Hire people who aren’t proven • Hacker News Board

Re: Hire people who aren’t proven

#181

Post by dancek » Thu, Sep 27, 2018, 3:58 PM UTC

ktta wrote: post #137

amorphous wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> someone who has 10 years AND cares is rare but pure gold. One way to attract those people: choose to build your product using a rather exotic language (e.g. Clojure or Elixir). You take a substantial risk because the language is rather unproven and you will have a hard time finding experienced developers. BUT if someone with 10+ years experience makes the effort to learn a language that does not have an immediate p…

Not sure if I'm getting the joke here, but this seems to be a great way to spent most time on development rather than actually building a product.

Not sure if you're familiar with the mentioned languages.

I've been working on my first Clojure/ClojureScript project for a couple of months now. Alone, with no previous real-world experience on any lisp. I dare say I'm more productive now than I would be with React+Redux and a Spring/ASP.NET/Rails backend (all of which I have experience with in more than one project).

Re: Hire people who aren’t proven

#182

Post by technofiend » Thu, Sep 27, 2018, 4:00 PM UTC

zschuessler wrote: post #155

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…

My team has had this issue in hiring. Much of it is due to bootcamps telling students they will make massive salaries after a 6-month course. That has attracted a different crowd of applicants. We are always open to junior engineers, but lately it has been rough interviewing them. It's common to see applicants with no real world experience asking for $100/hour. About half didn't have a portfolio anywhere, but said th…

You ever read any of Michael Lewis' work? He's written several books now that are thematically similar but he's famous for writing an expose of Wall Street's Solomon Brothers called "Liar's Poker". It was fairly critical of Wall Street and its practices but was also filled with lurid descriptions of what the traders got up to with their new found wealth.

He was regularly contacted for years afterwards by people wondering how they too could get a high paying job on Wall Street.

Re: Hire people who aren’t proven

#183

Post by ttoinou » Thu, Sep 27, 2018, 4:00 PM UTC

amorphous wrote: post #103

I recommend "Why Employees Are Always a Bad Idea" by Chuck Blakeman. It describes how to build a company where everyone is a stakeholder and not a child that needs constanct watching and stupid rules in order to function. No titles, no working hours, unlimited vacation time, you hire the whole person (not just the BS smile at work part). You work together because you want to find and make meaning. No CVs and skills a…

Great idea, but then couldn't they replace you and what you're doing (since they won't be your employee they'll be business partners) ?

Re: Hire people who aren’t proven

#184

Post by larrik » Thu, Sep 27, 2018, 4:01 PM UTC

SmellyGeekBoy wrote: post #124

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…

> Companies these days don't really come to a hault if they're in need of a few developers My small company has had to put our biggest contract on hold since July after having 2 senior developers leave in quick succession. We're burning through cash and have only just this week managed to find a replacement for one of them. I've almost gone down the agency route (again) but the fees are pretty hefty for a team our si…

You can hire a consulting firm. There are some great ones and some not so great ones. If you are willing to work with remote developers, you can find some good ones.

Disclaimer: I work at one of what I would consider the "great" ones. No idea about UK work, though.

Re: Hire people who aren’t proven

#185

Post by zvrba » Thu, Sep 27, 2018, 4:01 PM UTC

tomnipotent wrote: post #37

laurentl wrote: post #10

> 1. Can this candidate do the job? I'd go so far as to ask: "can this candidate learn to do the job?". In our recent job postings, I've started adding a specific paragraph after the desired qualifications stating more or less "if you don't tick all the boxes above but are motivated to learn and grow, please apply. We'll teach you what you need to do the job" > 2. Will this candidate be motivated? This. Even more tha…

>> 3. Will this candidate get along with coworkers? > Duh. But also, how do you actually test objectively for this without introducing bias? You can't because it's a bs metric like "culture fit". After about a dozen people, you can no longer ensure people will get along or like each other. I only have five brothers but I don't even like all of them. People have quirks, and it's easy to find reasons to pass on candida…

> You can't because it's a bs metric like "culture fit".

