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We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

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Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#101

Post by ed312 »

MS90 wrote: post #82
malvosenior wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who uses Github and OSS contribution as a strong hiring signal, I'd like to offer an alternative perspective. People who do a lot of personal projects tend to be very good developers, especially when you can see a demonstrated ability to ship. This is also helpful for people who haven't worked at big name companies or don't have degrees from elite universities. I'd happily hire someone with no experience a…

It's just frustrating because not everyone wants to spend 24/7 working at a computer, some of us have other hobbies and prefer to keep a good work/life balance. I already get paid to code 8 hours a day, the last thing I want to do is go home and do it for free. Would an architect get denied employment because they didn't have a "pet project" skyscraper in their backyard to show off?

I think the key is this is a differentiator, not a requirement. If you're willing to pay top $$ you can be picky and get the most passionate people.

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#102

Post by mcguire »

"Google bigwigs regularly talk about the hiring data they have and what hasn't worked. I believe they talked about how focusing on top schools wasn't effective and didn't turn up employees that have better performance years ago, but that doesn't stop TrendCo from focusing hiring efforts on top schools."

As far as I know, that doesn't stop Google from focusing hiring efforts on top schools.

Anyway, I'm actually wondering about the future. Suppose you are one of the people hired out of school for $200k+. What happens in 10 or 15 years when you are no longer the shiny new thing, don't have the trendy skills, and have been working for boring companies? Do you still command a 2× salary (https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/What-Is-the-Average-So...)? Reversion to the mean? Salary cuts?

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#103

Post by natalyarostova »

plughs wrote: post #77
malvosenior wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who uses Github and OSS contribution as a strong hiring signal, I'd like to offer an alternative perspective. People who do a lot of personal projects tend to be very good developers, especially when you can see a demonstrated ability to ship. This is also helpful for people who haven't worked at big name companies or don't have degrees from elite universities. I'd happily hire someone with no experience a…

People who do a lot of personal projects also tend to be young with minimal outside responsibilities. It is no secret that they are appealing hires - someone who's willing to spend long hours on personal projects is probably also willing to spend long hours on work projects. That's what makes it discrimination.

Life is about trade-offs. If you want to spend more time outside of work on things like friends and family, that's great. In fact, it's probably optimal. But to then say it's discrimination when someone who has made the choice to instead only focus on their technical skill, at the exclusion of friends and family, is better than you, is a little silly.

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#104

Post by ghaff »

close04 wrote: post #71
jtcruthers wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What's underdressing when it comes to such a startup interview? Flip-flops, jorts, and a cutoff tee that says "GTL" in a neon font of your choice.

> I can assume flip-flops would be a case of underdressing but I think that would be a bit ridiculous for any kind of interview regardless. That's what I said in my comment but would anyone reasonably show up like that in an interview? A suit may or may not be overdressing but flip-flops or anything like that would definitely fall below just "underdressing". It would just be unreasonable and offensive if you ask me (…

>For all intents and purposes jeans and sneakers already is the lowest reasonably acceptable way to dress for an interview, right?

I would think so.

As for jacket/tie (or even suit) I take it as signaling that this is a professional interaction that they take seriously and have gone to the trouble of dressing up for. I know I'm not part of SV culture but I can't imagine dinging someone in an interview for dressing up, especially when that would still expected in quite a few places.

I also know a number of people who dress up for speaking engagements and it's just sort of part of their style.

FWIW, last time I interviewed (and took the offer), I wore a jacket and tie to my interviews even though I knew that would be a step up from the business casual or business casual with jeans that the people I'd be talking with would be wearing. I didn't need to and it didn't matter one way or the other but it made sense to me.

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#105

Post by notdang »

mprovost wrote: post #76
plughs wrote: post #45

One frustration I've had recently is the number of companies encouraging or requiring code in the public sphere. They want to see open-source contributions or an active and impressive personal github page. If your employer is protective of their IP ( mine is ) and/or you are not willing to spend evenings and and weekends on pet projects, you are out of the running. Also >But if you think programmers aren't elitist, t…

Absolutely - clothes send a social signal that you're a part of the right group. In London you can not get hired in the City for wearing brown shoes. Not because black is the right colour, but because everyone from the social class that they want to hire from knows about the unwritten rule to only wear black shoes. The same goes in SV for Patagonia vests and Allbirds.

