We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016) • Hacker News Board

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#291

Post by meddlepal » Thu, Dec 12, 2019, 8:28 PM UTC

mdip wrote: post #284

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…

> If I had my way this would be considered employment discrimination and grounds for a lawsuit. I took issue with the tie stuff, myself, in another comment. It's unlikely to be discriminatory, except in the case -- as you mentioned -- of things that fall into the practice of religion. It's funny, though, how different sectors view the "tie in an interview". I know of many jobs where failing to show up in a tie to an…

Jerry Garcia ties usually are great and I like an excuse to wear a tie myself. But yes more and more interviewers seem to either expect business casual or dress-code is communicated in run-up correspondence to the interview.

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#292

Post by mitchty » Thu, Dec 12, 2019, 8:29 PM UTC

boring_twenties wrote: post #283

mitchty wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All else equal, isn't it clearly better to hire someone with no responsibilities outside of work, than someone who has to be out of the office at 5pm every day to deal with their kids? No it isn't clearly better. Note, I'm single but proposing that someone that lives code as being better than someone that stops to smell the roses of life is a bit too much. You're also discriminating for people that may be horrible…

> someone that lives code > programmer that never goes out to socialize. I never said that someone has to live and breathe work, only that they don't have anything _higher priority_ than work. If I have social plans with my friends I'll likely cancel them if there's a bona fide work emergency. If I have family obligations I cannot and will not. > I'd rather meet and make friends OK, and I'd rather ski for an hour or…

> I never said that someone has to live and breathe work, only that they don't have anything _higher priority_ than work.

What exactly does this mean? I prioritize A LOT over work. My back hurts, work can suck it. I get into an accident, again, work takes a hell of a back seat. If a family member is having issues, guess what, work may not be my highest priority. I'm a human, not a robot.

> Having kids is a lifestyle choice that is at odds with other choices.

That is self evident, what is your underlying non analogy point?

> If you want society to subsidize having children, then the government should do it, not individual software teams.

Software teams are a part of society are they not?

I'll be blunt, I'd rather generally have the people with kids on my team than the humans that think Arbeit macht Frei (had to be done, far too apropos in this specific instance). Having time off from work tends to mean you focus more on work when you're there. I love programming, but I have other things in life I want to pursue. It also means I can compartmentalize work for work, not "oh i was thinking of doing xyz at work, i should spin up a bunch of cloud instances at home tonight and test this shiny new thing out to make my job hopefully a bit easier in the week". That mindset is just doing training for work outside of work. Which is simply, more work, and the end result of that kind of stuff from what I have seen, is guys end up snapping and go insane or worse.

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#293

Post by simsla » Thu, Dec 12, 2019, 8:32 PM UTC

ddevault wrote: post #264

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…

I'll be honest: if you have one person who spends 8 hours a day practicing a talent, and another who spends 10 or 12 hours a day practicing their talent, which is going to be better at that skill? Having lots of open source code to read demonstrates in public the prospect's talent for writing code, has examples of their collaboration with others, etc, but also simply means they spend more time writing code and gettin…

My company disallows me from doing open source (without an incredibly rigorous review process that makes it honestly not worth the hassle).

Nice plus? Sure. Near-mandatory? Fuck no.

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#294

Post by mdip » Thu, Dec 12, 2019, 8:33 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #280

mdip wrote: post #275

This was a great read and I've seen this kind of thing first-hand at a few companies I've worked/interviewed at. > Wear a suit and tie to an interview That's a personal test of mine. I have never showed up to an interview without a tie. My dad was a small business owner in a manufacturing sector -- he was the hiring manager -- everything I learned about job interviewing I learned from him and the first thing on his l…

I understand that 'culture' is more important, the smaller the group. You have to get along with everybody in the group, or conflicts quickly take valuable time that should be moving the project forward. But this often devolves into discrimination. Everybody from the same socioeconomic slot means cliques, doesn't it? How can it not? We used to have something called 'professionalism', where you worked with somebody in…

I don't know that it always leads to illegal forms of discrimination.

First, defining the term -- when you're interviewing, you're discriminating. When you choose one person over another, you're discriminating between those two people. The question is whether or not the form of discrimination is legal, and accurate. Both should be true.

Looking at my own team as an example, there's a guy who's a mid-level who got his start from a boot-camp (30s), a 20-something with an advanced degree, an older[0] from (I think) Russia, we had an Iranian recently leave (for a better position -- she loved the job).

We're a relatively small shop (about 100 or so) but as someone who's given a lot of these interviews, and probably seen every resume of every candidate who came on to our team, we're pretty consistent. About 10-15% of the people who submit a resume are women, about 10-15% of our team is made up of women. Ethnic race/nationality matches up similarly. A shop our size "can't do more to recruit women" before we "do more to recruit ... human beings" We haven't enough budget to do much more than explain how great it is to be on our team[1], lay out the skillset we're looking for, and hope resumes show up[2].

[0] There's some form of -ism that keeps me from ever speculating on the age of a woman, but she is probably older than me.

[1] Yeah, that sounds buzz-wody, and there are lousy parts to any job, but there is so much upside to the work I do, the company (and people) I work for, that it's hard to contain my own enthusiasm for it. And no, we're not actively trying to make the world a better place by "insert thing that couldn't possibly impact the world in any meaningful way". We're just making neat things all day. It works for me -- might not work for everyone, but I include that last bit as part of the enthusiasm.

