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Hiring Developers: You're Doing It Wrong

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Re: Hiring Developers: You're Doing It Wrong

#121

Post by mryall »

michaelchisari wrote: post #27

Despite having written tens of thousands of lines of open source code, I have yet to have an interviewer who has looked at that code and asked me about it.

Do you mention it in your resume or cover letter? We try to look up information about people (blogs, open source contributions, etc.) before or between interview rounds, but it depends on how much the candidate pushes it and how much time the interviewer has to look into it.

Just having committed to an open source project would put you way ahead of most of the people we interview.

Re: Hiring Developers: You're Doing It Wrong

#122

Post by roel_v »

SkyMarshal wrote: post #74
jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #18

The only hiring process I have found to work for developers is to sit down and work on real code together. This gets to the heart of the matter, and you very quickly feel out someone's knowledge, ability, and most importantly, how well they collaborate on a problem. Because in a startup you will need collaboration, and likely under the highest stress moments you've seen in your life. I also feel like this gives appli…

I wonder if you could give them access to a custom subdomain of a test site and tell them to build a web app, anything they want, and upload it. Give a suitable time limit, a day to a week, depending on how much you want to see and whether they already are a full-time employee or student. Then screen based on what people came up with. That's a bit more involved than the lighter-weight solution in the same vein - remo…

Right, that's because no sane prospect (or rather, a prospect you'd want to hire) would go along with it. A reasonably competent developer has several options to choose from - it's just not rational to spend 10+ hours on each job opening; you wouldn't be able to coordinate and assess 5 or so offers in a reasonable time (when looking for a new job, people will apply at various places, compare the offers and take the best one).

Most competent people would scoff at a suggestion like this, and I suspect that competent employers know it.

Re: Hiring Developers: You're Doing It Wrong

#123

Post by Stormbringer »

staunch wrote: post #76
evgen wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out here in SV it is almost unheard of; if someone is not working out after 90 or 180 or 365 days you drop them and move on. It is definitely a sellers market for talent here and anyone who is worthwhile enough to make an offer to is not going to put with an explicit probationary period (since everyone is a at-will employee and general non-competes are worthless the concept is pretty much a moot point anyway...)

The advantage of the contract with a specific project is two fold: 1) It makes it very easy for either party to end the relationship in a natural and simple way. Minimal hurt feelings/embarrassment/harm to morale, etc. 2) The project is at least semi-isolated so it's very clear how skilled the person is. They don't get lost in some "training" mode as a new hire spending 6 months "ramping up" on the primary codebase.…

The obvious disadvantage is that if you do hire a really good developer for a short project, they will have to start looking for their next contract almost straight away, and so you are likely to miss out on converting them to full time. By the time you've figured out they're good at what they do, they have another offer (at contracting rates).

Re: Hiring Developers: You're Doing It Wrong

#124

Post by motters »

In the last year I've been on interviews like this, where I've been presented with sorting problems or quirky pointer arithmetic conundrums. However, these bear no relation at all to the kinds of practical software problems which I've had to tackle in business or industrial contexts in the previous decade or more.

Re: Hiring Developers: You're Doing It Wrong

#125

Post by martincmartin »

motters wrote: post #124

In the last year I've been on interviews like this, where I've been presented with sorting problems or quirky pointer arithmetic conundrums. However, these bear no relation at all to the kinds of practical software problems which I've had to tackle in business or industrial contexts in the previous decade or more.

That might be a good thing. It shows how you think in new situations, how you can problem solve, and how you deal with complexity. I used to give "reverse a linked list," and it's essentially a book keeping problem: you're changing links around the time you're trying to read them, so you need to keep all that straight. If there's a bug in their code, you can see the thought process they go through to find and fix it.

Unless the job they're interviewing for is almost exactly the same as their current job, it's important to understand how they think through new situations.

Re: Hiring Developers: You're Doing It Wrong

#126

Post by mrich »

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…

out of interest, what did your company do?

Re: Hiring Developers: You're Doing It Wrong

#127

Post by jacques_chester »

blub wrote: post #118
jacques_chester wrote: post #31

My previous employer ( http://thefrontiergroup.com.au ) had a process where candidates would come and spend a day onsite. You'd be paid for the day. The process was to work together with a senior coder on problems of escalating difficulty. Starting with 1.upto 10 do |i| { print i } "What does this do?" And ending with "Here's a legacy application we maintain. Add a new widget to the dashboard. Think aloud." During th…

Erm... why did they fire you?

I've wondered about that myself. I wanted to stay, I liked it there. But it's like many relationships in life, if both parties don't want it, it won't pan out.

Edit: I also had to take time off for studies and I suspect they really wanted all-hands-on-deck.

Re: Hiring Developers: You're Doing It Wrong

#128

Post by mc2k »

Osiris wrote: post #38

It seems that one simple thing you could ask is for usernames or profiles on sites like StackOverflow or other programming related websites to see what kinds of contributions or questions they've been asking.

I think websites like Stack Overflow, GitHub and HackerNews attract a certain type of programmer, which might not always be the sort of person a business is looking for. Or, at least, it will exclude a lot of people who aren't interested in being involved with online development communities. That is, they are too hardcore.

Re: Hiring Developers: You're Doing It Wrong

#129

Post by mafro »

chopsueyar wrote: post #25

When I hire a developer, I ask him about the scene in 'The Social Network' with the Winklevoss twins, and ask if he knew Armie Hammer's face was CG'ed to another actors body. Depending on his answer, I know right there whether to end the phone interview, or fly him to the Valley so I can see him write code on a whiteboard.

WTF has a CG'd face got to do with anything? Seriously, I'd like to know (I've never seen that film either).

Re: Hiring Developers: You're Doing It Wrong

#130

Post by Turing_Machine »

ericd wrote: post #101
tptacek wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would the competent developers migrate to the company that is more hostile, in a purely objective sense, than the alternatives?

That's kind of like asking why students choose to go to harder/more hostile universities.

You go to a challenging university because you want to take advantage of their knowledge, to the extent that you're willing to pay them for it. An employer wants to take advantage of your knowledge, to the extent that they're willing to pay you for it. The situations aren't comparable.

I agree that three month contracts should be compensated at contractor wages rather than employee wages, unless the company is also paying for health benefits, some sort of portable retirement plan, etc. Otherwise you're giving up those items in return for zero commitment from the company. Not a good deal.

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