What about Patagonia vests?

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#106

Post by excursionist »

klodolph wrote: post #85
barce wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why node? 2 reasons: async which C# has too, and coding in just one language. And no, writing backend JavaScript doesn't mean you're better.

You may technically be coding in one language, but JS written for Node looks radically different from JS written to run in the browser. In my experience, there’s rarely more than some small chunks of code that you touch that will run in both environments. If you get some better tooling for multi-language development, it will usually pay off a lot faster than choosing Node for your backend will.

JS in Node and JS in browser is not that different. It's the same language, using the same JavaScript engine (v8 for chrome). The difference is in the APIs provided by Node vs Browser, which is pretty minor. Many popular JS libraries will run in Node just as well as Browser. That being said, JS is a pretty shit language and I don't know why anyone would want to use it for backend work.

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#107

Post by [deleted] »

warent wrote: post #21
cjf4 wrote: post #3

>When I started programming, I heard a lot about how programmers are down to earth, not like those elitist folks who have uniforms involving suits and ties. You can even wear t-shirts to work! But if you think programmers aren't elitist, try wearing a suit and tie to an interview sometime. Indeed: http://web.archive.org/web/20140618142018/http://blog.42floo...

> Well, dude, no, actually you can overdress for an interview and you just did. Of course I didn’t say it. And we didn’t decline him based on what he decided to wear. We declined on him because he wasn’t a fit for us in many other ways. The suit was just the early give away. Nah. Let's keep ourselves honest. It was the suit; or, at the very least, it was what the suit represented--professionalism that separates priva…

[deleted]

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#108

Post by teddyh »

soneca wrote: post #53
cjf4 wrote: post #3

>When I started programming, I heard a lot about how programmers are down to earth, not like those elitist folks who have uniforms involving suits and ties. You can even wear t-shirts to work! But if you think programmers aren't elitist, try wearing a suit and tie to an interview sometime. Indeed: http://web.archive.org/web/20140618142018/http://blog.42floo...

From your link: "go-out-for-a-beer test" I am sure this is not a literal "going out for a beer", but still it bothers me that it exists and is called that way. I am 40yo (still junior though as I started learning to code at 37) and I don't drink. I like to work on startups because I like to be generalist and solve problems that impact the fate of the company. So I always work with a lot of young people that like to g…

If you haven’t seen it, you might be interested in Our Culture of Exclusion (2012):

“Let's be clear, I will turn down a beer any day of the week!”

— https://web.archive.org/web/20130413021020/http://ryanfunduk...

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#109

Post by agumonkey »

rb808 wrote: post #7

I worked on a big C# system with hundreds of windows servers, developed on Visual Studio etc. It was an awesome project and everything worked like clockwork. However there are very few projects using that technology so when I wanted to move I had trouble getting interviews. I'm now working with a very fashionable tech stack, its horrible, infrastructure is regularly broken, people can't trace problems easily, our fun…

How do you avoid getting burned by chaos ? is the paycheck bonus that high ?

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#110

Post by honopu »

klodolph wrote: post #85
barce wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why node? 2 reasons: async which C# has too, and coding in just one language. And no, writing backend JavaScript doesn't mean you're better.

You may technically be coding in one language, but JS written for Node looks radically different from JS written to run in the browser. In my experience, there’s rarely more than some small chunks of code that you touch that will run in both environments. If you get some better tooling for multi-language development, it will usually pay off a lot faster than choosing Node for your backend will.

Depends. It sure is nice to write helper functions that I can import on the serverside js and in the client side. Also if you use next or nuxt or something like that you get universal rendering, which is nice. Totally depends on your use case.

You just have to keep an eye on your client bundle size if these shares functions ref something like underscore, moment or something like that where you’re pulling in the entire thing for one function. I’m aware you can just pick pieces with {} and import, but not everyone is aware and often require the entire thing.

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