[2] Most of this is through anecdotal observation, not hard data, so I concede in advance that "I'm wrong on the Internet" :)

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#295

Post by jefftk » Thu, Dec 12, 2019, 8:34 PM UTC

close04 wrote: post #290

jefftk wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At Google I've interviewed candidates wearing flip flops and shorts in the summer. I barely noticed, and it didn't affect my thinking on them. Some people dress up, some don't. This isn't "wear whatever you want to an interview" advice, but a datapoint of "I can think of people doing that, and it was fine". (Disclosure: speaking only for myself)

> barely noticed, and it didn't affect my thinking on them. Some people dress up, some don't. Of course this doesn't say anything about their technical abilities. But showing you care about the interview matters and flip-flops don't send that message. It's basically as close to no effort as it gets while still being allowed in public. I'm sure you'd find the same as a sign of unprofessionalism in many other fields ev…

> But showing you care about the interview matters and flip-flops don't send that message

I'm not looking for candidates to show that they care about the interview, or that they have put effort into preparing for it. I'm looking for them to show that they can take a verbal description of a problem and turn it into something concrete enough that they can solve, that they can think about algorithms, that they can code.

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#296

Post by Grimm1 » Thu, Dec 12, 2019, 8:39 PM UTC

mitchty wrote: post #292

boring_twenties wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> someone that lives code > programmer that never goes out to socialize. I never said that someone has to live and breathe work, only that they don't have anything _higher priority_ than work. If I have social plans with my friends I'll likely cancel them if there's a bona fide work emergency. If I have family obligations I cannot and will not. > I'd rather meet and make friends OK, and I'd rather ski for an hour or…

> I never said that someone has to live and breathe work, only that they don't have anything _higher priority_ than work. What exactly does this mean? I prioritize A LOT over work. My back hurts, work can suck it. I get into an accident, again, work takes a hell of a back seat. If a family member is having issues, guess what, work may not be my highest priority. I'm a human, not a robot. > Having kids is a lifestyle…

You just compared a nazi slogan from the slave work camps to a cushy software engineering job. I won't attack you but you should really step back and reevaluate your thinking on the matter.

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#297

Post by malvosenior » Thu, Dec 12, 2019, 8:41 PM UTC

mitchty wrote: post #292

boring_twenties wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> someone that lives code > programmer that never goes out to socialize. I never said that someone has to live and breathe work, only that they don't have anything _higher priority_ than work. If I have social plans with my friends I'll likely cancel them if there's a bona fide work emergency. If I have family obligations I cannot and will not. > I'd rather meet and make friends OK, and I'd rather ski for an hour or…

> I never said that someone has to live and breathe work, only that they don't have anything _higher priority_ than work. What exactly does this mean? I prioritize A LOT over work. My back hurts, work can suck it. I get into an accident, again, work takes a hell of a back seat. If a family member is having issues, guess what, work may not be my highest priority. I'm a human, not a robot. > Having kids is a lifestyle…

I don't think that's a fair depiction of why people code on their own time. Some people just love making things, it makes them happy. I'm not young but still find the time to build projects in my spare time because I want to, not because it's training. I'd even go so far as to say I "have" to do that as I get pretty unhappy if I don't have some personal projects going where I can explore ideas and be creative. It's a side effect that I've learned a ton of valuable skills building personal projects and those skill directly translate into market value.

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#298

Post by boring_twenties » Thu, Dec 12, 2019, 8:43 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #273

boring_twenties wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So we have a personal attack, an unsubstantiated assumption, and zero substantive argument. And I'm the toxic individual? Perhaps you should find a different message board to pollute.

I should not have made a personal attack. But I really would encourage you to consider what others have written and think about why your take on hiring is not healthy and may even be actively discriminatory against a protected class.

You'll be happy to know I have nothing to do with hiring of any kind, but just as an individual contributor it seems quite unhealthy to me to work on a team where work is my #1 priority, but everyone else's distant second.

I suspect you'd find it quite ridiculous to have to pick up my slack as I have to run at 5pm to practice with my bandmates, at least if you weren't paid correspondingly more for the extra effort. Change that to a PTA meeting or soccer practice, though, and suddenly it's how dare you suggest that I get paid less for not only doing less work than you, but doing some of the work I was expected to in the first place!

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#299

Post by hysan » Thu, Dec 12, 2019, 8:45 PM UTC

ddevault wrote: post #264

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…

I'll be honest: if you have one person who spends 8 hours a day practicing a talent, and another who spends 10 or 12 hours a day practicing their talent, which is going to be better at that skill? Having lots of open source code to read demonstrates in public the prospect's talent for writing code, has examples of their collaboration with others, etc, but also simply means they spend more time writing code and gettin…

Perhaps, but this is only important if you need the absolute best coder above all other skills. People do other things during their free time that can build valuable skills that contribute to them being a better programmer and teammate. For example, volunteer coaching makes you a better mentor, playing team sports can make you a better collaborator, etc.

Just being good at code isn’t the only important thing. Programming requires communication and understanding what people want. Sometimes you need to debug the human mind.

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#300

Post by marcosdumay » Thu, Dec 12, 2019, 8:46 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #207

marcosdumay wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost all of those procedures are perfectly ok as long as everybody is not doing the same ones. The problem appears if every well paying job requires your to have a public portfolio. The good news is that all of those procedures are more effective the less companies are using them. So unless you the entire field has a very centralized hiring market (as in 80% of the good jobs are in FAANG), there are good odds it th…

That comes awfully close to saying it's OK to discriminate against $GROUP so long as everyone doesn't do it.

Requiring a public portfolio is the same as racism now?