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Hiring Developers: You're Doing It Wrong

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Re: Hiring Developers: You're Doing It Wrong

#91

Post by usaar333 »

I have to disagree about the uselessness of a technical interview. I'm 100% with RethinkDB that any competent programmer should be able to figure out how to reverse a singly-linked list in some reasonable time. (http://www.rethinkdb.com/blog/2010/06/will-the-real-programm...).

" Some were shooting their pre-canned answers at me with unreasonable speed."

This should not be possible for all questions in a technical interview. Especially if you are a startup, you can use your own original problems, especially ones you've actually had to solve. Aim for actual coding questions though rather than too puzzling ones that are often just memorized (implement quicksort, detect cycle in linked list in O(1) space, the random puzzles companies love to ask).

Of the people I've worked with, there is a high correlation to job performance to performance in a tech interview. (which for new grads is strongly correlated to their college CS grades).

Of course, passion is also a decent indicator, but it is highly correlated with raw competance. That said, I wouldn't hire anyone lacking either.

Disclaimer: I'm coming from the background of a systems company. For those making CRUD apps, tough coding questions might be less relevant.

Re: Hiring Developers: You're Doing It Wrong

#92

Post by cdegroot »

Fwiw, my current screening is: first resume screening, then I send candidates a simple programming exercise that sort of is in our domain. I can assess the delivered work in around five to ten minutes, so it scales well. Then a further skills/team fit check through interviews, and for those who survive that, the expensive bit: pairing with developers on actual production code.

Especially the exercise works as a good screen. We get quite a number of "deafening silence" responses, which says something about the candidate's motivation. We also get responses where people try to show off alternative language skills but deliver something totally non-idiomatic. And we get good submissions, showing some patterns knowledge, unit testing, at cetera. These typically end up being hired.

Re: Hiring Developers: You're Doing It Wrong

#94

Post by toadi »

sp_ wrote: post #22

I worked for a German startup too and our main problem was not vetting interviewees but finding people who want to interview at all. In the five year history of the company I think only one single person was hired who was not already friends with someone at the company. Other people just never applied. I remember manning the booth at one of those college campus events and it was very lonely. I probably talked to thre…

When we advertised our job posts through different media nobody reacted. Headhunters would send us candidates which were too expensive for what they were worth.

So I ended up hiring ex-colleagues and friends who I convinced to start working for us. In the mean time we took 2 interns a year offering a job to the suitable candidate(s). This we we were able to hire staff.

The slow hiring process meant I needed to outsource some projects abroad to off shore development companies.

Re: Hiring Developers: You're Doing It Wrong

#95

Post by ses »

I couldn't agree more with the sentiments of this post. Apart from anything else 'software developers' vary massively in their core strengths and job positions require different strengths in the candidates. Skill in developing algorithms and solving puzzles on the fly is just one of those strengths. There are so many more in terms of software engineering practices, knowledge of programming patterns, awareness of different programming paradigms, ability to solve higher level problems / combine technologies effectively to solve a business problem rather than a low level programming problem etc.

Re: Hiring Developers: You're Doing It Wrong

#96

Post by georgieporgie »

tptacek wrote: post #48
ams6110 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if it's the same everywhere, but a 90-day "probationary" period is absolutely commonplace in the USA. Not sure I see much difference.

Virtually all employment in the US is at will, meaning you are continually on "probation". The difference between a contractor and an FT is that the contractor is 1099'd, pays both halves of FICA taxes, and isn't provided health insurance; more importantly, when the employer is as overt about the issue as "not hiring you full time", there's no implied social contract or norm ensuring you'll even end up getting the jo…

Contractors make significantly more money than full time devs partly for this reason

I've always heard that, yet when I look for contract work, it's always at equivalent or less than my hourly equivalent as a full-time dev. Full time was $100k - $115k/yr, contract was $40 - $50/hr, in the SF Bay Area.

Re: Hiring Developers: You're Doing It Wrong

#97

Post by swampthing »

bugsy wrote: post #66
tptacek wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you've missed a key risk: (4) that the prospective employer continues to get resumes from people even after "filling" the position and decides on T+89 that you're great, but they can do even better. During the 90 day contract, both you and the employer must technically still be "looking" (the company still has an FT headcount to fill, and the dev still doesn't have a job). But the company is inherently better pos…

I agree with you, and want to add some more about this. Usually the 90 day things are from companies that also want you to sell your house and relocate to where they are. Often you do a fantastic job and are let go at the end of the 90 days because 90% of the time this scheme is how disreputable companies hire contractors for 90 day stints while paying low rates with no benefits. Now sure, this guy is the rare 10% th…

Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater - plenty of scams out there, but the lesson is to look out for those that you mentioned, not to use the contractor stint as some sort of litmus test.

Re: Hiring Developers: You're Doing It Wrong

#98

Post by swampthing »

spamizbad wrote: post #29
staunch wrote: post #15

My current system is: 1) Simple programming challenge ( 2) Casual discussion-style interview to get to know how they think and behave. 3) Short term contract with a predefined project ( 4) Full time hire with salary + equity.

Wow, you actually encounter people willing to take you up on #3 these days? They're either in love with your company or desperate for work.

Just filter out the latter and you're golden ;)

Re: Hiring Developers: You're Doing It Wrong

#99

Post by PlayerJ »

bugsy wrote: post #42

The spare time issue is an interesting one. One one side we have companies saying that they look for programmers who are working on projects after they get off work and on weekends. On the other side we have companies having employees sign a contract claiming that everything they do 24/7 belongs to the company. Often both sides are the same company. It's not an issue for me only because I work for my own firm, someth…

To be honest everywhere that I have applied as a programmer has either had the 24/7 rule or a contract so unspecific that it leads me to think that they will try to take ownership of something I write if it does indeed lead to a valuable product. As such I am usually working on projects in my free time but I rarely want to tell them about a real project for fear of them trying to take it. It creates a difficult situation in an interview, when I have projects but I dont want to discuss them.
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