I'd disagree. An indirect metric is "Can I as the technical lead [1] communicate effectively with the candidate?" If the leadership is stable, then a "yes" to this question is likely to imply "yes" to the "getting along" question. If all "subordinates" can effectively communicate with the "hub" (lead), it's not unreasonable to expect that they'd be able to get along with each other using the same mode of communication they use with the lead. That's what my intuition tells me. May be wrong though.

[1] Presumably, the technical lead takes part in the interview process.

Re: Hire people who aren’t proven

#186

Post by varjag » Thu, Sep 27, 2018, 4:02 PM UTC

mirko22 wrote: post #127

Lately what I have been trying out is telling people: if you want to come for an interview can you prepare a small presentation of one of the data structures that you know about or like, or ideally hash tables (as they cover wide range of topics). If a person than comes in for the interview in about a week from when he is told this and can’t present that DS to some depth I don’t bother to go on with much longer inter…

Is it really possible to be a senior programmer without understanding a concept of linked list? Mindboggling.

Re: Hire people who aren’t proven

#187

Post by sudosteph » Thu, Sep 27, 2018, 4:02 PM UTC

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #150

namanyayg wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 invest…

> 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. I grew up in the country, got the internet in grade 9 on a 28.8 connection over…

Yeah, I'm a millenial even and I know people my age who didn't have a computer with internet (at home) until they went to college. People really underestimate how insulated some rural communities are, especially impoverished ones. Most of my family still lives in appalachia, and when I visit there are a surprising number of places where you barely get phone signals from any major networks. DSL and cable internet is still unavailable at my grandparents home last I asked.

From a different angle, a good friend of mine who is now an excellent engineer was denied a computer with internet access for totally different reasons during her high school years. Her fundamentalist parents thought the internet was immoral. She couldn't even have a game console, because her parents said those were for boys.

But yeah, asking people that question basically assumes that the answerer had a degree of privilege that isn't nearly as "average" as the asker would like to believe.

Re: Hire people who aren’t proven

#188

Post by ravenstine » Thu, Sep 27, 2018, 4:02 PM UTC

bvm wrote: post #179

SmellyGeekBoy wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Companies these days don't really come to a hault if they're in need of a few developers My small company has had to put our biggest contract on hold since July after having 2 senior developers leave in quick succession. We're burning through cash and have only just this week managed to find a replacement for one of them. I've almost gone down the agency route (again) but the fees are pretty hefty for a team our si…

I feel your pain. Trying to hire perm in London at the moment is a real challenge, even with a recruiter. Contractor rates are obscene (5-8x perm). Recruiting and retaining is what keeps me awake at night over and above any tech issues that I'm working on.

What tends to be lacking in potential candidates? Dunno if you can know this if you're using a recruiter, but I'd be curious.

Re: Hire people who aren’t proven

#189

Post by tayo42 » Thu, Sep 27, 2018, 4:03 PM UTC

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…

> "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.

In a way it might be a way to weed out people who are reluctant to try something new. someone who only coded in highschool, a somewhat antisocial hobby, went through college and still only wants to code maybe didn't try anything new.

Re: Hire people who aren’t proven

#190

Post by maury91 » Thu, Sep 27, 2018, 4:04 PM UTC

mirko22 wrote: post #127

Lately what I have been trying out is telling people: if you want to come for an interview can you prepare a small presentation of one of the data structures that you know about or like, or ideally hash tables (as they cover wide range of topics). If a person than comes in for the interview in about a week from when he is told this and can’t present that DS to some depth I don’t bother to go on with much longer inter…

I like your approach. To be honest, after many years of work without touching low level algorithms I partially forgot many stuff I learned at Uni, especially data structures and sorting algorithms (I remember how they work, but I cannot tell you the complexity or write the code on the fly).

But if you tell me "look I'm going to ask you this and that at the interview" I can pick up 2 wikipedia articles and refresh my memory about that topic so I will be prepared.