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Hire people who aren’t proven

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Re: Hire people who aren’t proven

#111

Post by jarsin »

lfowles wrote: post #92
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 :/

Right. More and more experienced people are moving into indie / contracting on the side because you simply won't pass these interviews unless you spend ton's of time learning all the tricks.

Re: Hire people who aren’t proven

#112

Post by titanomachy »

asdkhadsj wrote: post #55
ghaff wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CS/programming is almost unique in this regard in that there's a significant school of thought out there that, if you haven't been programming as a hobby since you were a kid, that's a disqualification. As you say, there is pretty much zero expectation in any other STEM field that you did much more than take some science classes in high school and liked them. (In STEM. Obviously you presumably don't apply to Juilliar…

It may not be terribly unique, at least not in my perspective. Because passionate people tend to enjoy doing what they love, even in off hours. Sane people value their off time, so I'm not saying passionate people must work non-stop. Take a lot of craft trades. Ie, wood working, painting, music, writing, whatever. Those can often be people who just love doing the area, they love creating with their medium. I feel pas…

Actually the medical example is a pretty good corollary with software. Getting into medical school is extremely competitive, probably harder than getting a job at a top tech company. And while grades are a major part of selection, most schools also want people who spend their free time doing biochemistry research, volunteering in hospitals, running clinical trials. Then once you become a doctor, the amount of time you spend working becomes a big part of how your colleagues judge you—if you just work the minimum to keep your license, other doctors probably won't respect your skill much. The difference is that I guess doctors don't usually practice medicine "for fun" on the side.

Re: Hire people who aren’t proven

#113

Post by daveslash »

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…

I agree with you, but I'd like to add to the "did you treat any diseases in high school". I knew someone in high school who wanted to be a doctor. She didn't cure any diseases or perform surgery, but she did read all that she could and was fascinated by medical-themed tv & movies. She had been inspired by her pediatrician when she was young. She did't treat people before becoming a doctor, but from early on she had the inspiration, passion, and drive. She became a doctor. She did it for the love of the profession, not solely because it was a "good paying job" (though, I'm sure that helped). I think coding in high school is the expression of having passion -- it's the passion that you should really be looking for, however that is expressed for profession X.

Re: Hire people who aren’t proven

#114

Post by ryandrake »

alfredmuffin wrote: post #82
ravenstine wrote: post #34

Why would any company have do hire people and train them? Companies these days don't really come to a hault if they're in need of a few developers, and as the market is saturated, they can hold out indefinitely until they believe they have a "rockstar." According to my experience, a lot fewer companies than even a few years ago are in a hurry to talk to you despite them having a job posting and you having more experi…

> the market is saturated Unrelated to your point and this thread, but can someone share some data/evidence on this? (not that I am denying it)

Salaries not skyrocketing. Some companies in some areas are seeing modest compensation growth for software engineers, but if there was a true shortage of supply combined with steady demand, then salaries would be rising.

Re: Hire people who aren’t proven

#115

Post by busterarm »

parthdesai wrote: post #35
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…

And what about when companies these days exploit the term "caring"? I like programming as much as the next person here but i'm not going to code 80 hours a day. I also like going to gym and working out, riding my bike, playing soccer and hanging out with friends. Companies these days expect you to have side projects or contribution to popular open source libraries while having a job. Oh and did i mention asking you q…

Related point, some companies don't intentionally exploit this but end up hiring someone who works and commits code cowboy style 14 hours a day. The company thinks that person is amazing while the person's coworkers hate working with them.

Re: Hire people who aren’t proven

#116

Post by analog31 »

wiradikusuma wrote: post #51
snowwrestler wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't think it's a good analogy. Good programmers (esp. the ones OP referring to) are usually curious, like to tinker. So it's a valid check whether they like hacking since young age (I'm not saying those who don't are not good, but those who do most likely are). Maybe a better analogy is an inventor (is this even a job?).

It's my job. ;-)

With all the caveats about dividing people into types, I think you need the curious / tinkerer types, and also the solid / bureaucrat types. At least, this is true if your business has reached a size where scaling is an issue.

I'm of the curious / tinkerer type, but putting a bunch of people like me on a project where the customer expects a 20 year service life, and operations expects to maintain their sanity, is not recommended.

In my view, starting from scratch in college and learning programming in a classroom may be harder than learning it by trial and error in your spare time.

Re: Hire people who aren’t proven

#117

Post by dev_dull »

microtherion wrote: post #86
snowwrestler wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> But in most high-end professional fields, that's not true. Yeah, for some reason, when you're interviewing as a forensic pathologist, mentioning that you're cutting up partially decomposed bodies in your spare time does NOT count as a positive. I still think there is value in looking for passion in people, but maybe passion for craftsmanship in a field other than software should count equally well.

Everybody looks for someone passionate for the job. Why would CS be any different?

Re: Hire people who aren’t proven

#118

Post by Spooky23 »

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…

Higher end professional fields have more clear educational paths and job roles. Talk to 100 lawyers/doctors and you'll hear 4-5 similar job roles. Technology is totally different, 100 tech people will describe 20 roles.

My professional career has been mostly engaged in implementation, customization, solution design and administration. I'm not a practitioner of Computer Science, I'm more like a hybrid of an engineer and a tradesman. I define an engineer as someone who applies known knowledge/methods and a scientist as someone seeking novel knowledge/methods. There's a spectrum between scientist, engineer, tradesman, technician, etc.

Technology is different because you can enter as a tech or even a finance person and move into some engineering roles without formal education. Only a few corners of tech are off limits without formal knowledge.

Re: Hire people who aren’t proven

#119

Post by scarface74 »

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…

Looking from the outside, you might assume that I have a “passion” for development. I check all of the boxes.

- started programming in 1986 in AppleSoft Basic and 65C02 assembly language.

- graduated with a degree in CS

- I can bit twiddle pretty well and spent the first 12 years of my career doing C.

- I read blogs, post in technical discussion, listen to podcast, etc.

- I have up to date AWS certifications.

Etc.

But I don’t think I have a “passion” for development. I do it to pay my bills and remain competitive. I don’t do side projects but I will work late to learn a new to me technology or framework. I definitely don’t spend time learning frameworks or technologies that aren’t marketable.

Re: Hire people who aren’t proven

#120

Post by sparrish »

crdoconnor wrote: post #2

>Google's interview best practices strictly focused on algorithms and data structure questions won't help you in your interview process. They mostly don't help because they bear no resemblance to what 99% of developers actually do, even at Google. Realism in dev job interviews is criminally underrated.

Agreed. We gave up on technical interviews and now offer a paid project. Something in the 5-15 hour range that provides an opportunity for the candidate to show their skill in the areas that we'll actually have them working - usually something from the 'features' list. We pay a reasonable hourly rate for the work because they're worth it. And if we decide their pull request is good enough to merge, we'll send them a job offer.
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