computer (even a ~$400 that is shared with the family is sufficient), interest, and time (so one can spend hours required reading tutorials/watching videos). Basically, nothing too much out of the reach of your average teenager -- with the exception of interest/dedication to the art.

Doctors, and most other professions, cannot be practiced without a lot more investment. If we lived in a society where access to resources required for practicing those careers would be easily available to teenagers, we would see young high school students do that too. I don't think you're making a fair analogy here, there is basically no way a high schooler could even _attempt_ treating diseases but it's very possible for a high schooler to program 6-8h a day and learn.

Re: Hire people who aren’t proven

#95

Post by mrmrcoleman »

A major GPS navigation company hired me for a job I wasn't ready for in 2006 when I was 24 years old. It was my first job at a big company.

I'm pretty sure I got through because they were growing way too fast and I slipped through the process somehow.

Being dropped into the deep end and surrounded by smart and experienced people was incredible for me. It took me a while to get up-to-speed but when I did I'm sure I more than repaid their investment.

Re: Hire people who aren’t proven

#96

Post by heyvictor »

maxxxxx wrote: post #6

I think hiring has become more difficult now that programming has been discovered as a well paying mainstream career. When I started in the 90s most people I worked with had a passion for the craft but now I find we interview a lot of people who have a CS degree just for the career prospects but not out of interest for the craft. I find it much easier to deal with someone who has no relevant experience but cares vs s…

https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/unlocking-clubhouse

I agree with the article on not hiring with the big tech companies' processes.

I wanted to add the book 'unlocking the clubhouse' on hiring by finding candidates who make programming/CS their life. There is nothing wrong imo on those who are passionate about computer science, but when you hire based on uber-interested in CS candidates, then you end up with a non-diverse team (not hiring people who didnt come into CS through the same route and didn't have the 'fortune' of being introduced to CS when they were kids). I'm not doing the book justice.

Re: Hire people who aren’t proven

#97

Post by iamdave »

maxxxxx wrote: post #6

I think hiring has become more difficult now that programming has been discovered as a well paying mainstream career. When I started in the 90s most people I worked with had a passion for the craft but now I find we interview a lot of people who have a CS degree just for the career prospects but not out of interest for the craft. I find it much easier to deal with someone who has no relevant experience but cares vs s…

I find it much easier to deal with someone who has no relevant experience but cares vs someone who had 10 years experience but doesn't care

Why?

This is a legitimate, but deeply opinionated "why". You employing me and me working for you is a business transaction. Why should I care about your mission beyond giving enough 'care' to produce great work that helps you run your business, run it well, so much that you'll want to keep the relationship going, but maybe provides me with some learning opportunities and skills that if we part ways, I don't starve looking for the next opportunity.

That's it.

I don't care about whatever your mission was when you started the company, I don't care how you think you're saving the world by creating another conference call platform. In my 22 year career I have deeply truly cared about one company that employed me. One. And even then, it was still a transaction: we need your skills, I have those skills, let's trade and do good work together. That's all I need to 'care' about, IMO it's all the employer needs to 'care' about.

Caveat Lector:

---

Maybe I'm jaded looking at a tech industry that doesn't seem to have a damn clue what it's doing when it comes to hiring, disaffected by all of these bullshit job requirements that are as far removed from reality as Earth is from one of Jupiter's moons, and offended by these job interviews that feel less like conversations and more like I'm trying to outwit a power hungry DM during a game of Dungeons and Dragons.

Re: Hire people who aren’t proven

#99

Post by davio »

wgerard wrote: post #80

My co-founder and I believe so strongly in this that we started a company around it. So many companies are willing to let perfect be the enemy of good. It's why this concept of an MVP has to be hammered in over and over again. And yet, we still let this mentality pervade hiring. We hire people on the slim chance that they'll need to re-implement a consensus algorithm and not on the 99.99% chance that all of their wor…

Most corporate dev jobs can be effectively handled by someone who can reliably show up and pull words from a database and display them on a screen.

Re: Hire people who aren’t proven

#100

Post by ryandrake »

saiya-jin wrote: post #36
Aeolun wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After 10 years, most veterans have learned not to care. Or at least, not care too much.

It's hard to truly care in any soulless corporation that cares only about profits and IT is seen generally as a pure cost centre (banking is worst in this, but others are not stellar either). Another aspect is meaning of life - if your response is work, then you either have that 0.01% type of work which really matters (and is hardly IT, maybe in Red Cross/MSF style), or much more probably you are just lying to yourse…

I used to be that stupid guy who would actually bring work home and do it for free after hours, because I loved programming so much and didn’t have any hobbies. Then I slowly realized it was not getting me ahead at all so switched over to just doing my own little hobby/learning projects at home, that all went nowhere, but hey I was programming and programming is fun! These days I don’t even want to get near a computer when I’m done with work. I’ve got a kid and non-technology hobbies that are more fulfilling.

I still enjoy programming, but it must be purposeful, there must be a goal and a plan. I won’t just habitually open a terminal and start programming something “because programming.”

Post reply on HN